Mather Introduction to Watercolor: Organization and Color Mixing

 Ad-Free Blog

I just finished my second week of my Mather Introduction to Watercolor Series. 

The first week was basically BASICS...materials: water colors, papers, brushes, and tape, surfaces...etc.  I'm doing my notes and tests in an all-media good quality sketchbook.

Midwest Gardening 2024: What's Blooming Late July Between the Raindrops!

Ad-Free Blog

Yesterday between the raindrops, as I was trying to get to the car, I took a few shots...of our ABADANZA growing things...All the rain has made everything explode.  I had to up the exposure a bit, but the colors are....

Are just as they are....so vivid... color recipe must be water and clouds for great color in Midwest Gardens. Here the statement is the Baby Tears....crazy...they have been wintering over and I've been sticking bits in my pots.

I think we need to build a platform for the birdbath, everything is HUGE this year...the Giant Sedum is blossoming early and the second year Phlox is really a gorgeous hot pink in color.

Here you can see the nest of Baby Tears along the walkway...the Hostas are all blooming big, thick stems of fragrant flowers. 

I had to dash across the grass...Hubby is replacing our composite decking stairway because of wash out and warpage. He is going to pour concrete. We have to use too much salt in the winter and a rougher surface  will be better and safer, the composite is extremely slick.

On the mound the birdbath is equally hidden. The Tiger Lilies are almost done, they were huge blossoms and also tall. This pot has escaped the bunnies, full of Marigolds, Balsam, and Zinnias all grown from seed in the greenhouse.

Normally this Phlox ( 20 years old at least) is washed out looking, but it is also very vibrant this year. It's in the crappiest dirt corner of this flower bed...so I'm happy it exists.

This is the second pot out on the mound with Marigolds, Zinnias and Balsam. These are thick insulated pots I bought ages ago...and are still holding up. I remember I got them for $6.00 each on deep discount at the end of the season.

You can see the Giant Sedum peeking out at the bottom of the bed, the white Phlox are second year, I'm really going to have to get in there and trim 

some of the excess out.

A few years back...quite awhile actually they replaced our telephone pole and tore out all the Joe Pye Weed around it. I nursed a few sprouts and I now that it has taken at least 10 years to re-mature to blooming status. This is an favorite plant of Monarchs and other butterflies. I'm so happy it has regenerated to this point. 

Sadly in 2027 the entire front easement will be torn up for a very much needed turning lane into our complex. Next year I may attempt to  get some of this moved to the back yard. I know it won't survive the next wave of construction, as the pole will probably be redone again.

We have over  600 households in our community and only three entrances and exits, add  rush hour, add schoolbuses and it's a jam out there. I never make Doctor appointments before 10:00 in the morning, because you might not get out in time.

Lilies were magnificent....but lasted only a day or so with the repeated rains we have had. After years of drought to severe drought in our area...this is a welcome relief, bugs and weeds, love it too. 

My focal points in the planter are supposed to be two spider plants on the end and the Spike in the middle. None of the red Salvia had done a thing and the Spider plants are exactly the same size as 8 weeks ago.

The purple Petunias, are eh...eh..eh...! Thank goodness the Marigolds are bonkers. It is hot and windy here, so I keep trying to find the magic combination. 

Upside with the rain, I haven't had to drag the 80 feet of hose too often, that has been really nice!

Right before I jumped in the car...this is the pot along the driveway...Balsam, Tall Marigolds, and short ones...and an ornamental grass. The Tree Rose of Sharon is starting and everything seems really happy here.

I'm Off to do errands, and dodge between the raindrops! 

HOW ARE YOUR FLOWERS FLOATING?

If you enjoyed this post please follow this blog by Blogger or FOLLOW IT which you will find in the upper right hand corner of this page. 

Thanks always for visiting. 

I will try and respond to every comment and answer every question.

I will be sharing at these fine Parties!

BFF Open House

I have not been paid or reimbursed in anyway for my opinions, posts or any products shown. 

Please do not use photos without linking back to this blog 

without my permission. 

