READ THE APRIL 8TH POST FIRST AND THEN READ THE TOP ONE, APRIL 9TH.

Well, duh! I just went to view my own blog and realized that the top blog dated April 9th is a continuation of the blog that is dated April 8th. Actually, I finished the April 8th one just now and posted it. Then I added on the box cover so there was a visual of the "INKTENSE." In my mind I view the blog like a book where the most recent comes below what has already been read. It's the opposite with the blog. I just plain forgot. It's another learning experience on the learning curve of blogging.

Yep, starting a new post did the trick. My daughter Emma warned me that this program has a few frustrating oddities.

My conclusion about both the "INKTENSE" pencils and the "NeoColor II" crayons is that I SO WANT TO BUY THE BIGGEST BOX WITH ALL THE COLORS!!! I'll be saving my pennies....well maybe dollars would be more realistic.

I thought people might want to read the inspiration for all this cosmic dance stuff I've been doing. I read at least half of Thomas Merton's books years ago. The cosmic dance vision has literally been dancing in my mind ever sense. His description of the cosmic dance is in his book, "Seeds of Contemplation." Over the years I've collected quotations that relate to that theme. Before I went to the "Letters California Style" conference in February I spent a day pulling them all together. All the quotations are ones I hope to put into a finished book. When that day comes, I'll be sure to report it on my blog.

FROM SEEDS OF CONTEMPLATION BY THOMAS MERTON

"If we could let go of our own obsession with what we think is the meaning of it all, we might be able to hear His call and follow Him in His mysterious, cosmic dance. We do not have to go very far to catch echoes of that game, and of that dancing. When we are alone on a starlit night; when by chance we see the migrating birds in autumn descending on a grove of junipers to rest and eat; when we see children in a moment when they are really children; when we know love in our own hearts; or when, like the Japanese poet Basho we hear an old frog land in a quiet pond with a solitary splash---at such times the awakening, the turning inside out of all values, the "newness," the emptiness and the purity of vision that make themselves evident, provide a glimpse of the cosmic dance."

THE DANCE DONE WITH "INKTENSE-ITY"

I thought I'd have one last go around with the "Cosmic Dance" theme. At least this will be all I intend to post here before I get into some serious art making of a final piece.

The piece above was done with another water soluble product put out by Derwent: "INKTENSE" pencils. They put out exactly what they claim which is intense, vibrant color that looks like and handles like liquid ink. Actually, I've had to learn not to apply really heavy coats of pencil so that the color isn't too dark in places I want it lighter. The color doesn't look that dark when it's applied dry. So, the tendency is to really lay it on thick. I suggest experimenting with these before trying to use them in a finished piece.

I did the above artwork on a piece of Arches cover stock paper. Previously I had only used the pencils on Arches text wove. I did not like the result as well on the cover stock. I think that's because that paper is very soft. It did not take the pencil as well nor did the colors seem as intense when I wet brushed them. It also tended to fuzz up like a wool sweater that pills.

Maybe the Arches text wove worked better because it has a harder surface. It accepted more pencil pigment. Why this happens, I'm not sure. Maybe it's a bit more abrasive because of it's textured, hard surface. The colors seemed to come out brighter also. Again because the paper isn't as absorbent as the cover stock, more pigment stayed on the surface. Just guessing here.

I scanned the top of the "INKTENSE" box so you could have a visual of what it looks like. But, the blogging program won't let me add a picture. I'm just going to end this post and start a new one. Apparently, I need to add the pictures before I start the writing. This is yet another step in my experimenting. I find the computer stuff the most daunting!!

THE END OF THE TULIP PROJECT

This project has lasted longer that the vase of flowers did! I finally had to throw the yellow tulips out a few days ago. I really wish that I had a photo of them just to complete my record. But then again, why? I've lived my moments with the yellow tulips and now it's time for the next moment.

Actually, I could say that I've danced with the yellow tulips. Remember the theme I started with? The cosmic dance.

In the top picture you can see the result of brushing the "NeoColor" with water. I hadn't applied the color very heavily. The result is a bunch of washed out green and yellow.

