December 19, 2014

It rained most of the day, today. The news said that the .85 inch that we got had put us at the highest rainfall total for this date in seven years! Of course we are not out of the drought yet, but getting there! 

The recent rains have had an impact on migratory birds too. Just a week ago the wetlands and bird preserves were dry with little areas for migrating birds to nest in. Many would have died. Now they are properly flooded to host birds from as far away as Russia and  Alaska for their winter home. Now is a great time for bird watching at the Cosumnes River Preserve and other areas. 

I had to paint it, of course! This one was painted mostly with Photoshop brushes in Photoshop. I wanted to see what I could do with it.

December 16, 2014

I didn't send out a sketch yesterday because I started a project that grew out of control! I love the theme of Noah's Ark for Christmas time. I mean it has been raining a lot and I love animals. It was an excuse to paint animals and there are so many of them!. I had thought to just do a simple cartoon sketch, but I still am not done with it! So I thought that I would send you the original sketch. It is the original idea that I was fiddling around with. Now I'm committed to this bigger project and I'll get it done when I can. In the mean time, here is the little doodle that I started with instead.

December 17, 2014

I hadn't been feeling well today. Yesterday I walked a couple of miles with Tulip before it rained. I was dragging then and cut the walk short. At night we had choir practice and it rained just in time for us to go there and come back.Although I had warm boots, jacket and a hat on, I came home feeling chilled and couldn't get warm again. A hot shower would have been good, but I had taken a shower in the morning and was too tired to do anything but go to bed. In the morning I was aching all over and had a slight fever. I stayed in bed all day, so I didn't get to work on that other ark picture.

I had to draw the rain that we had last night, but I did this one of Sacramento downtown. I love the way that the lights play on the wet roads. I wanted to see if I could paint something on one layer in Photoshop. I generally work in layers so that if I mess up, I can correct things on that layer rather than trying to correct everything. 

December 14, 2014

With all of the rain that we've been having, the resorts in the mountains have been having a wonderful start to the ski season. We didn't have rain here today, but it was chilly and overcast. 

Noel lives in Utah, near Park City where our storm has gone to bless them with snow. Noel is an inspiration! She walked two hours in the snow today! I remember when it was snowing when I lived in Colorado. It was so beautiful! 

I thought that I would try to draw her walking in the snow. I don't know what the area looks like where she walks, but I figured that it has lots of mountains and some trees and maybe an old red barn house in the distance.

Dec. 13, 2014

When I drew the picture of Fay's dream about the horses with legs like the trees, She said that I misunderstood her. She said that she just saw horses in the trees that she didn't notice right away. Of course I had to draw it as an excuse to draw horses. They are one of my favorite subjects to draw. I used to draw them in grade school for $.25 apiece for my class mates. I had one of those "Walter Foster" how to draw books on how to draw horses. As every young girl, I loved horses, but as the oldest child of a large family, I never got one. 

I tried to recreate Fay's dream in Photoshop. Because it was a dream, I decided to make it more dream-like. The emphasis is on the horses, not the trees or background. I choose theAkhal Teke horse because they are sleek, thin, like the grove of trees that deer might be standing in. The Akhal-Teke are a horse breed from Turkmenistan, where they are a national emblem. They have a reputation for speed and endurance, intelligence, and a distinctive metallic sheen. The shiny coat of palominos and buckskins led to their nickname "Golden Horses", I thought appropriate for this scene. “Golden horses in a grove of trees.”

Dec. 12, 2014

Noel had asked me to do a drawing of her son, Chris, who had passed away a couple of years ago, doing what he loved most, motocross. Chris's son, Lars, is Chris's legacy and the shinning star of the family. I took a couple of pictures that Noel had of Chris and Lars to  compose this image in Photoshop. Originally, I had drawn Chris and Lars in similar caps and sunglasses, but I wasn't happy with the drawing that I had done of Chris, so I didn't include it in the composition. I just wasn't working for me.

Just decided to draw Chris doing a somersault on skis and Lars in his oversize sunglasses and hat in the foreground. The colors and snow theme, I thought, works for this time of year.

Maybe I'll use Chris's image in another composition.

