Paintbox + Velcro + Bookmark

While watching a video by Free(k)hand showing one of his watercolor sketchbooks I spied a spread about his watercolor box holder and decided to make my own. While not as tidy as his, mine works great for my purposes. The box is an Altoids gum box, spray painted white on the inside with Rustoleum. I used double-sided carpet tape to adhere the half pans, filled with my favorite colors, to the box.

I located a metal bookmark and glued velcro to the head of the bookmark using Tough As Nails glue, and the companion side of the velcro is glued to the bottom of my paint box.

To use this little contraption when I'm out painting I simply take the bookmark out of the pocket in the back of my Moleskine and slip it onto a page of my notebook with the head sticking out at the top and fasten the paintbox to the bookmark and paint away, using a waterbrush.  How cool is that!

Surviving the storm

We were without power in a condo at the beach for 24 hours and 5 minutes and just about ready to call it quits when we noticed that some lights had come on in Cannon Beach and knew that ours would return soon. It was interesting to sit near south-facing windows against which 90 mph gusts were blasting off and on throughout the evening and night. Roads north were closed this morning so we went south looking for hot coffee and breakfast. The Wayfarer offered bacon and eggs but no way to make toast; we were happy with what we got.
I worked on journals most of the day, happy as could be to have heat from the gas fireplace and plenty of food in the fridge, but by 3:30 I was ready to move on to something else... maybe packing up and heading home.  Then the power returned and all thoughts of leaving this beautiful place vanished. The sun which warmed our day is down now, leaving behind a sky full of purple clouds with striking bits of orange peeking through here and there... so beautiful I can hardly stand it.

One journal I'm working on is for the Point & Shoot class... this one being the last of the November assignments. the word is juxtapose. I found three photos in my archive that tell a poignant story when viewed together. Tell me what you think.

Stormy Day Gray

Coastal Storm

It's not fit for man nor beast outside and I'm counting my blessings for a snug place to spend the day, for heat and electricity and plenty of food in the cupboard... and especially for a blank canvas and a few tubes of paint with which to record the many grays I see.  When the sky is such a whitish gray and the clouds are so low there isn't much definition anywhere. It's difficult to get the waves right when they change moment by moment, but I think you'll get the picture.  The only thing that could get me out of here today is a trip to Seaside to get some acrylic medium that's fresh and juicy to replace this dried up stuff I brought with me.

Conversations with Nature

These two paintings are the result of a workshop I took yesterday from Rebecca Wild, a local artist who often teaches for the Sitka Center near Lincoln City.  We cut simple stencils from contact paper and applied multiple layers of color and text on paper to create these small works. They're each about 5 x 7 inches.

This one with the 12 circles was done by cutting masking tape into nickel sized circles and sticking them in a pattern on tip of the painted paper. Then I worked back into the paper with powdered graphite and pastel, removed the tape and wrote a poem inside the circles about summer rain on the coast.

Point & Shoot Journal

Volunteers finish the lines and text of the mural.

The mural I’ve been working on this summer is finished and the sealer will be applied Monday. It’s been such a blessing to be able to work on this project, especially since my son was also working and it gave us extra time together. I wasn’t working every single moment but I did try to work 3 times a week and that practically eliminated my time or desire to do much other artwork of my own.

Now I’m back in the studio, this time concentrating on doing my assignments for an online course I’m taking from LK Ludwig, Point & Shoot Journaling. This is right down my alley, combining three loves: writing and photography and making pages in a visual journal. I signed up for both the October and November courses and as is my usual wont, I’m now doing the last lesson from October. I’m working in a 16 page journal made from one sheet of hot press watercolor paper that I painted on both sides with Bob Ross black gesso. I used the BR because it is thinner and cheaper than some others and spreads very well, drying quickly while retaining interesting patterns of visual texture. Here, I’ll show you some pages.

This one isn't in the Point and Shoot Journal; it's a 9x12 collage I made one day last month.