Le village de Loix

This is based on a photo I saw in Stéphane's magazine, Thalassa. It's part of an article about l'île de Ré, but since I'm only interested in this particular photo (other photos are prettier, but this one seems more manageable), I don't know anything the island other than that its coastline looks like the Caribbean's. Stéphane verified that it's a nice area in France.

Again, this drawing/painting doesn't do the photo justice, but I hope that it gives you some idea what the village is like.

Media: pencil, colored pencil, watercolor pencils.

Primulas

My attempt to mimic Judy Martin's drawing in "AOA Watercolor Pencils." I don't know the size of her original drawing, but I'm pretty sure that she didn't use hot-pressed watercolor paper. She had this almost crayon-like lines, making her drawing deceptively simple, while mine still has the clear pencil lines (and less intense).

My first experiene with hot-pressed watercolor paper:

1. The smooth surface is gentler to the pencils; pigment doesn't come off like crazy as with other watercolor paper. Also, it's easier for technical pens to glide.

2. It's harder to change once water is applied, but lines get resolved much better compared to non-watercolor paper.

Hot-pressed watercolor paper plus watercolor pencils might be my best bet for my travel journal, but it means that I'll have to either go with block or make my own journal book. I'll continue experimenting with various combination of media and paper.

Media: watercolor pencils.

David's Heart Is A Flower

David's doodle! :D

It's so cute that King Missile's "My Heart Is A Flower" (the song title and happy music only, not the silly, sexual lyrics :) pops into my mind. More importantly, it reminds me that drawing/painting should be fun.

Everyday as I looked at my empty sketchbooks, I struggled on what to draw/paint. I told myself to put down something better than yesterday, and somehow it gave me so much pressure that my mind went blank and I didn't know what to do except staring at it.

I am my own worst critic. The left brain is an expert on paralyzing my right brain. Always.

The only way to break that curse is to enjoy drawing/painting; the more fun I have, the less I care about my own harsh critic. Like a curious 6-year-old, too busy in exploring the world with all different lines and colors to care about what adults think. THAT is the right attitude for everyone to adopt when it comes to creat art, IMHO.

Media: ball point pen.

Flowers, Flowers

Yesterday after my gum surgery, I felt very sleepy but was unable to sleep. It made no sense to me, because the doctor did not drug me but only numb the left side of my mouth. Worse, my right brain decided to take a break and I was incapable of drawing or painting. I finally gave up trying and went to read "Prep" by Curtis Sittenfeld.

What a painful but excellent book! U.S. News & World Report said it well, "For everyone who wished that Holden Caulfield [, the protagonist of J.D. Salinger's "The Catcher in The Rye"] w[ere] a girl, your time has come with Prep." Personally I don't particularly like "The Catcher in The Rye"; Holden is such a looser that it's hard for me to be sympathetic with him. Lee Fiora, on the other hand, is so flawed but so real; she constantly reminded me of my miserable teenage years (And what on earth do I wanna do that?) and wish her all the best to survive the snotty Ault.

I've been working through Alwyn Crawshaw's "You Can Paint Watercolors" and 30 cherries later, I still couldn't get one perfect black cherry. (I managed to get 3 red cheeries close enough.) Very frustrating. So I went weeding instead. A couple of sweaty hours and a good shower later, I came back to work on wet-in-wet and flowers. Not all that happy with them, but everything (except apples) seemed to be easier than black cheeries. Imagine that.

Media: pencil, watercolor.

Boat, Day & Night

I improvised the book exercise in Alwyn Crawshaw's "You Can Paint Watercolors" and left the boat on the water throughout the day all by itself.

Even though the painting stinks, the colors themselves are pretty. Being a big sucker for the pretty colors, I guess the watercolor battle will continue for a long, long time.

Media: watercolor.

Flowers for David

Little watercolor flowers for my David. :)

These simple exercises came from Charles Reid's "Painting Flowers in Watercolor". I had to temporarily stop colored pencil drawing due to RSI; watercolor painting seemed less of a problem and I really wanted to play with it, so I was watercolor painting the whole day (and everything except those flowers sucked).