Dec. 11, 2014

One of my sisters, while she was here this last weekend, had a dream of giant horses, with legs that were trees. They towered over her, but they ran up  and down the hills at the speed of the wind! (I think that she was thinking partly of Tulip that does love to run up and down the hills behind her home in Paso Robles.)

I loved the idea of that image that she described, so I had to try doing it. I spent Tuesday night after choir practice researching images of horses that might lend themselves to the idea of horses with tree legs. I found that the  Percheron horses are already large and stocky but are beautiful when they run, so I used them as a model for the horses in my picture. 

This was not exactly a quick sketch as it took me all day to do this image. I used Photoshop again. My sister, Fay is also in the picture. I used her to show scale. Can you find her?

Dec. 8, 2014

My sisters left this afternoon and the house feels so quiet. We loved them visiting, and miss them already, but we will be down there again for Christmas. 

Last night after our evening at the Wonderland of Global Lights exhibit, a dense fog developed as we got closer to home. At times it was so dense that you couldn't see the traffic lights or other car lights until you were right on them! Of course I had to paint it. Here is my version of the fog that we were driving in.

Dec. 7, 2014

Fay ran the Sacramento Marathon today. Tulip and I met her at about mile 20 and she seemed really strong. She came over to us and gave us a big hug! We saw her again at the finish, but although I shouted and waved my hands in the air, she didn't even notice me. She finished in a second or two over 4 hours. Not her old sub 4, but very strong anyway! 

The race ended at the State capital. I painted her in Photoshop but didn't get a lot of details as it was getting late. I started late. We had gone to the Global Winter Wonderland and then to Starbucks for a night time treat. Very foggy getting home! 

Dec. 6, 2014

Noel is a fabulous quilter who donates her time and quilts to help others. Her quilts are works of art and when she asked my to do her, I asked her for a photo. Then I thought that I would do something more whimsical. Today's sketch is done in Photoshop of Noel quilting. No, it is not as beautiful as her or her quilts, but it was just a bit of fun!

Dec. 5, 2014

Well it hasn't exactly been daily sketches, but here is one for today. It is my impression of the weather that we've been having here in Sacramento. Rainy, cloudy, with the trees full of colored leaves that are being knocked down by the rain and sometimes winds. I did this in Photoshop.

We need the rain, so I can't complain, but both my sisters are here and we are trying to do things between the bouts of rain. They flew in Thursday night, late, for the marathon this Sunday. Just one of them is running and the weather is supposed to be good on Sunday. She has been running this race every year for awhile now. I usually support her by showing up along the course to cheer her on. 

Mom is okay, but she has fallen twice within the last two weeks. The first time was just before Thanksgiving. She fell out of bed and hit her temple on the night stand. Her face is still swollen. She fell again on Thursday while doing dishes at the sink. Luckily I was sitting near by. She must have lost her balance and fell on her hip. She said that it didn't hurt, but it looked like a abstract impressionist painting, I told her. After getting her to bed, I slathered the area with arnica and gave her an ice pack. My other sister will be with her at home during the race on Sunday.

Dec. 3, 2014

I hope that you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving! 

We did go down to Paso Robles, but I have been down with a head cold and vertigo. Dinner was wonderful, but i was in bed most of the time. I had decided to leave on Friday to avoid the storms. Glad that did. I did feel well enough to drive. I felt better on Saturday morning, but a little fever started up again towards the evening and the vertigo started again. I guess because of the strep and shingles infections that I had before, any head thing seems to go to my ears, so the vertigo. 

I missed mass and choir on Sunday and slept all day. I was feeling better on Tuesday, but I didn't want to chance getting worst again, so I didn't go to choir practice. This morning I did have a little running nose and headache, but feel better. 

I did get a chance to work on the the sketch that I had started for Thanksgiving. I couldn't work on it when I had the vertigo. Focusing on anything was impossible. I did finally finish it and I was trying to work from imagination again.  I did it in Photoshop, but it was more involved than I had intended. I created a little scene of our Thanksgiving meal with me, mom, my sisters and brother-in-law as the only human male there. I put in our dogs in the scene, but in reality, there were not in the house. They probably would have been begging at the table however, if they were there. 