Once it was dry, I applied more of the "NeoColor" except this time I used blue and brown as well as the original yellow and green. You can see the results in the second picture. The color livened it up a bit but the whole piece is still pretty flat.

My first reaction is to blame the artist. Blame? That's harsh. What's to blame? This was an experiment and practice at something new. My intention was to renew my resolve to practice drawing more. This color play just made it a little more interesting.

I'm still learning how to apply the "NeoColor" most effectively. Also, the "NeoColor" crayons aren't exactly fine art tools. Perhaps I shouldn't expect too much from them. Don't know though. I'm thinkin' they can be a pretty useful item for certain applications.

Remember the brilliant colors they gave in the very first experiment for this blog? I was pretty wowed by the results.

What's the difference between the projects? Well, duh! The paper I used probably would account for the less than satisfactory result in the tulip drawing. The Cosmic Dance was done on Arches Text Wove, which is a quality art paper. The tulips were drawn in my sketch book which is just blah, cheap stuff.

Next contour drawing I plan to do on watercolor paper. I think I should be able to do a better job of achieving more depth and variation of color, even with my little box of eight colors.

KIND OF A TANGLED MESS,

BUT I LEARNED A LOT

I attempted doing my idea of laying in contour shapes with my "NeoColors." I used yellow for the tulip blooms and green for the leaves. It ended up being kind of frustrating. The yellow was a little light to follow my marks as guides for the next lines. I started getting all mixed up about where I was. I didn't get the tulips placed in the right spots and that led to having a hard time placing what I hadn't drawn yet.. I was about half way through when I became officially lost. Keeping the lines of the stems and leaves all straight was crazy. All that green and all those lines. How in the world do people manage to do those botanical drawings? They definitely have a skill and level of patience that I do not have!

That kind of thought always leads me to wonder if I should be doing art. It seems a "real" artist should at least like to draw. Am I still an artist if I don't like to draw? That question has bothered me since I first took drawing classes in the 1970's. Sometimes I draw and actually come up with some nice little things to incorporate into my fairy cards. Does that count? I guess it should. And if I just keep at it, will I grow to like drawing? Is that possible? I like the idea of it so I'll just keep at it.

Back to the tulips. At the point when I had finally drawn the complete vase of tulips with the "Neo's" I should have scanned the page so that stage could be recorded. But in my frustration I forgot to do that. I was so annoyed at the drawing that I decided to try doing black contour drawing over it. I was determined to get it right. Over my fiasco of a first drawing I carefully drew a second drawing of the flowers in black fine point marker. It actually turned out pretty well. I felt like maybe I was actually improving a bit. You can see the first try in yellow and green. It was interesting to me how off I was on the first drawing attempt. In the drawing above you can actually see that I was much more accurate the second time when I drew with black.

Next post will be of the same drawing except I will have gone in with water and brushed all the water soluble "Neo-Crayon." My hope is the yellow will wash into the blooms and the green into the stems and leaves part. I could toss it. But, you never know. One of my goals in doing this blog is to experiment without expectation.

On with the water wash.

DANCING WITH TULIPS

I'm still on this dancing with the cosmos theme. This is a sample of just a little dance I did with a beautiful bunch of yellow tulips that my neighbor gave me last week. They just make my spirit dance with the teaser of Spring. Even though it's not officially the first day of Spring, doesn't a display of tulips make it official enough?

Ever since I attended Nancy Culnome's retreat at Bell Ranch over a year and a half ago, I have intended to do a drawing a day. She got us going every day by doing a simple drawing, mostly contour. She promised that doing this daily would make us get better and better at drawing. Well, guess how good I got. Up until this drawing of tulips I've probably done maybe five drawings. I did this one a couple of days ago. Maybe doing a drawing a week might be more of a goal to aspire to. Drawing isn't my favorite thing. But ya know what? Once I just do it I actually get lost in the lines and don't mind it so much. And when it's all done, I really like the simple, kinda primitive shapes the lines create.