Watercolor painting is tough! Like UNIX, the initial learning curve is painful. Unlike pencils, colored pencils, or technical pens, one has to learn all the basic before being able to produce anything remotely decent. At our next trip, I'd like to apply nice watercolor along with other media in my sketchbooks, and that means I got a lot of homework to do.

Media: watercolor.

Strawberries

We have 2 kinds of strawberries in our garden: the edible kind on the left and the ornamental kind on the right. At this time of the year, they are all over our garden like Christmas lights, and the edible ones have filled the air with delicious fragrance.

The previous owners had only intended to plant the ornamental ones until the surprise showed up the following summer. I can't understand why; if I were the one making the choice, you bet that I wouldn't waste the time and effort on the ornamental ones.

Media: pencil, colored pencils, technical pens.

Domaine Ostertag

Stéphane, David, and I started our Alsace wine tasting tour at Domaine Ostertag on 12/09/2005. The hostess was quite friendly and knowledgable, and they produce nice everyday wine at a great price, IMHO.

Our favorite wineries during the trip are Domaine Marcel Deiss and Domaine Schoffit. To allow their terroir to shine through, these two domaines adopt completely different winemaking methods: While Marcel Deiss blends different grapes like the Southern Rhône, Schoffit uses single varietal for each bottle. Both domaines produce excellent wines and we could definitely taste different terroirs.

Alsace wine is at the top of my list, because it's so Asian food friendly (Gewurztraminer has lychee nose and loves spicy food) and their Grand Crus are such a bargain compared to Bourgogne and Bordeaux. Its only downside is that I can't pronounce (the impossible) German.

I drew this on a new sketchbook claiming that it could take wet media. I guess that it doesn't mean watercolor pencils, because the pencil marks didn't get resolved properly and I got a different (read: lousy) effect than expected. Next time, a proper watercolor sketchbook, not one of those multipurpose ones.

Media: pencil, watercolor pencils, colored pencils.

Fortnight Lily

In case you didn't know, summer arrived today. Our indoor thermometer indicated 82F at 7:02pm, 20F more than 6/10/2006. Wonder what spell those fortnight lilies put on me to make me draw their portrait for 2.5 hours, under the burning sun?

Fortnight lily (Dietes), surprisingly, is not lily, but a genus of plants of the family Iridaceae. No wonder that I couldn't find it under lily, and it explains why they look so much like iris. See what happened when I stop and drew the flower? I solved a puzzle that I didn't even know exist!

Media: pencil, colored pencils, technical pens, brush pen, watercolor.

White Clover

Voilà, finally a real nature sketch. This white clover is done in the style suggested in Cathy Johnson's "The Sierra Club Guide to Sketching in Nature": the subject, a close-up, some notes, and a small sketch of the location.

Originally I set out to draw magnolia, but got too overwhelmed and had to switch to something more manageable. Well, one day I'll come back and challenge it again.

Media: pencil, colored pencils, technical pen.

Woman In Thoughts

I think I just added 10 years to this beautiful woman, hmm.

An exercise from Bert Dodson's "Keys to Drawing." Because the way I placed the book, I didn't realize that the angle of her face wasn't quite right until I put them side by side. A similar experience to the maple leaf that I did a while back (when was that?). Oh well. She's still beautiful but looks exhausted from taking care of her kids.

Media: pencils.

Pictionary

How many kitchen items can you identify?

Each item is drawn in one continuous line, the so-called connected-line drawing. This exercise from Bert Dodson's excellent "Keys to Drawing" asks for 3 drawings, but since I had so much fun, I did 3 pages instead.

Media: technical pen.

Chez Nous

This is our humble house. The drawing doesn't quite do it justice, but it'll do for the time being.

Media: pencil, colored pencils, technical pen.

Scenary -- Scribble + Color Style

This is a milestone for me, and, frankly, I like it quite a bit. :)

The blue paper united the sky and the Bay, and it enabled white pencil to simulate wave. The scribble style placed pen drawing in an active role, not a mere outline. Colored pencils were applied casually, so no worry on RSI.

An interesting observation: When I do loose-line or scribble line drawing, I'm relaxed and happy. When I do contour, parallel, crosshatching, or stippling line drawing, I'm tense and gloomy. No wonder I usually do a quick sketch to warm up both my hand and my mind.

