post 998 - one more go at the cards

i repainted the cards one more time using what jeanne dobie calls transparent colors in her north light book making colors sing and i think they do ...what do you think????

lighthouses transparent colors


lighthouses nontransparent colors

sanddunes transparent colorssanddunes nontransparent colors


SOOO what do you think...which colors are better???? can YOU tell a difference...i know i can on the computer monitor..i love the transparent colors.....thank you Jeanne!!!

Summer fruit

Bought some strawberries and blueberries yesterday for my son to feed into the ever whirring blender for smoothies with EWUUUU WWWW whey...he drinks them round the clock...
Painted in my moleskine wc tablet with DS WC....I scraped some of the highlights into them with the box cutter....all purpose tool!
I think this one needs a shadow under it...I was just trying out layering colors on the back of another sketch with this one...but it turned out pretty well i think...i actually was patient for once and let the colors dry in between instead of adding more color while they were wet...

Requiem for three great trees

As some of you know we had a wild storm Monday...I painted this picture to remember three of the biggest and mightiest that are meeting thier sad fate with the chain saw right now...I guess they will keep us warm this winter but these enormous trees shouldnt be firewood...so which way do you like it better?

So do you like it vertically or horizontally? I painted it horizontally and threw some salt on the watery background....leaves l-r sycamore, white oak, water oak(70 feet easy and uprooted from the ground!)


This is a picture of posing bad kitty before the storm ...he was enjoying lollying on the back deck till the howling winds and rain hit....this cat has more poses in him than a paid model! and since hes an outside cat there is always a great view of him on the deck to watch his antics...

roses roses roses and a dog...

so i decided to skip three steps on the stairs today and try to break my right leg...dont worry...i landed on my too fat knee not the knee cab...and so far its just bruised...hopefully tomorrow I will not feel worse as all my friends are predicting so i have been sitting around freezing it to death with ice and keeping it raised...good opportunity for painting...and this is what i did...
I do need to paint and draw him more...one sad day he will be gone...bytw hes a jack russell terrier...all his spots are on the other side..this side is all white but his ear...his mom was a white jack russell from england...the brits love JRs...i think Prince Charles has several...great dogs...




first this is our old dog charley not a pig:> hes a sweety and he can be as fat as he wants at 14 ...that would be hmmm 98 in our years....an OLDDD MAN which is exactly what he is...
Rose 3 attempt with salt on the background...daniel smith wc in my large wc moleskine
SO i painted the roses i bought two days ago to draw ...and oh my were they a pain..this is the THIRD painting...and i still need to work on the one leaf...top right ....but its far better than the first two tries at the same rose...i kept rearranging the leaves...artistic license...so we have rose 1, 2, and 3 for your viewing pleasure

Rose 1 attempt Rose #2 attempt

just time for sketching

but i will be coloring these sooner or later...my own coloring book:> These are dried out pigma pen (which were giving me a fit) in my wc molie...and i did mean to color them...sorta david hockney meets maggie in sc:> he did a wall full of his daschunds...still trying to think of something to do for the coin challenge


I sat waiting to do some paperwork the other day in cubby land thinking how mind numbing it must be to sit there all day with never another person to talk to in one of those all by yourself...funny story...there was a lady in the first cubby on the right...i couldnt see her...when she started talking i almost JUMPED out of my skin...VERY unexpected!

Jazz guarding the opposite direction for once...usually shes facing me so she can see what I am up tooo...


we have been worrying about Charley this week..hes just not acting like himself...he wont follow you around all the time...he wont sleep under your feet...like usual...he didnt go on a walk which he normally loves...and he sleeps in places he never used to sleep in.... This is a sketch of him doing something he usually does...stare at the door till someone lets him out...going to add some more sketches of this beloved dog on this page...if he ever gets up..hes upstairs sleeping with my son...one of his fav places to be...

the backyard tree frog

I was out on the back deck letting the dogs out last nite...they dont like to go down the stairs unless you fuss at them...and noticed this gorgeous green tree frog hanging out on one of the stair posts looking for dinner...

he was very obliging...he waited while i went in to get my wc molie...and sat there letting me draw him...

he even let me draw him twice ...second one from a different angle...showing more of the frog...i do wish i turned on the light when i drew this one...

this is him from two different angles...not sure why his head is so different in each one other than I didnt turn on the porch light and it was getting dark....hes done with my derwent wc pencils... and some real cp that are mixed up in that box...fun stuff...

I also looked him on the net...so i could journal about him...found out hes Ga And LA state frog..hes found thruout the southeast generally near water swamps or ponds and lives in the bushes near it...they also like porches when the lights are on...they are up to 2.5 inches...this one was a big one...and the big ones are usually male...

