I’m taking another fantabulous drawing class with Val Webb (website here and class offerings here) this time Drawing Birds in Colored Pencil.  Our first lesson was timed sketches–supposed to be 8 minutes or so but some of mine were longer–in 2B pencil just to get down shapes and proportions.  The second exercise was starting with the colored pencils, this time a Dark Umber, doing an “underpainting” in a feather.  Once again, I am amazed that I’ve been able to do as well as I did; Val’s ability to give a few simple tips that lead to stunning results is why I keep going back for more classes from her (this is my third class).

I think I’m done…..photo of feather from Val upper left, my sketch on right

Here’s a photo from a bit earlier in the process

Just the first side sketched in, and a barest of outline on the upper side of the feather

And a detail:

Detail of feather, partially done

I’ll be back soon with a bit more info about the Web Seminar (see previous post, here) on or after Sept. 5, 2013.

I blogged earlier about a wonderful lettering class I’m taking with Val Webb online; it was SO outstanding that I’ve also enrolled in an Herbs Drawing and Painting class.  I thought I’d share a few of my lessons, some good, some not so much.  All I need is a 37-hour day, with the extra hours for art!

P is for Pigwidgeon the Pug

One lesson was to create whimsical letters.  Val offered a pdf of a cat alphabet, but of course I had to attempt my dear (well, Eli’s dear dog) Pigwidgeon.  I didn’t spend a ton of time on the sketch so it isn’t quite spot on, but I love his little peeping face anyway!  This one is 3×3 inches.  And while not expert by a long shot, my control of the paint is improving!

Another lesson was Art Deco style.  Didn’t know what word, didn’t want something too long, and finally decided on Zelda, as in wife of F. Scott Fitzgerald (had to add that bit… Eli asked why Zelda, as the only one he knew was from the videogame Prisoners of Zelda!).  I was elated at how well this turned out.  The width of each section of letter is about 1/2 inch, they are about 3 1/2 or 4 inches tall:

Art Deco style lettering to simulate chrome–inked outline, watercolor,  used a teeny tiny size 1 brush for the shadows on the outer edges that are maybe 1/32″ wide!

Another WOOT was the “Decorated Versal” lesson.  Val had us try white ink with a crow quill dip pen.  Since I’m comfortable with nibs and dip pens, this wasn’t terrifying to me, unlike getting large smooth washes of watercolor (without blotches, which are HARD). Here are some practice bits using the white ink over a wash of blue watercolor:

White ink from a dip-pen on blue.

A Versal is a fancy initial capital letter at the beginning of a verse (had to learn that one ).  I wanted to do something William Morris-ish, so I created the vines behind the letters. I wasn’t sure what I would do to decorate the letter until I was actually muddling around, and decided to have the green vines turn to white on the letter to break up the space:

A decorated versal “S”. I like this, but thinks it needs something more to “weight” the S on the bottom. Awaiting feedback from Val!

Another lesson was to do letters that recede into the background.  You begin with a wash of a lighter color over a large space, wait for it to dry, then go back in with a darker color to create the negative space.  Instead of working within the box or rectangle in the class sample, I wondered what it would look like to offset the text and have illustrations on the edges.  Not so great is the answer!  You kinda loose the idea of perspective–of the darks going back to a vanishing point.  But it was fun anyway:

A less than brilliant effort.

But it is all about learning, and I am learning SO MUCH!  Now… I need those extra dozen hours a day to do more classwork, work on that quilt, exercise, sleep….. EEEK!  So with that I’m getting OFF the laptop and down to the studio!  Be back soon!

Went to turn on the lights in my chilly studio this morning, and saw this: totally frosted windows! I don’t think it has been that cold here before since we moved in. Temps this morning have warmed up two degrees to -2, wind chill now only -15. At least this is pretty!

OK…so I’m working on a new quilt, and nothing on the shelf was quite right, plus I really wanted the sheen of silk for the water.  That meant it was time to bring out the dye-buckets and implement some of what I learned in Carol Soderlund’s Think Silk workshop last April.  I knew that I wanted deep blue water with glints of moonlight on it, so I checked my dye swatches and found I wanted a color made of Navy dye and a tiny tiny bit of red.  In my stock of dyes, I had two containers of Navy, one from ProChem (with hardly any dye in it…not enough really for the yardage I wanted to dye) and one from Dharma Trading, so I used the latter though it was old–there was plenty of it, so if I used a high percentage of dye to water, I could still get the deep values I wanted.  Right.

This photo shows cotton on top (overdyed) and silk on the bottom.

This close-up of the top fabric is washed out because of the camera flash, but it shows how PURPLE the cloth became…from navy dye from Dharma.

It took a while to figure out what went wrong….I was getting way too much red!  I KNEW I was using the proper method to fix the dye to the silk:  an acid bath using citric acid (not soda ash as on cotton).   I thought at first that the purplish color was because my Dharma navy was old and the red was doing what Procion MX reds do:  overpower.  So I tried a second dyebath with ONLY the Dharma navy.

