What is New This Spring
Hello from The Studio,
I think I am beginning to thaw out from our gray Pacific Northwest winter. Currently, I am dreaming of Green Gables Spring days, and romantic English hedgerows all a flutter with birds and ladybirds alike!
I hope this finds you looking forward to spring. I happen to be on spring break past week and it was restful and glorious. I’ve had a good balance of spring cleaning, visiting and laughing with friends, (always good medicine for drippy March days), and of course, an art class!
I prepared for this class by creating a couple of journals from what was in the studio. I created several journals from grocery bags and packing paper, book covers, and recycled box cardboard with hand-sewed bindings. I created a video to show the kinds of ordinary papers I have used for my nature journals. But here is a great blog post from the Graphic Fairy on how to do this if you want to create your own journal from things you already have.
I took a live Zoom class by Jeanne Oliver called Capturing the In-Between. I really enjoyed the essence of this class: life is full of in-between moments, time waiting to pick up prescriptions, the time before picking up kids from school, and the time before the baby wakes. Quite simply, this is the time to capture to practice your art. Sketching for 15 min. or doing a contour drawing for 10 min. means that you eventually put in over a week’s time an hour or two of practice. So if you think about it over a month how would you feel about drawing? More confident right? Doing little things = creating bigger things and in this case more art. Simplicity and practicality, were just the jumpstart and inspiration I needed this spring. Below are a few of the results of contour drawing (not lifting your pencil AT ALL) and then adding watercolor.
As you can see I had a great time! I gessoed my page ahead of time and printed out good quality reference materials from the library that were provided with the class. The top two are just contour sketches and the bottom two I added watercolor. I really love the effect of the watercolor on the gesso all the blooms and pooling are just how it dried which gave lots of texture and dimension to my simple sketches. The poppy was done from the screen from a reference picture Jeanne had beside her as she did her sketches. These journals ar rough and simple but I love them!
NEW Resources in my Shop
The other thing that I have been up to is my side gig! I have finished off a few more resources. Whether you are a homeschooling family or a teacher, I hope they will be helpful in your classroom this spring. I am always integrating art with other subjects and as you can see I have put together a lesson for math and art I think you will love! If you love nature study then the Nature Study Cards would be a wonderful addition to your classroom as well and they could easily be used as reference material for your nature sketching too. Get them individually or all 4 in a bundle.