Nov. 25, 2014

I thought that I would do a silly little sketch since it is rather late after choir practice. This was done in Photoshop. It is a line drawing of me, mom and Tulip on our way to Paso Robles for Thanksgiving. We have the tree, the turkey, the pie and other sides in the basket on top of the car.  Notice no luggage. Ha, ha... 

We were supposed to come back on Sunday, but it is supposed to rain hard, so maybe we will leave on Saturday instead when it will not be raining as much! I don't like driving in the rain

Nov. 24, 2014

If you are you are connected to me on Facebook, you will have seen my post about my day with Tulip. We went to a dog park while waiting for my car to be serviced. There were lots of dogs there and she got to run with them and let off some of her bountiful energy. Watching her is a thing of beauty. She runs like a race horse and out ran every dog there, including a whippet. People who were there wondered if she was part Greyhound, but I was assured by two different vets, that she was a pure bred Dane. 

I was curious. I had always heard that Danes were big couch potatoes. Did they really run and if so how fast? I Googled the question. Apparently they were bred to run as they were bred to be hunting dogs. A healthy Great Dane should be able to run from 35 to 40 mph! I also found a video that showed a Dane that looks a lot like mine running next to a vehicle at an easy 30 mph!  

I drew two versions of this dog running that I could pick out from this video to study the form of the dog as it ran. 

Nov. 23, 2014

On Sundays mom and I often go to Starbucks for breakfast. I found this photo of her on a morning that I had treated her with a doughnut after an excellent blood reading and a fasting blood lab. She was so happy to get a doughnut and a latte that she had to ham it up for the camera.

I did this one in Photoshop again. It took about 45 minutes. 

Nov. 22, 2014

PBS has such great TV series. One of my favorites is Agatha Christie's Poirot. Tonight was one of the best, so I had to do this little tribute of the quirky little detective with the curved mustache. 

I did this one in Photoshop in a little over one hour. It seems that I feel most comfortable with a simple drawing in any medium.

Nov. 21, 2014

I finally got back to the gym today after over a year of illness and hesitancy. I was afraid to go back for fear of getting sick again. Because of a friend that posted a picture on Facebook of our Zumba class, I decided to go today. Mary usually teaches that class, but was out sick. Her classes are super high energy and high impact. Linda did the class instead, which was actually good because she is easier than Mary. Linda's routine was different, but I got though the steps okay. It's funny how your body remembers a movement if you do it often enough. She taught the hour long class and then did another 15 minutes for those who stayed after class. I was never winded this time, as I was before, which seems remarkable to me after not being able to breath properly for so long. 

I did this sketch in Photoshop from memory. No photos, just my imagination.

Nov. 20, 2014

I sketched Bryan and his fiancé, April. They are into Cosplay, RennFair, Steampunk and this sketch was done from a photo that I had worked from before. They have some very beautiful and elaborate costumes, but I've modified and simplified their dress;

 I did this one in Photoshop. I had done another one yesterday of mom in Illustrator, but when I was almost done, the program crashed. I was too involved in painting, I didn't save as I worked so almost everything that I had done was lost. I was hesitant to work in Painter again and I was curious to see how it compared to Photoshop.

Photoshop was actually easier to work with than Painter, I guess it is because I am more familiar with Photoshop. Not the best likeness of them, sorry Bry, but I was trying to keep it simple and I wanted to get faster, so there are not a lot of details. 

Nov. 19, 2014

Last night it was too late  and I was too tired to do a sketch. Sorry! After choir practice, Bob generously brought a bunch of pomegranates for me and anyone who wanted some. I had told him that mom was telling my sister about the pomegranates that we got from him before and wanted to buy some more to take down to Paso for Thanksgiving. He said that he had lots left so he brought some. I but them in a pretty copper colander to paint.

I did this image in watercolor.  It is just a small painting, but I took pictures of it and I think that I would love to do a larger version.

Nov. 18,2014

Tulip loves to go to the dog park where she can play with other dogs and learn to be a better social friend. 

