EDiJ Today

I'm really liking the Beatles song prompts, and it's reminding me what geniuses they were and how much I loved some of these songs when I heard them. Tomorrow's is "The Fool on the Hill." Did you know that the Beatles as a group never actually performed this song live (although it was on the Magical Mystery Tour album), and that Sergio Mendes and Brasil 66 had the hit with it? I didn't remember that at all until I went to YouTube and listened to both versions. I remember the hit, but much prefer McCartney's take on it.

I wasn't going to paint today, but at the end of the day I found I needed to focus on something besides the devastating homophobic attack in Orlando, so I looked for a reference photo and put the song into a picture. Given what's happening in the world, I'm thinking he's not such a fool. I wish I was up on that hill right now. All by myself, with my head in a cloud, watching the world spinning round.

Catching up on June

I had done exactly two of this month's drawings until today, so I decided to catch up. Fortunately, Giselle (the moderator for EDiJ) was smart and gave us two options each day for a prompt--either a random one somebody made up, or the title of a Beatles song. So far the songs are the more appealing to me, but I'm going back and forth a little. Here are the four sketches I did today:

HERE COMES THE SUN

from a photo I took of sunrise from my back yard;

BLACKBIRD

from a photo someone posted on Facebook (it was more elaborate, but I just painted the bird);

GREEN

A green door I liked, from a photo I took a few years ago while in France (I think it's Parthenay);

and...

THE LONG AND WINDING ROAD

from a photo of Tuscany I found on the internet.

I'm going to try harder to keep up for the rest of the month...

EDi June

The prompt was "within three feet." I interpreted that to mean, "Draw what's within reach." So when I went to lunch at the diner, I did this drawing of all the stuff on the table. Quick and dirty, because I was hungry and my french fries were going to get cold!

Not keeping up too well this month, hoping to catch up some on the weekend.

Painting trees

I was sitting on my patio enjoying my breakfast this morning, and became inspired to paint my lemon tree. Now, I don't have the best track record with foliage--I never can figure out how to depict it. It comes out looking flat, or piebald, or completely funky, but never looks anything like the original. I haven't advanced much beyond a child's concept of trees...

either this:                                                 or this:

           

As I looked carefully at the tree, trying to figure out a process, I saw that some leaves were touched with light and therefore clearly discernible, while others were in shadow, and therefore bunched together. So I drew the ones that really stood out, floating in air, and then went around them with a vaguely accurate outline of the rest. Then I mixed light, middle, and dark colors of greens. I used the middle and dark almost like a negative painting around the light leaves, leaving them until last to paint.

I wish I had done an even lighter, brighter green for the lightest, and a little darker green for the midtone, just to get more sparkle, but I was pretty happy with this technique.

LEMON TREE -- Micron pen and watercolor.

More practice will undoubtedly improve this process!

Urban sketching exercise

I'm taking an online Craftsy class from James Richards called "Sketching the Energy of Places." I haven't had/made time yet to go out and sketch on site, but yesterday morning I had an hour before work, so I decided to redo a picture I had painstakingly painted before as a pen-and-watercolor sketch.

I had fun doing it, but it wasn't too successful in terms of what I was going for. I wanted the three houses in the center and the interesting building up on the hill to be the focal point of the scene, and for the rest of the houses and rooftops to fade into background, but instead they just look unfinished. I posted it for some helpful advice from Jim--we'll see what he says.

This weekend, I'm going to try a real on-site urban sketch with people and "entourage," as Jim calls extras like lampposts, trees, bollards, and so on.

Here is the painting I made before, from this photograph:

What I'm reading

I felt inspired to draw and paint today, after watching a Craftsy class on urban sketching taught by Jim Richards, but not sufficiently inspired to think of a place to sketch, get dressed, pack up my gear, drive there, etc. So instead I took a break from a few chores to read, and then took a break from reading to draw the book I just finished and the book I just started. They are both from ongoing series I have read since the beginning, and I am pleased with both of them, which always helps when it comes time to draw!

I did both of these freehand and quickly in ink, so they have some glitches, but the point was more documentary than artistic, so I'm not worried about it. Micron pen in black (#1) and blue (#2), and watercolor.

Maybe some urban sketching next weekend, since it's three days and I'm going to Ventura for one of them!

Baking for breakfast

I woke up this morning and found that I had no bread in the house. I was going to pour a bowl of cereal, but I really wasn't in the mood for something sweet--I wanted savory. But I also wasn't in the mood to get dressed and drive to the store or to go out to breakfast. So, I rummaged the cupboards and the refrigerator and made myself some drop biscuits!

Flour, baking powder, salt, butter, and milk--that's all you need. Of course, my baking powder was ancient, my "butter" was Earth Balance "buttery spread," and the only "milk" I had was almond...but I decided to forge ahead and see what happened. Just to make them truly savory, I went out to the garden and picked some marjoram, chopped it up, and added it to the dough with a little grated smoked gouda cheese.

Cutting the butter into the flour with two knives (I couldn't find my pastry cutter, that's how long it's been) was a nostalgic moment--it made me remember my mom making biscuits and gravy for my dad on Saturday mornings. Hers, of course, were properly kneaded, rolled out, cut with a biscuit cutter,  and glazed with butter, which I contemplated until I finished stirring in the almond milk (much more watery than regular milk) and decided that kneading was beyond this dough.

The drop biscuit recipe said it made 12, but I made them large so I got eight out of the recipe. I preheated to 450 degrees, mixed everything up, dropped them onto the cookie sheet, and popped them into the oven. Then I made coffee while waiting 15 breathless minutes for their emergence (would they be edible?)...et voilà!

I decided to celebrate my small baking victory by drawing and painting the biscuits, but I was in a hurry to eat them, so I decided to try a Liz Steel and do a 10-minute quickie draw-and-paint before the evidence disappeared. Not quite up to Liz's standard, but fun to do...and then I was rewarded with biscuits!

By the way, they were pretty good! A little doughy in the middle, which I attribute to the almond milk, but savory, crunchy around the edges, satisfying! I had three.