Thank you for your cooperation, 

Sandi

 

Birds, Poorman's Bouquet and Midwest Gardening 2024 Bounty

 Ad-Free Blog

It's Mid July 2024, after several years of drought to extreme drought our NE Illinois area, we have now been deluged this year like much of the country. Very Hot and Wet here in Chicagoland. Upside the trees and bushes are lush and green, green, green.

The long table in the front of the livingroom looks out to the front yard and several bird feeders. We always watch from here and keep our bird books handy for identification.

The rain has been so frequent, you have to dash outside for anything, grab some produce, dump saucers or pick a few flowers, before the next rain.

This is the last magazine subscription coming to our home. Many years ago I eliminated ALL of our other subscriptions, to save paper and the planet---this one is the last subscription to run out. Birds and Blooms is a very cheery magazine, with fabulous photos of birds across the country and information on how to attract birds and their habits.

This is what I call unconscious decorating. I cover my dark wood furniture in summer with lighter vintage tablecloths, the magazine is here with our special bird identification printouts. This stuff has just sort of landed here...over the last month and suddenly it's a 

vignette. 

The thrifted pot  I found last month holds bird books from my childhood with notations inside from 1953-4 of birds seen then. Oddly enough with our climate warming, we are seeing different kinds birds now... different than 60 years ago and others seem to be gone. I haven't seen an Oriole in YEARS.

My Philodendron plant needs repotting, it's scraggly. I moved it from the bedroom to here hoping the light will be better. I dashed outside yesterday and cut the drooping flowers from the last storm and put them in my French enameled coffeepot.

My Poorman's Bouquet: Hosta leaves, Lilies, tops of blooming Hostas, Giant Sedum heads, Coreopsis, Phlox are so rich in colors and a sprig of Sweet Potato Vine that was broken and I'm trying grow roots on.  Lilies don't last long, but keep blooming from their buds  if you just pull the expired blooms off. This bouquet should last a week.

It's really an exuberant display, and makes me smile.  My Danish bird figurines are collected on the table and corralled in a little wagon that I found months ago in a thrift store. I imagine I've tossed some seed in there and they are just visiting.

In the kitchen...

I also dashed into the garden and grabbed cucumbers, two HUGE Green Peppers, the last of the Snow Peas, the first of the Broccoli, and a tiny Zucchini. 

We've had a half dozen Zucchini's from our three plants this year already. Everything grows overnight it seems.

I put up a gallon go overnite Dill Pickles recipe here: OVERNIGHT DILL PICKLES on Thursday...so delicious and crunchy, and a large container of Danish  Pickles, recipe here: FRESH DANISH DILL OR SWEET PICKLES. I did the sweet version. 

The heat and the rainwater are making some things especially (cucumbers prolific) and others seem to be at a standstill. Tomatoes are huge but refusing to turn red. It's already late for tomatoes to begin turning with all this heat.

The last of my potted peas. I may get one more picking, and I plant to do another pot at the end of the month---in a bigger pot that won't blow over. Hopefully I can start them in the greenhouse if it isn't too hot to protect from the voracious critters we have this year. 

I'm going to try to make  a homemade critter spray...and I will let you know how that works!

See you again Soon!

If you enjoyed this post please follow this blog by blogger or 

FOLLOW IT which you will find in the upper right hand corner of this page. 

Thanks always for visiting. 

I will try and respond to every comment and answer every question.

I will be sharing at these fine Parties!

Metamorphosis Monday

BFF Open House

I have not been paid or reimbursed in anyway for my opinions, posts or any products shown. 

Please do not use photos without linking back to this blog 

without my permission. 

Thank you for your cooperation, 

Sandi

Mather Introduction to Drawing

Ad-Free Blog

oldnewgreenredo

Wow, June flew by so fast, and I was so not into blogging, and more into doing the yard, the gardens, family and friends events, and projects.

The last two months I have participated in the Senior Mather Introduction to Drawing class and my first post was here:Introduction to Drawing. 

Originally the class was supposed to run 6 weeks, one hour a week, but it was extended to 8 or 9, not even sure.