I painted this in Painter again. I am beginning to get the feel of the program. I know that I am still not getting the full possibilities in image making, but this is the best that I am able to do for now. I am trying to work fast. Painter has many different modes and tools that can be used, but for now I am still just concentrating on the oil painting mode. For this piece, I put each figure and background in different layers so that I could move them around or re-size them. It keeps each figure from blending into the background or with each other which could be both good and bad.

Nov14, 2014

This sketch is done in Painter again, in the oil painting mode. I'm still trying to figure out how the program works, but I am learning a lot just playing with it. 

This was done from a photo that I took this summer of my nephew and his girlfriend. They were driving to Washington state and had stopped by just long enough to say, "Hi."

Nov 16, 2014
I sketched Tulip today in the Painter program. I wanted to see if what I was doing with the other pictures would translate into a simple image and help me to sketch faster. I was able to finish this one in 40 minutes. I'm beginning to figure out more of how to use this program. 

Now I'm thinking "How far can it take this?"

Nov 15, 2014
I didn't do a sketch today, but I did put my time in trying to finish up a poster for Creative Action Network. I wanted to show diversity in a community garden for the quote, "There is no power greater than community discovering what it cares about." 

Nov. 13, 2014

I'm still working in Painter, trying to figure out how to use it and what it can do. 

I found a photo that I took of mom earlier this year at an old train depot on the outskirts of one of the towns along Highway 49. It may have been Sutter Creek. It was late in the day and out of season. This is a park that has a railroad museum and an old steam trains that take tourists along the tracks about four miles out and back again. The engineers and conductors wear old time clothing, to keep the illusion alive. 

There were a few men, volunteers who love trains, still around, wrapping things up at the end of the day. They were nice enough to answer my trivial questions about the trains. Mom, wanting to go back to the car, walked ahead of me as I loitered behind her talking photos. 

This sketch took longer than I expected. I could have worked on it more, but I tried to find ways to work faster.

11-12-14

I've been playing with Painter all day and experimenting with the brushes. This is a powerful graphics program that will allow paint and draw like renderings. I am beginning to see the possibilities, but I am far from being able to control the process with any real accuracy. I needed a subject that would offer me more concrete representational as well as abstract imagery, so I used a photo that Noel sent me of herself. Sorry, Noel. You were my experiment. I thought of her name, "Noel", the cold winter conditions there in Utah, and most of the states to the east and I thought to make her a winter angel, of sorts. A divine being to kiss the skies with frost. 

11-9-14

I sketched the same bowl of cherry tomatoes. This time in Photoshop. Photoshop is pretty versatile, but the image is not a vector. It can create a vector like image, but not like Illustrator. Photoshop is best for photos, in combination with other image-making programs and to create non-scaleable images. 

I created two versions of the subject. The first one I approached as I would in Illustrator and the second one I just painted it with a brush. 

All of the versions look different because all of the programs handle image making differently. 

I still have one more program, Painter. I am not as familiar with this program because I just got it, but I will try to create the same subject in Painter tomorrow.

11-10-14

I tried working with Corel Painter today using the same subject, the tomatoes in the bowl. For those of you that voiced favor for a more organic looking rendering, this program is the best for that type of rendering. It has several types of brushes but not really knowing how to adjust things, I just played with this picture. Unlike Illustrator, creating an image in this program shows process and the hand of the artist. You can see everything that I did as I did it. It is not mechanical, but it is most like doing a real painting, barring the fact that I am working with a stylus and a Wacom tablet, so it doesn't have the same feel. There was a slight lag in the rendering, so the brushstroke appeared slightly after I applied it. I suspect that it was using a lot of resource and the more that I use this program, the better I can adjust for that. 

11-7-14

Today it is really a sketch. Yesterday I was too ill to get out of bed. I slept all day and ate nothing. At about 5:30, I tried to do a couple of things, but it was the first time that I've ever had to call for my mother to help me to get back to bed. I had started to black out. Everything was going black. 

Today I still felt feverish, but much better. I felt good enough to eat some oatmeal this morning. After being in bed all day yesterday, the house felt stuffy, so I took my watercolors and sat outside to paint that same bowl of tomatoes. Not my best effort. I had to sit back often and close my eye awhile. 

