Crooked rusty barn

Karen and I met in downtown Portage yesterday to have some much needed child free painting time. We walked quite a bit until finally deciding on this lovely barn. I set up my travel palette and cracked open my brand new Stillman & Birn Beta sketchbook. I quite enjoyed this paper in the recent sample pack I received and had hopes a whole sketchbook would deliver fun results. Karen had her travel palette as well plus let me borrow her cerulean, a blue that I currently do not own, but have been thinking of making it a new addition. Anyone feel free to chime in on your thoughts on cerulean!

Quesadillas

Here's a little sketch I worked on before dinner the other night. It's just a quick little sketch in my pocket Moleskine watercolor journal done with my new Lamy Safari fountain pen that I filled with Noodler's Lexington Grey ink. I love the pen and ink combo. The ink dried really quick, I was surprised because when I used the Bulletproof Black in this book and then laid down watercolors they smeared after I thought they were dry.  

Different pen, different ink. I did some fast and loose watercolor washes, laying in more color to the damp areas. I'm really happy with the results. I even took a shot of my painting in progress, enjoy!

 

Oranges in the window

I am going to make it a goal of mine to try and do a little sketch every day. Every single day. I doodle, but don't take the time to sit and sketch, there are always a million things running through my head. I'm going to sit back, relax a little, and work on loosening up my sketches. 

I started today. The oranges on my semi clean countertop were just begging to be painted, so I sat down with my two girls (no mean feat at that, it's surprising I truly got anything done) and worked on a quick pen drawing with loose washes of watercolor.  

I've been ogling over several urban sketchers blogs lately and I love how they can make their sketches look so put together just using loose watercolor washes over an ink drawing.  I need more practice, it's a good thing I've got plenty of supplies.  Some day I may even man up enough to go to an urban sketchers event, so far I'm too chicken. 

I leave you with "oranges in the window".