Background: The Mather Institute here in Illinois offers these online enrichment courses free to seniors over 55. Maybe you have followed me through different types of Printmaking and also Textiles of Weaving and dyeing. 

You can follow the links with the two photos below to my previous posts.

oldnewgreenredo

 

My styrofoam print repeated for Mather Printing.

You can follow the four Printing posts starting Here.

oldnewgreenredo

Personalized weaving with found materials and string and frame from Mather Textile kit. Link under the photo.

My drawing skills needed to be freshened up and I'd forgotten more than I had known. 

Seriously, back in the 70's I had a job teaching Art in a Vocational School in Wisconsin. One of my classes was Basic Art and Design---a semester class for enrichment for adults or for GED qualifications for highschool diplomas. You would be surprised how many anxiety ridden adults taking GED classes and dread/hate the idea of having to take an art class.

Over the years, I have always sketched and planned out projects on paper. but  I seldom drew anything start to finish. More often I rough sketched and filled in with paint or glaze/underglazes. Yes, color, I'm an addict for sure.

oldnewgreenredo

This is pretty much is my style for my projects, basic layouts. With some scribbles indicating hills, a few block buildings...and well, planning on paint to take care of the details..lol. Is that a stream or road? The vertical squiggles in the middle are pine trees. YIKES!

I knew my hand coordination had weakened, I even have to fight a bit of shaking. So, this drawing class would be a perfect refresher course. 

We began slowly with materials and how to use them---see this post HERE.

 

Because we working in a huge group via ZOOM, Ruth was very encouraging and skillful in reaching all ability levels for this class. She worked from a desk and overhead camera via live video on Zoom, while questions were reviewed on the side, and many answered through staff, or demonstrated by Ruth.

oldnewgreenredo

We worked on gray values and various techniques of shading, focusing on where the light source is. Most of all, Ruth had us break down everything we drew into basic shapes. It's fun to LOOK at nature and objects as circles, squares or triangles.  And shading makes a simple shape three dimensional.

oldnewgreenredo

One of the sketches I did after the shading classes was the louvered blinds and sunlight streaming in...shadows, light and line...not a work of art, but a great exercise of playing with the light---this would make an interesting painting.

oldnewgreenredo

We were encouraged to draw anything---this was our coffee table, with a slightly mashed box, scattered books and a few magazines laying on a textured tablecloth.

Animals and Figures were for two weeks' topics.

oldnewgreenredo

Who would think normally look at an Elephant as circles, ovals, triangles and elongated squares. Here, I erased the some of basic shapes in my drawing of my quick Elephant, but you can see some.

We moved  on to working from photos/or other sources.

I think every kid has learned to do the grid method of transferring a photo or design.

oldnewgreenredo

I'm too lazy to draw grids---but I know it can be very useful in making large projects like wall murals or if you want a perfect likeness. 

My quick sketch of Barley---really evolved from basic shapes, circle muzzle, triangle nose, almost a square head and triangle ears, or my friend's pit bull mix. 

oldnewgreenredo

 Suddenly a circle becomes a sphere because of shading.. and a reference to perspective.

The bottom is a box casting a shadow in single point perspective.

From my teaching experience...Perspective is the hardest thing to teach, and this ended up taking a few weeks longer than the hour class allowed. I did spend a bit of time on the perspective village I drew, mostly drawing all those dark values in the shadows.

oldnewgreenredo

The handouts were excellent and better than those I had access to. I can't even remember what teaching was like before  TV, video, computers and instant print handouts.

oldnewgreenredo

Teaching two-point perspective is hard, because some people just don't see it. I think they just don't have the perspective gene. When I taught I literally set up a 'village' of boxes with strings connecting to vanishing points taped to the chalk board. This took up half the room, but----the students could walk around it, in it, and view the buildings  from different angles I think we spent 6 hours on perspective. I passed everyone on that whether they got it or not.

oldnewgreenredo

This was my in class quick drawing---nothing was measured (recommended) so it's rough. Two point perspective sometimes exaggerates everything. I recommend placing vanishing points at eye level...so you feel like you are standing in the picture. 

Here, I'm on the second floor across the street...if I were doing a completed work, I would do so from eye-level and maybe further away to lessen the exaggeration.

