Day 287 – Mingus Mill

April 22, 2015April 22, 2015Leave a comment

just before the Oconaluftee Visitors Center in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park .

This statement is wrong : I thought it still was a working mill but the wheel seems to be missing. Did some reading on the Mingus Mill on Wikipedia. There was never a waterwheel but it has some kind of small metal turbine wheel that drives the mill stones. It is still a working mill. It underwent a second restoration in 1968.

You can buy ground corn meal and a t shirt. The money all goes to support the park. It is the only park that doesn’t charge admission so it needs additional funding to help with such programs as fighting the woolie aedelgid which is decimating the Eastern Hemlock. Dead hemlocks parade thru the Appalachians killed by this bug and the park service is engaged in a deadly battle with them treating 5000 infested hemlocks this year alone.

Watercolor in my Stillman and Birn Zeta.

But back to Mingus Mill, a very interesting old building that sits back in the woods. It was restored in 1937. The steps are old mill wheels. The mill race is still gushing with water.

You have to cross a small stream to visit the mill. Very picturesque setting.

Bishops Cap

There are some lovely wildflowers there.

Canadian violets with a wild orchis or orchid near the mill.

The mill painting is painted with the same colors as yesterday’s painting.
Paint the background first. Sky and leaves. Streak in the background trees with soft greys and Blues after it dries. The foreground tree limbs are darker to make the background recede.

Thanks for looking.

Day 286 – The Tree on the Oconaluftee River

April 20, 2015April 21, 2015Leave a comment

My 101st post on my new blog. Loving WordPress. But I digress.

Back to that tree.

I actually let friends in FB and IG vote if I should color this sketch or not. All the votes but one were to color so I did.

This is an old tree on the banks of the Oconaluftee River that runs by the visitors center in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. It was drawn with brown de Artrementis Document ink and one of my Noodlers. Love that flex nib. In my Stillman and Birn Zeta.

So here it is done. I started with the background first washing but with cerulean and dabs of spring green and viridian. The trees are all combos of indigo and burnt umber or raw Sienna. I used some leftover greens on the big tree trunk.
Trees in the background are streaks of greys.

The rhododendrons are spring green and ultramarine with indigo for the darks. I used a scraper to regain some of the lost reflections.

Dirt burnt umber and splots of indigo.

The river. Well like the rhododendrons that was a trial too. Splotchy blues and greens. Starting with light blue and darkening it down with darker blue. “Rocks” are indigos and greys. Usually you paint water lighter the farther away you get but I was trying to get down of it foamy hence the lighter areas of color.

Ps white gouache fixed an odd squared off angle on the right side of the legs tree trunk. What was I thinking!?

Thanks for looking.

Day 286 Another Accordion Book

April 19, 2015April 20, 20152 Comments

Sennelier USK journal book.

Kuretake brush pen till it ran out. Then my Pentel brush pen. It was colored with Tombow markers and watercolor and flesh Winsor newton gouache.

TIP: The flesh gouache makes painting skin tones easy! No mixing so no fuss.

This one has been completed since earlier this week. I was saving it for the weekend to post.

Most of it was drawn at the local walking track or dog park.

The stroller was amazingly easy to draw with a brush pen. A few stokes zip zip and done.

The last half was drawn while patting in my car in the Earthfare parking lot starting with the lady in the black and white dress.

Earthfare

The entire strip. About 36″ long. Nice heavy paper. You could draw on the back but you would not have a lot of paper length which is part of what makes these books fun.

Thanks for looking!!

Day 285 – headin home.

April 19, 2015Leave a comment

Hallelujah. I am ready to sleep in my bed.

The park the old cabins the wildlife were charming but it’s zoe time!!!

I have at least ten pages of sketches done however no pics.

So here’s a few of the inner bean. I will be there soon.

Day 284 – powers out!!

April 18, 2015April 18, 20152 Comments

Out riding thru the Cataloochee Valley. Lots of animals. Barns old houses.

Beautiful scenery.

Methodist church Oconoluftee

Preacher man Beau

Chasing elk geese chickens and a turkey or two!

Oconoluftee

The chimneys

Turkey near Sugarlands.

Day 283 – Cataract Falls Part 2

April 16, 2015Leave a comment

These waterfalls are hard to paint. The water doesn’t roar over the black rocks but it trickles. Today with all the rain we have had I bet it’s more than a trickle. All the creeks are roaring filled with water.

This is what it looked like when I left the falls. I did draw it on site. I think there was too much ink on the water to let the white show thru.

This is what it looked like after I added some white gouache. I think it was too thick. So I started to scratch it off.

And this is what it looks like for now. I think I would rather draw the people at the falls than that darn waterfall. But it is a gorgeous spot with an easy walk from the Sugarlands Visitor center.

Schminke gouache Noodler Creeper Ahab caran d’ache in my Stillman and Birn Zeta.

Thanks for looking.

Day 282 – Cataract Falls

April 15, 2015April 15, 20152 Comments

Took a nice walk behind the Sugarlands Visitor Center to Cataract Falls.

The waterfalls are difficult to draw with water threading over dark black rock. I am going to add some white gouache to the water to see if it perks it up a little. It was drawn with my Noodler Ahab in my S&B Zeta with caran d’ache.

I could not resist drawing the lady who was there taking pics of it. She had such an intersting stance I could not resist. Then she started talking to me. Scary!! What if she wanted to look?!

We even photographed a white trillium together.

There were yellow trillium everywhere along the trail.

The trail was loaded with flowers and

a small black snake.

It wound along by Fighting Creek.

A lovely easy trail.

Thanks for looking.

Day 282 – Running out of ink!