I think tomorrow that I'll give the tulips another whirl and get the new favorite "NeoColor" crayons out. I will lay in some shapes. Then I'll go back over the areas with water/watercolor brush to form more defined flowers, leaves, and stems. Maybe after it dries I'll go in with a black marker and do contour lines. Not sure yet. I'm excited to add color to the drawing. Of course anyone who knows me wouldn't be surprised.

Another thing about drawing is it takes time. I have trouble devoting time to just sitting and drawing. How counter is that to the idea of being an artist? That's just plain crazy thinking. I am the same way about taking time to meditate. I know it would help me in so many ways but....but what? Isn't life about making quality time doing...well doing what? Doing things like the art I love and slowing down enough to mindfully doing it. I think I need to go meditate on this.......

I'll post my yellow tulips in full color when I get the drawing done.....now? Tomorrow? Does it really matter when? Oh my, I'm getting way to cosmic. I'm off for a bath, a read, and a bed.

THE BOOK PLAN PROGRESSES

"a cosmic experiment"

Pictured above is the mock up booklet I pieced together.

Note: "mock up" means a general idea of the concept, there are things that need to changed on a final, fooling around to see what works.

Now that I've gotten that established I can say a little about the booklet. The book has two signatures. Each signature has two sheets folded in half which means there are 8 pages. The whole booklet has sixteen pages. The signatures are sewn into the wrap around cover. The third picture shows the pleat in the cover paper where each signature is sewn through. Kind of hard to explain so you'll have to take my word for it. That purple strip down the middle is a pleat in the cover. The left image is the last page of the first signature and the right image is the first page of the second signature. Too technical? Just enjoy the colors and don't worry about the book construction. If I get a gazillion requests for the construction instructions, maybe I'll blog that too.

The images above show you five of the pages. I found that the wonderful intense color of the design made it difficult to write words so they are readable. Dang! I'm going to have to tone down the color so the black writing shows up better. Or, I could write some pages in white. I'll experiment with it but I'm not sure that will be a solution that works well. Or, I could forget the quotations and people can just enjoy the color of the pages! I'm not sure what I'll do.

I wrote the words with a black Pitt Pen size small. I think I'd like it better if I wrote with a edged nib. That's not quite as quick and dirty but it would probably look better than mono line.

I'm a little nervous about writing on the "good" pages. I worry I'll not space correctly and run out of space before the quotation is finished. I could do an overlay with layout paper. But then it looses the spontaneity of scribbling into the little journal book. Maybe it's gone beyond being just a little personal book and I need to be more planned and careful. Hummm......I have two complete sets to dabble in. I can always make more if I goof up. Right? And as I learned in my class at the calligraphy conference in California, "there's always gesso." I can just gesso over it and write again! I can do this!

I do really like the texture of the double center spread which is the second image above. I like it covering the whole universe, opps, I meant page. I like the black guide lines that repeat down the page. I'm also happy about the size of the book. There was space for almost all of the quotations I can wanted to include. The ones that got left out weren't my top choices for this book anyway. I was able to write in all of my favorites. That in itself was satisfying. This little book actually holds a galaxy of text. By the way the final size of the book is open flat 6 1/2" X 5 3/4 and closed, size of one page is 3 1/4" X 5 3/4". It's pretty small.

By the way, I have wonderful covers for the other two final versions. I painted more papers that are the same style as the pages.

More to come. I don't know just when but am excited to go play with them.

ENJOYING A SECOND CHILDHOOD

an update on a 5 year old's favorite pasttime

I have been indulging myself in color these past several weeks. On my recent trip to visit my daughter, Emma, in Ohio I packed a 10-color tin of a new art medium discovery: CARAN D'ACHE "NEOCOLOR water soluble" crayons. They are my new favorite toy of choice.

We did a lot of walking, talking, and eating while in Columbus, OH. I enjoyed every minute of my time with Emma and Scott, her husband. But, every spare moment I had I found myself scribbling designs with a black "Sharpie" marker, coloring them in as fast as I could with the "NEOCOLORs", and relishing every moment of applying water over the color. Oh my! What sizzling, vibrant, glowing color! The process is magic and, be hereby warned, addicting.