I had thought about Deb's interest in the programs that I was using and wanted to show that drawing things out on paper can be just as effective. 

Each of the programs, Illustrator, Flash, Photoshop and Painter have their own uses. So it depends upon what she wants to use the programs for. Among all of the programs, Painter was created to do just paint, but Photoshop can do that too, but it is much more adapted to photo adjustment and compositing. Illustrator creates images that vectors, meaning you can make them larger or smaller without distorting the image. It is also better at utilizing text with the image, because it is a vector as well. You can draw in Flash, but it was made for animation, including an animated website. Code, Action Script is used to assign actions to the images. 

Going back to bed now.

11-5-14

This year I planted four tomato plants, but only the cherry tomatoes gave fruit. I suspect that I planted the other two too late. With the days shortening and the nights getting colder, I think that these may be the last of what will ripe on the vine. 

The best temperature for ripening tomatoes is 70 to 75F. 

Temperatures below 50º F can destroy some ripening enzymes, and when the thermometer dips below 40º F, the chill can actually cause the tomatoes to decay more quickly in storage. I had better pick the rest of the green ones soon. 

I created this image with Illustrator. 

11-4-14

The Cosumnes River Preserve, south of the little town of Franklin,  is a host to a variety of wildlife, but it is the birds that are the most valuable asset. On November 8th there will be an organized bird count and hike on the trails and now is the time to watch the Sandhill cranes roost at sunset on the marshy bogs. What a treat! 

For this sketch, I wanted to see what I could do in Photoshop to create an image of the bog grasses blowing in the wind and birds flying up from them.

11-3-14

Today was beautiful! After the rain that we had the night before, it was nice to see the sun again. It was muddy, and the dogs had to be cooped up for awhile, but the rain washed everything clean. There were beautiful, billowing clouds and some patchy rain that still lingered. I was inspired to draw this in Photoshop, with all sorts of brushes.

11-2-14

This is another Photoshop painting with brushes, no photos. I wanted to show what I saw, driving back from Paso Robles to Sacramento again. The Central Valley is wide and open, with mountain ranges in the distance or hills nearby. It reminded me of the Eastern planes of Colorado, where I lived for six years. You could see the weather coming from miles away. You can see it here too, the sky dominating the field of vision. Today the sky was clearing. By the time we got to Sacramento, the clouds were mostly gone but cold and windy in spots. In Colorado the strip of land below the sky was dotted with low grasses and cactus. Here in the Valley, when there were no groves of fruit or nut trees, it was often dotted with tumbleweeds, turning a rusty color in the cold. 

October 31st, 2014

We are spending the weekend in Paso Robles to attend a Halloween party tonight. i had a number of things to get ready yesterday and we did leave until late Thursday. Much of the drive on I5 was uneventful, but when we turned onto Highway 41 we noticed that the moon was up and very bright. Mom thought that it looked like a orange wedge, but I said that it was too pale to be an orange, so it must be an iced lemon! The sky seemed clear so I was glad that we wouldn't be getting rain while driving, but once we got to our destination in Ranchita Canyon, I saw that there were veils of clouds across our friendly moon. Perfect for Halloween. I was inspired to create this Halloween image, all in Photoshop.

October 29th, 2014

This is a simple line study of a fuchsia. I don't have much luck with them in this environment. They usually do better closer to the coast. This one is struggling. It did give me a few fruit that were very good to eat. It tasted like a cross between a strawberry and a blueberry. This one is a species type that gave pretty big fruit for a fuchsia, about the size of a small olive. 

October 29th, 2014

This sketch is dedicated to Linda and her beloved horse, Cody. Cody passed away last week and he will be greatly missed. He was a rescue horse who was so gentle and sweet, there must be a heaven for him.

October 27th, 2014

Mimi, a friend from choir sent me a picture of her for me to sketch. I drew it in Flash so that it could be scaled to any size.

 October 26th 2014

Mom and her cat, Necko. I brought her this cat when it was just a kitten, to replace the one that had died. Necko is almost one year old. Now mom looks at him and says that her is so large! "Why did he have to get big?" Babies are all so cute when they are young. Now he is older, he is bigger. Now Necko is pretty with his long white fur and bushy tail!