Media: pencil, colored pencils, technical pen.

Scenary -- Parallel Style

I thought I was ready to draw the bay with parallel lines... :( David likes the fog, so I guess it's not all bad.

Media: pencil, technical pen.

Water Bottle

I tried to sketch the water bottle with scribble lines as shown in Claudia Nice's "Drawing in Pen & Ink", but somehow my latest loose-line drawing took over. The lighting on the body was all diffused and I was all confused, so I left it blank.

I really like sketching styles; lines are not precise, but more lively, and sometimes they catch the essence better. On the other hand, in order to sketch better, I have to practice more on the regular drawing styles. This paradoxical principal seems to be universal; it's the same with Chinese brush calligraphy.

Media: technical pen.

Parallel Lines

Yesterday evening I worked on Exercises 2A and 2B of Bert Dodson's "Keys to Drawing". Because I was infatuated with the crosshatching technique, it was no surprise that I copied and emulated Giorgio Morandi. Yuck! The results were so bad that I was too embarrassed to post them. And that was after a whole afternoon of frustrating (supposed-to-be-easy) flat wash exercise from Jack Reid's "Watercolor Basics: Let's Get Started".

Today an excellent book showed up at our door step: "Drawing in Pen & Ink" by Claudia Nice. Unlike other pen drawing books on my bookshelves, she explains every stroking technique in detail and shows her readers when one technique should be applied. Now I know why I failed miserably on Exercise 2B: I applied too many techniques without knowing why and how. This book is a godsend!

Media: pencil, technical pen.

Horsetail (was "Plant Without a Name")

This horsetail (Equisetum) has the look and texture of grass, but knots on its stalks remind me of bamboo. I'm not sure which species it is; it looks like water horsetail but the one we have

• doesn't grow on wet land, and
  
• 1/3 of them are taller than 140cm (some of them are even taller than 170cm) .

My watercolor brushes arrived today, so of course I had to try them out. Not knowing much about watercolor painting, I went for the easiest plant (mostly drawing, not much painting) to test my brushes. I didn't control my lines well and each branch was thicker than the real thing. To fix my mistake, I used a brown technical pen to "trim" the branches down, but apparently it was a bad move.

Watercolor painting, my next frontier.

Media: watercolor, technical pen.

Orchid Leaves v.2

The earlier one was drawn from the real-world model; this one was drawn from the memory. Two drawings have very different lighting, which makes me wonder about my memory.

It's really interesting to see the different effects caused by different cross-hatching lines. Gosh, I think I'm addicted to the cross-hatching hell now! :)

Media: pencil, technical pen.

Orchid Leaves v.1

I think I started to understand cross-hatching a little now...

Media: pencil, technical pen.

My Watercolor Plant

All right! My first sketchbook watercolor plant! This is the exact style that I've been looking for for my nature journal, even though I didn't do my plant justice in this drawing.z

Watercolor painting is tough, but watercolor sketch painting is not. As you can see here, the focus is sketching, not painting. Watercolor also takes signficantly less time to paint than other color media, and it's less likely to get RSI. Now I can see why most nature journal keepers go with watercolor.

:D

Media: technical pen, watercolor.

David's 2nd Office

Obviously the kitchen should've been painted with watercolor pencils instead of brush pens, and I could've transferred it to somewhere else and tried out brush pens there first. Well, a late revelation.

On the other hand, I'm no longer afraid of doodling group of objects. Petit à petit, l'oiseau fait son nid. :)

Media: technical pen, brush pens.

Lily Pod

Because of yesterday's rose disaster, today I set out to work on watercolor pencils and its relationship with different papers.

This lily pod is from Kristy Ann Kutch's Drawing And Painting With Colored Pencils (an excellent colored/watercolor pencil book, BTW); she uses it to demostrate the Pencil-Point-into-Wet Technique, which I did a mediocre job and we'll overlook it this time.

The lily pod on the left was drawn on 100lb cold-press watercolor paper, while the one on the right was on 70lb sketchbook paper. On the left the colors are intense and vibrant, while on the right they are all washed out. The watercolor paper allows the colors to dissolve and blend much better, and the small amount of water doesn't bother it.

