Blog

September I started a daily challenge to create each day something from life. I work a lot from photographs to capture animals. It pushed me to work differently and presented opportunities. I am not a plein aire painter but I do sketch from real objects. My favorite for the month of September was the pinecones. They took me about 10 days to complete the charcoal work. I had attempted to start it directly on a canvas but what I had in mine was not working. I changed my direction and toned a watercolor hot press board and each day added a new section of the pinecones. It was a meditation in art. 

October I signed up for the Inktober Challege. I had thought about doing it and this year I kept pushing myself to keep working each day. This time I could work from photos but the focus was working with ink. I pushed the concept using ink within my mixed medium style. 

I did do some works in B&W, experimenting with white inks on black paper. The dragonflies were done on coffee stained paper that    was mounted on 6x6" canvas boards. Some watercolor paint was used but the main focus was the pens to draw the delicate wings.  

The leaves were done in a stippling, dot, technique over watercolor background. This too is 6x6" paper mounted on canvas panel. The tree was originally done using watercolor crayons. It felt like it needed more details. Pen work brought in that detail to the bark & roots.  

Sometimes you need to push yourself, work outside that box, outside your comfort zone. I enjoyed both months and maybe next year will do one of them again. Since, I have created a lot of small works I have put them in a separate page on my website under Artworks: 2023 Small Works. They are on sale for the holidays. Enjoy!