Above are samples of the "NEO-colored" design before the application of water and the final blazing design after the crayon was washed with water. I was preparing the front and back of multiple papers because I am going to use them as book pages.

For this book project I am planning to write quotations about "the cosmic dance." Thomas Merton wrote wonderful words describing how we are all part of "the cosmic dance." I have other quotations of a similar nature to also include in the book. I wanted the design of the pages to have a cosmic/universe feeling to them. Thus I chose stars, swirls, and galaxy type images.

I first drew the designs on one side of the paper (Arches Text Wove) with a black "Sharpie" marker. I then colored in the spaces with "NEOCOLOR." I only have a small set so my palette was limited. So sad! I didn't let that stop me. I combined the colors in some places which resulted in quite a variety of color when the water blended them all together. You can see places in the images above where I did this. Doing this was definitely part of the magic. There was a learning curve in getting the color blending I wanted but, experimenting was part of the fun.

On the back of the paper I did not draw a design. I just randomly scribbled color on. I was mindful of which colors I put down next to each other. Knowing how colors mix is pretty essential to avoiding a paper that is all brown! eg. I didn't lay green next to red. When they blended the result is....yep....brown. You will notice in the samples that the black marker from the front often bled through to the back. That turned out pretty cool. I did want some pages without bold design so that I had pages with more space for writing text. I was pleased with the softer effects I got on the back side of the paper.

The next step was washing the dry crayon with water. On the front designs I was very careful to spread the water within the black lines. I tried not to let the colors bleed into an adjacent space. If it did, it wasn't a big deal. In other pieces I might want to be more careful. But for this project, it didn't matter. I used a good brush with a good point and good spring. (Winsor and Newton Series 7, #1)

As I painted each area I sprinkled coarse salt onto the color before it dried. I didn't put salt everywhere but in selected areas. My intent was to make a sparkle effect. It worked! I loved doing this so much that I probably over did the salt but....I was really into it.

On the back side I used a large paint brush. (2" cheap house painting brush) I just wanted a nice wash of color and I wanted it all blended together.

Thus is the report of my first project with the "NEOCOLORs". It was fun. It was portable. I worked on it flying on the airplane, in the airport, at Emma's....yes, portable.

I will post some book pages when I get started on those. I've got to do some planning and experiments. That part won't be quite as carefree as my time as the "crayon kid."

TRAVELING ART STUDIO

I just got back from visiting my daughter, Emma, and her husband in Columbus, Ohio. It was the perfect opportunity to try my newest idea of carrying my portable, travel light, art studio. I decided that I would create with the materials I could fit into a small accordion file. I must say, it was a very successful dry run in managing to do artwork without dragging an entire suitcase along with an arsenal of "just in case I need it" items.

Whenever we weren't walking, eating, or otherwise engaged in being Columbus tourists, I was drawing and painting with my new 8 stick set of the "NEOCOLOR II" watersoluble crayons.

With that teaser I will end for tonight. My first attempts to upload images of my artwork which I had scanned into photoshop were aborted. I finally realized I need to save the files as TIF or JPG. I'll need to consult my mentor on this one.....Emma.....help! I'll get the technical things worked out and look forward to doing a post full of colored images.

For now, I head off satisfied that I have managed my first solo post after my tutorial Emma gave me when I was in Columbus. Yeah!

And The Day Finally Arrived

After talking about starting a blog for at least three years, TODAY, yes, today I am writing my first official post. I am on vacation, visiting my daughter. I'm writing on her computer. I'd love to post a picture but since I'm not at home I don't have access to my artwork on my home computer.

My intention for this blog is to track the process and completion (or not!) of my creation of artwork. The purpose of this documentation is two fold.

1. To help me keep my creative focus

2. To allow interested friends to view what I'm up to

Hopefully this blogging will be fun for both myself and anyone else who reads my posts.

Welcome to my blog. The long time dream goes to a new level.