Round 2 of dyeing. Nice, but not what I wanted. Yet.  The long strip on the right is close, but that is the cotton.  The black shibori on the far left is an overdye of a black dye-vat I did in the Think Silk class, but hated the green cast from the dye (YUK).  Better now.  The center top is a scrunch of cotton, where I over-dyed the original cotton because it was too purple.  The silk on the bottom center is an overdye of one of the first two pieces of silk, again to cover up that purple.

So I dyed with ONLY the Dharma Navy, and I STILL was getting purple.  Then I noticed that the dye powder, when it touched a paper towel, had RED specks in it!  I had thought the Dharma Navy was the same as the ProChem Navy.  NOT.   The ProChem Navy is a pure dye, meaning it won’t split or “halo” red or any other color, whereas the Dharma Navy is a mix of pure dyes.  AH!   Light bulb flipped on!  There’s nothing wrong with the Dharma dye, it’s just not what I wanted or thought I had–I thought the “navy” was a pure dye, not a mix.  Now I know to check more closely!

The striping is OK, but TOO much purple still showing. Silk (left) and cotton (right). I wet out the cloth with plain water, then “pleated” by hand into tucks. Next, use a sponge paintbrush to brush on the dye, trying to keep white bits.  And this was my last piece of sandwashed satin silk.  Erk.

Close up of purple halo-ing from the red in the Dharma Navy (a mix, not a pure dye I learned).

It took about 2 yards (OUCH, kaCHING) to get exactly the color I wanted.  Plus on my first go-round, the print paste or the cold wax resist (which I had used to preserve some white areas for moonlight glints) mix did not want to leave the fabric.  I called ProChem’s technical staff (LOVE that business) and spoke with one of the chemists, who confirmed my suspicions about the navy dyes.  She told me that the manufacturer had offered the navy mix to them, also, but they wanted the pure dye so folks like me would be happy and not get “splitting”.  She also suggested using Metphos, a water softener that is one of the ingredients in Calgon water softener, to try to remove the stiffness I was getting from the print paste and/or cold wax resist.  Some of that stiff feeling went aweay, but on another test, I still couldn’t get it out of the silk, so I’m glad that when I got to my last piece of silk, I opted for careful painting of dye!

After speaking with Nancy at ProChem (waving hello!), I then took out my small remaining bit of ProChem PURE navy and went back in to the last piece of silk and tried one more time. FINALLY! Some purple still shows, but I can knock that back when I go in with the quilting thread. PHEW!

I also wanted some specific deep-dark hues for another part of the quilt, and my batiks were too contrasty.  What to do?  Paint!  I tried both acrylic inks and Setacolor paints thinned with water and settled on a Setacolor to darken this black-and-charcoal:

Charcoal and black batik with the contrast minimized by a thinned coat of blue-and-black Setacolor paints thinned, mixed and applied to the cloth.

And a lighter mix of  blue to gray and darken this lighter batik:

And a lighter wash on the “rice grain” gray batik. As the cloth came from the bolt it is too bright, too distracting. This muted over paint is just right!

Some folks love the hunt for the perfect fabric.  Not me.  I am too busy and stores are too far flung.  And I don’t want THAT much stash!  I’d rather get a good selection, then modify when I can and dye my own when I can’t!  Next on the fix-the-studio agenda:  a deep sink in the basement so I don’t have to dye in the kitchen.  The bathrooms are too small, and I don’t want the dye in  the food prep area!  So if there are any guilds out there that would like to hire me for 2014 and 2015, I’d appreciate the donation to the studio-improvement cause! <GRIN>

The stockings aren’t far from the hearth, which is decked out with things that have moved with us from pillar to post. Even is our spot on the globe has changed every so often, there is continuity in Christmas. The tic-toc Santa on the shelf to the left of the hearth I’ve had (at least) since I was 6, which means he’s been around the world. The copper and brass things on the heart are from Argentina (where I lived when I was 4-5) and Peru (where mom lived before she met dad). 

Gosh it has been busy!  Is it as insane at your house as at mine?  At long last the tree is trimmed, almost all of the gifts are wrapped, in a minute I’ll start the rum cake and stuffing for tomorrow, and then I can breathe.  In the meantime, this is what I’ve been doing the past few weeks, including a FABULOUS online class with watercolorist Val Webb.  If you feel the urge to try something new, she’s starting another class on painting culinary herbs in early January and I highly recommend her…details below!

The tree is finally trimmed!

I do believe we have just about hit maximum capacity on our tree.  I’ve collected ornaments since my late teens, with a set for my parents and a set for me.  Now I have all of them.  Even leaving off the duplicates, we’re a bit full!  The good news is that I have duplicates, so both boys will eventually have a set of family memories to get them started.

Many years of gifts from my Frayed Edges friends are in this zone of the tree. I may have enough to eventually do an entire small tree the way we are going!  I can also spot ornaments from D.C., Moscow, Bolivia, the Oregon Trail, Mount Washington, Maine, and a friend in grade school!