April 14, 20153 Comments

and some more food sketching.

Brownie and chocolate chip ice cream desert at the Wild Plum Tea Room. I think I might be obsessed with food but it was delicious served on a sweet pink and white rose china plate including a doily.

I used my kuretake brush pen and a pitt pen plus caran d’ache.

Need to add something to the title. Maybe a plum because I didn’t space the lettering out enough.

A warning about the kuretake brush pen. I love it. I got a converter for it too but it runs out very quickly when doing a large sketch like this one with all the black line work. I think I refilled it three times in the process. My Pentel brush pen which I left back at home would still be full of ink. I guess it’s a small price to pay for being able to use platinum carbon black ink in a brush pen but it’s annoying to refill so frequently.

The other day I went out sketching and ran out of ink. It was especially great for sketching trees but I ran out before I could finish.

Now I have to drive back up the mountain and finish this. To make the scenario perfect I left my Pentel brush pen at home 234 miles away. Not fun to refill the pen with a bottle of ink in the car. Sigh!

Thanks for looking!!

Day 281 – The Wild Plum Tea Room

April 13, 20152 Comments

Lunch on a deck over a streams surrounded by flowering trees. Spring at its best in Gatlinburg.

Great charming ambience, terrific food on assorted old china plates. Wait staff is fabulous.

This place won a well deserved Trip Advisor award of excellence in 2014. We will go back maybe even tomorrow!!

I need to draw their lobster pie. Mike high lobster pie!!

Desert was a gooey brownie sundae with chocolate chip ice cream with a wedge of pineapple. I still have to paint it.

This is colored with caran d’ache crayons over a watercolor base done with the crayons. Inked with my trusty Kuretake brush pen filled with Carbon Platinum black ink.

Wish I had a few more things flowing over the border. Maybe I will cut something out and stick a few leaves on it?! Probably not. On to the next picture.

Thanks for looking.

Day 280 -Making Accordion Books

April 12, 2015April 12, 20152 Comments

Why make them?? Because they are the easiest book to make because no sewing is involved.

And because you can do this with them.

My Sennelier USKsketchbook.

Nice heavy paper but only one length of paper. Too short. Another reason to make one. Dull black cover.

210″ small Moleskine accordion

Or the famous moleskines. Again a dull black cover. Great length but the paper is terrible now that they are outsourced to China. Watercolor and pens will bleed they to the back so you can’t use it.

So now that we know why we need to make one lets get started and gather our supplies.

Supplies

Book board or heavy cardboard

2-3 sheets of All purpose paper such as Stonehenge.

PVA glue

Fabric for the covers – cotton muslin or sateen

Bone folder

Rulers

Pencil

Exacto knife or carton cutter

Optional

Self healing mat

Parchment paper. Glue won’t stick to it.

Let’s get started!

Sorry not to have better photos. I am out of town. No wifi no fabric or glue. I will update this when I return home hopefully next weekend showing how to cover the book board.

Measure the width of the paper.

Divide the width of the paper by 3 or 4. I made books ranging from 5″ – 7 1/2″ tall. I got three to four strips out of each piece of paper.

Most books are 3 1/2″ x 5 1/2″ tall or 5″ x 7 1/2″ size.

Folding the paper

Measure and mark your strips. It’s easiest to cut them with the Exacto knife or a rotary cutter but I like the look of ripped paper edges.

Ripping the paper.

An easy way to get the torn edges is to fold your paper across the width and crease it with the bone folder. Then SLOWLY slide the bone folder along the crease ripping the paper. Roz Stendahl (Www.rozwoundup.typepad.com) has a you tube video on how to do this. http://youtu.be/pzlXHZ0f3kg Amazingly easy.

The paper accordion folded.

Next fold your strips in half. Crease with the bone folder. Mark your fold lines either every 3 1/2″ or every 5″. Fold like a fan or accordion.

Joining the pieces. There will be a tab of extra paper left on each end of your strips. Remove the tab from one end. Cut the other tab down to a 1/2″. You will use this to glue the strips together.

PUT THE GLUE ON THE BACK OF THE STRIP WITHOUT THE TAB AND GLUE THE TAB TO IT. AS IN THE PHOTO.

BE SURE YOU GLUE ALL THE STRIPS TOGETHER ON THE SAME SIDE OR YOU WILL HAVE SOME TABS ON BOTH SIDES. YOU WANT THEM ALL ON ONE SIDE.

If this frustrates you you can also use Washi tape to join your paper.

You can glue as many strips as you want together. The small moleskines have 210″ of thin Chinese paper in them!! The larger moleskines have 124″ of thin Chinese paper.

Just remember that heavier the paper is the fatter the book.

Cut the cardboard covers 1/4″ bigger than your paper strips. Cut your fabric about 2″ bigger than your cardboard pieces.

Spread glue on the board evenly. Be sure to cover the whole board. and apply the fabric. Smooth the fabric with your bone folder removing any wrinkles and bubbles in the fabric.

Mitering corners /Gluing sides. OPPS a wrinkle.

(This photo is from a tutorial I did on how to make a pamphlet stitch sketch book.http://scquiltaddict.blogspot.com/2014/10/day-96-sketchbook-part-2.html?m=1)

Miter and glue the corners. Trim the fabric diagonally down before you fold and glue the corners.

Neatly glue the sides down.

Glue the paper to the covers. (I am not happy with the wrinkly paper. In later books I glued paper over the fabric covered board to make the end papers smoother.

You are done. 👍 See not so hard.

This webpage has great instructions with pictures. http://www.designsponge.com/2013/03/bookbinding-101-accordion-book.html

Thanks for looking!!