Moving on to figures and faces.

When we started to talk about figures...Ruth brought us back to 1490 and DaVinci's Golden rule. Despite almost a thousand years, it seems his ideal proportions for humans is still accurate. We are taller, wider and with bigger feet, but the basic proportions are the same.

internet

oldnewgreenredo

This is my scribble as a reminder of what we are talking about on that page of my notebook. Below is a chart broken down for the average human's proportions. 

Mather institute and Thank you.

Everything is based on the length of the head. Little round heads are short people..etc and long faced individuals are taller.  Looks simple doesn't it.

Of course I had to draw a seated figure...and had problems, eventually transferring the figure to 2-point perspective, and yes, that even works. Standing above viewing the figure---makes the feet exaggerated. But, I think when finished it would look fine.

oldnewgreenredo

oldnewgreenredo

Here's a straightened view of my drawing I know I will be referring to these guides for figures, and no longer avoid them.

We also receive this great facial handout....my guy looks like a MUG SHOT, but then at least I've got most things in the right place. Eye placement isn't centered or maybe he had too many brats and beer over the 4th. LOL

oldnewgreenredo

Again this was a class sketch with minimal extra drawing. I do love breaking everything down into the basic proportions and shapes. We received handouts for noses, eyes and lips...

oldnewgreenredo

Surprisingly the last classes were trees, bushes, grass bark, again with emphasizing where the light comes from.

oldnewgreenredo

Then we went back to nature with trees, grasses, bark for landscapes.

oldnewgreenredo

I restrained myself from dragging out the colored pencils and left this after a little fiddling. Tree barks were interesting with many examples...again, where is the light coming from.

oldnewgreenredo

Throughout the classes, Ruth often talked about atmospheric perspective. With color and heavy details being close and less defined images and shadings being far away. We sort of used that when were were doing sketches. 

The final class we learned about clouds and water...and how loose you should work and try and use the side of the pencil, with an eraser for sunbeams and highlights.

oldnewgreenredo

This is actually two separate sketches. The cloud on the left was first...simple--more attention to the sky, then the cloud, the one on the right worked into the landscape below with atmospheric perspective. I think I have viewed too many tornado videos this month---phew! 

What are the most important things I learned...How to use an ERASER! 

In my childhood erasers were for mistakes and not used as tools to ADD something by erasing something. Need a highlight, skim a white eraser across a line or want to soften a series of lines, daub a gray eraser here and there to erase the harshness. Want something to blend, use your fingers or a blender stick, paper toweling, or a q-tip. 

No drawing is a failure---it's a learning experience. Once you erase, some of the fear,---you can move ahead. 

oldnewgreenredo

I may not have the skills I had 50 years ago, but I still have an eye, and with fear lessened, I can move forward.

oldnewgreenredo

A totally ambitious Cathedral sketch---what's wrong- the arches are not quite right...and they should get thinner as they are further away, instead of fatter...I learned from this, and will try it again.

I plan to add one more post, on composition, which is really important no matter what sort of artwork or designs you are doing. First, I need to do my own drawing for all the 'types' of composition so I don't break copyright on using examples.

 I'm happy to answer any questions...or share your own class experiences you've had in crafts or arts in the comments.

IT'S ALWAYS FUN TO LEARN 

SOMETHING NEW '

OR EVEN A THOUSAND YEARS OLD, 

THANKS LEONARDO 

Ruth Guerry and the Mather Institute

If you enjoyed this post please follow this blog by blogger or 

FOLLOW IT which you will find in the upper right hand corner of this page. 

Thanks always for visiting. 

I will try and respond to every comment and answer every question.

I will be sharing at these fine Parties!

Inspire Me Tuesday

Love Your Creativity

Farmhouse Friday

Craftastic Monday

The photos in  this blog are my own or I have permission to using them from family. Any others will be attributed to the  source if possible.

I have not been paid or reimbursed in anyway for my opinions, posts or any products shown. 

Please do not use photos without linking back to this blog 

without my permission. 

Thank you for your cooperation, 

Sandi