This year I used the owl ribbon from Renaissance Ribbons as my starting point. He’s hanging next to Kathy’s bird!

My foot is doing well!  I got the stitches out last Friday, and on Wednesday I get to see if I can get my foot into a sneaker!  That’s less than 3 weeks after surgery!  This time has gone even better than the other foot, and that one went great!

Air-cast comes off in 48 hours!  And I LOVE the lime green stretch velvet leggings I found on sale at Macy’s (needed to make a quick trip to the Maine Mall when I was down for my appointment…and got sidetracked walking through Macy’s)

Getting downstairs in an air-boot is do-able but awkward, so I’ve not been sewing or quilting, but doing things upstairs instead:  watercolors!   One of the ladies in my small online sketching group found Val Webb’s website.  GOOD JOB!  I love calligraphy, fonts and all sorts of lettering, and this one is just up my alley:  the intersection of lettering and watercolors.  I have learned SO MUCH!  The price of the class, $50, is unbelievably reasonable for the 10 weekly sessions.  You’ve got 4 months in which to do them:  there are several pages of downloads, instruction on a closed web page, and two videos (usually about 30 minutes) in each lesson!  Literally I learned something not 2 minutes into the first video.  Being able to see how liquid to make your paint (I’ve been working too dry) and how to hold your brush… I can’t tell you how many great tips I’ve picked up. PLUS if you wish, Val will critique your work either in a private email or on the closed online group.

Here’s part of the third lesson, which focuses on things Celtic including Uncial letters. I made up the S, and am thrilled that I actually did it. Next: watercolor it.

Since I learn so much from critiques, I was the first to volunteer to have Val critique my pieces in the group setting.  Many others have followed suit, and I am learning from each and every set of suggestions.  Val’s manner of speaking (writing) is so gentle, encouraging and kind, yet she points out where you can work on things to make them even better.  Students range from rank beginner to professional artist, but we are ALL learning.  WONDERFUL!

Celtic knotwork from the lesson, with just the outer edge painted in a yellow-new Gamboge color. Will finish maybe tonight?

And talk about being HAPPY!   I pulled out some of my celtic books for ideas, sketched out an S and some designs, listened to Val’s great video (that the outline on the letter is what creates the “cords” that feed into the design), modified slightly so that my knotwork wasn’t a free-standing design inside the wide parts of the S but instead connected to the outlining, and WOW am I happy!  So happy that instead of painting this in my class sketchbook which has 90-wt mixed media paper, that I got out PROPER watercolor paper (I have 5×7 size).  My drawing was a tad too big, so I  reduced it on my printer/copier to fit, and now it awaits me having time to paint it well.  The color swatches on the full page are me testing out colors to use.  Val said it looks best if you use a light color for the outlining, so I’m trying the warm yellow with a blue for the main part of the interlace (photo above) and probably a deep reddish purple for the dark bits (the background).  If I can manage the colors well on the knotwork, I’ll repeat them for the S.

S is for Smith. Or Sarah. Or whatever. I like it!

So you ask, is Sarah leaving quilting?  Heavens, NO!  I like taking classes in other media just to freshen myself up–good design is good design, whether architecture, landscape, tea kettles, calligraphy, painting, quilting.  It all reinforces my learning which I can then apply to my quilting and I feel more excited about the process.

Val’s next class is Culinary Herbs.  If you click on this link, scroll down to the 3rd of October for details!

I’ll pop back later with a Christmas Eve update.  MERRY CHRISTMAS–no matter what your faith, let us celebrate friendship, community, learning, art, all together!

I had a few extra bits that I dyed at Think Silk, but that needed wash-out and ironing at home, so here they are:

OK…so Tyger isn’t really part of the class, but this was too cute not to share. Of course, I could say that his coat is a perfect inspiration for some shibori!  He was watching me as I was petting the samples…..

Two pieces of blue shibori, one that began wet, one that began dry. Don’t actually see much difference in these, tho there can be. These were wrapped too tightly for me…too much white. So I shall re-do, perhaps wrapping in the other direction, and overdye with a different blue. The piece on the right is that black. Too bad it was black. May be too dark to overdye, and I dislike discharge. Erk.

Silk noil is a fairly heavy cloth, about like Kona cotton, maybe a bit heavier. This was a stitched / gathered resist. Again, more white than I like. Overdye is my new middle name!

This is why it is good to practice on small pieces of cloth. Love the colors; love the chevron pleating/patterning. Hate the blotchiness. Can you say overdye? Or cut up into small bits!

Cotton (?) cord…LOVE these colors! It was the cord I used to tie the previous sample. Use EVERYthing!  I think this is synthetic cord, actually, but it took the color because we used an acid bath method…. nifty!

My favorite piece of the whole thing: silk organza, stitched in a leaf shape to create a tight resist, then dyed. I can see small pieces like this with either stitched or soy wax resist working their way into my quilts! This one is small, maybe 4 x 7 inches total.