When i was younger we used to go camping on the beach at Hunting Island state park (that was before i married dh for the afore mentioned beach house:>)..its right across the sound from Edisto...ANYWAY the beachhouse walls were always covered with these...seemed like hundreds...eating the skeeters..the state bird of SC!

two down and one to more than i am caught up

well its summer and what says summer to us is the BEACH....after all i am the girl who married her dh for his family's beach house...:> ...did i say we love Edisto Island...oops i mean its a terrible place and you DONT want to go there:>

I think i like this one much better this morning than i did last nite...the cloud is kinda neat...did it with salt which is why it has all those nuances of color...the salt seems to lighten the color wherever it lands...wicking up the paint i am sure.

the second one is kind of a memory painting...when my mother was here this weekend...she said that my grandmother used to say "Clothes should be like barbed wire-protect without ruining the view" which i thought was sage but funny...so heres a wc for you gramy!

this one was done fairly quickly as i did not want to destroy the pure colors of the fields and mt...i threw salt on it to make the grass seed heads...I wish it had been wetter when i did it...especially toward the middle. the only thing i dont like is the post...it was too late to be futzing around with it...may try it again and leave a white space for the post...sky did great...did it in less than a minute...one pass and it was done...i also like all the little fingers of color where it was not quite dry..more wicking...cool effect!

a couple of late may posts

well i made it to day 25 and then...company for memorial day...my antique parents...my son came home from school to study for the bar...other than that NOT much going on here...so sketching went by the way side...i did finish two socks...does that count??!

ALso finished up the last week of school..its out ...hallelujah!!!! two months of freedom to lol in the pool, sew and paint and draw...funnnnn and do a little gardening?!

So i just did jazz this morning while she was snoozing on the back of a quilt...love that fabric on the back of this quilt...which is the side shes snoozing on.... i had fun playing with the shadows on this one...i dont know if you can see them..they are all brights like lime, turquoise, and yellow and then a lilac with a bit of blue violet to sharpen the eges of the shadows....fun stuff...felt like i was degas:>

I decided to experiment and use the stitch feature to get rid of the seam in the picture...now shes an even shorter fatter dog...lol...this is the last reiger painting ...they are going in the ground till fall in just a little while...had to wait till it got hot out to dig in the dirt...my bad....pen and ink on hmmm whatkind of wc paper...dunno right now...daniel smith...the pigma pen as bleeding for some reason or other...who knows why...i used salt on the background...liked that effect very much...and alot of quin pink...no I am NOT going to spell that word...but it did make a yummy purple...

So there are only SEVEN days to go...

funny to think when this challenge is over school will be over too...at least till AUG 13....yahoo:>


and for those of you who are counting..theres another sketch but its only half way done...really bad...or should i say scratchy...will finish it up tonite and post it tomorrow...anyone who has ever taught school KNOWS that the last week of school is just hectic crazy and exhausting...we had a cookout picnic for the kindergartners today...i fixed the hotdogs BUT I drew the line at parents who said i want ketchup mustard and relish ..not even a please...told them adults fixed their own...and sweat was dripping down our faces in the hot bald sun.....not too sanitary...but they were only looking at the hotdogs....
Jazz sleeping on the sofa...and i joined her as soon as i put my paint brush down!!
These are some drawings from my after school class: a purse with a doodle and some classmates who were looking good until i smeared the gel pen i was using...guess what room our class is in?

So we have made it to day 19!!!

I could not find anything stone or rock no matter how i looked this weekend...drove 60 miles round trip and saw one small rock outcropping on the side of the road AND this church in McCormick SC...its a very charming smallish stone church...the church is all a yellowy stone held together with cement...everything else was big chunks of granite or railroad bed...nothing interesting as this church so here it is:>


And boy the scanner is giving me a fit...maybe its getting tired??? All of this work its had to do this month:>

no idea the denomination of the church....this is as fancy as it gets in McCormick SC!:> Probably methodist or presbyterian since its NOT the biggest church in town!

Saturday and Sundays paintings

still trying to catch up..this is may 12 and 13....hmm if i stay one ahead though i can take a day off right:> this is a wc off the graduate relaxing after graduating from law school with honors and highest distinction AND staying up all nite...well most of the nite...relaxing...

the view out his apartment window...everywhere you looked there were paintable views in the city...you could just put a stool down kerplunk and turn out a great painting...this would have beeennn better if it were larger and painted when i drew it...same goes for drews painting above...

ok so this is another mothers day offering...I drew ever watchful jazz on the her perch on the back of the sofa...she will tell you shes one of my kids...my furkid:> she loves a quilt...all my quilts are jack russell approved:> Happy Mothers Day to all the furkids moms too:>!!