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 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 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!!

Day 278 – The Flying Biscuit

April 11, 2015April 12, 2015Leave a comment

Staying in Gatlinbirg with no wifi. Should be interesting. Going to see if this will post. I can see a wifi tower so maybe it will go.

This is my breakfast at the world famous Flying Biscuit home of the creamy dreamy grits and mile high biscuits. Also as my friend Marsha says a vehicle to put butter in your mouth.

I drew the sketch with a Kuretake brush pen loaded with Carbon Platinum black. Love that pen. Think refillable Pentel brush pen. Heaven right.

I colored it with the Caran d’ache watercolor crayons. The bases are washes of watercolor using the caran d’ache crayons. Layers of color were scribbled on the base watercolors with any color that I thought would look good aka show up. After I was done painting I reapplied lots of ink including cross hatching.

The section where the name Flying Biscuit is written was a problem. The name didn’t show on the red background. So I scribbled a lot of lighter colors over the dark red and rewrote the words. Now they show up well.

Thanks for looking.

Day 277- Earls

April 10, 2015April 12, 20152 Comments

finishing up Atlanta sketches. As usual we hit the restaurants.

Earls on Flat Shoals Road in East Atlanta Village was the perfect spot for an outside lunch on a gorgeous spring day.

Hamburgers were cooked to order and delicious. Sweet potatoes fried were perfect and the Dijon cranberry dipping sauce was some kind of heaven. Tasted like it had a bit of horseradish sauce it it too. Yumm. The tea was just the way I like it. Lots of ice too.

I drew the sketch with a Kuretake brush pen loaded with Carbon Platinum black. Love that pen. Think refillable Pentel brush pen. Heaven right. I colored it with the Caran d’ache watercolor crayons. The bases are washes of watercolor using the caran d’ache crayons. Layers of color were scribbled on the base watercolors with any color that I thought would look good. After I was done painting i reapplied lots of ink including cross hatching.

The pale blue background was made by using a water brush on the flat end of the crayon. Fun stuff!!

I already filled up ️my Sennelier accordion book. No bleed thru so far. The paper is lovely heavy stuff. Will be posting as soon as I do an accordion book tutorial and color the Sennelier.

Thanks for looking!!

Day 276 Church Lady

April 10, 2015Leave a comment

sometimes I wonder why everything I seem to paint is full of problems that I have to solve. How is it that I screw up over and over. Maybe it’s the universe hinting I should go back to painting with acrylics!? I dunno.

I painted three ladies or manikin heads with fancy hats. Church Lady is the third one. I meant to post this one on Easter Sunday but got busy and didn’t quite get around to it. You notice that quote?! Life begins at the end of your comfort zone. That’s me and watercolor. Something is going to invariably mess up.

I painted her face THREE times. Can you believe that?! I truly did. I had a lovely face and was doing the letterig on the side and my pen caught on the string and slung blips of brown ink all over her face and a bit on her hat. Groan. That’s all I could do.

Here she is right before instarted the lettering. Worst thing is I hated the lettering when I had finished it. So I messed her up for nothing.

I painted over the ink splats with white gouache and never could get her face right. So I decided to cut out a new face. I did. I cut out three or four. One even ended up painted. It never laid down right so I peeled it off. Oh what a mess.

Finally I painted the remains of her original face out with Daniel Smith watercolor ground. The surface was ripped and lumpy. I thought hopeless.

I redrew her face with my Noodler flex non and De Artrementis brown document ink. I painted her face for the third time. Finally I pronounced her done. I lettered her with a brush and the brown ink. I also painted out the quote with yellow gouache. I thought church ladies was a lot more fun than that quote which ended up I the border. Oh I highlighted the hat and the eyes with white gel pen.

Oh. I made a few more accordion books. That make seven. Stay tuned for a how to on the accordion books.

Love that new Kuratake refillable pen in the picture . Now loaded with platinum carbon black ink. Super pen. Busy drawing my way thru my new S&B Zeta. Still need to paint them.

Thanks for looking.