From this experiment, I learned that I should leave wet media to watercolor paper unless I don't mind the washed out results and the buckled paper. Obviously there is a very good reason why people use watercolor paper to do watercolor painting.

Media: watercolor pencils.

Rose

This rose was a big pain in the butt to draw.

In our garden, I sketched the rose, took color notes, transferred it to my sketchbook, and colored it with watercolor pencils. So far so good. As soon as I added water in, however, it turned into the ugliest rose that I had ever seen. A large percentage of watercolor pencil lines refused to turn into paint.

I was puzzled: The cosmos turned out great, but the rose was a major failure. I contemplated the problem and conclued that it had to be the paper: the cosmos was on 100lb watercolor paper, while the rose was on 70lb sketch paper.

I repeated the whole process again, but this time I did it on 100lb watercolor paper instead. The watercolor pencil lines dissolved nicely, and I was able to produce the base colors for colored pencils. But, still, the texture was not right...

Gotta pay more attention to the rose.

Media: watercolor pencils, colored pencils.

Cosmos

This is an exercise from Jackie Simmonds' You Can Sketch.

I wanted to try my watersoluable pencils and play with water, so I picked up this simple exercise from Simmonds' book. This is another fast sketching with a brush instead of a stump; the whole thing took less than 10 minutes but the end result was nice.

Media: watersoluable pencil.

My Tea Mug

This is my tea mug that I was unable to draw the other night.

Thanks Bert Dodson's tips in Keys to Drawing: "Draw the large shapes first, then the smaller shapes." What that means is that drawing the object's outline first.

The other night I had trouble with the handle, because my brain was bogged down in detail. But today I ignored all that and just drew its shape first. Once the shape was complete, it became rather straightforward to work on the handle.

Try it on your coffee mug and you'll see what I mean. :)

Media: pencil.

Kiwi Horned Melon

This weird orange thing is called Kiwi Horned Melon. We tried it once; the taste was far less exotic than its look.

Media: technical pen.

The Fascinating Water Boiler

I'm totally, completely in love with fast sketching! I love the freedom of lines, the forgiveness of precision, and the liveliness of the outcomes! And the fact that it took me less than 15 minutes to catch its spirits (7 minutes should've been enough if I weren't so anal about shadows) makes it all more attractive.

OK, OK, fast sketching is mainly used as a reference for the actual painting/drawing, not as a final product. I, however, like it and plan to apply it everywhere, because I can. ;)

BTW, thanks Jon & Tammy for this fascinating housewarming gift; we literally use it everyday! :)

Media: pencils.

David's Salt Cellar

Someone spent too much time shopping for watercolor brushes and watching NBA finals, and forgot to do her homework until bedtime... At the very last hour, she tried in vain in drawing their orchid pot, her tea cup, and her Kabira water bottle, and the time was running out...

She was devastated. She was in pain. She was mad at herself for not working first and then playing later. Then suddenly she remembered this technic called "Fast Sketching," the only hope she had at this desperate hour.

She immediately ran to the kitchen and grabbed David's salt cellar. Placing it on her table, she started sketching it ferociously. Instead of measuring it accurately in every dimension like she did with the pepper grinder, she settled for the approximation. 5 minutes later, she got it down and was finally able to call it a night.

The necessity of deadline as we know it.

Media: pencils.

David's Pepper Grinder

Today was one of those days that I just couldn't draw.

Finally I went for David's pepper grinder, thinking that it would be a piece of cake. Hmm. I found out the hard truth shortly after putting down the first line. I was devastated by this failure, but leaving an unfinished drawing in the middle of my journal was not an option for me.

But for some reason, David really liked it!

I was perplexed by this experience...

Media: pencils (3B, white, China Marker), technical pens.

Japanese Maple Tree

This is the tree where yesterday's maple leaf came from. I was only able to draw the lower section of this giant tree. Even so, it got rejected from David (leaves had wrong shapea with dense and almost fur-like texture) and I had to redo the leaves and colors. And as usual, it turned out to be better than the original.

Yes, I know I said that I would stay out of colored pencils until my body feels better. Well, I lied. It would be too sad to draw the Japanese maple tree without the beautiful colors, don't you think?

Media: technical pen, colored pencils.

David's Coffee Roaster

David's new toy -- i Roast 2 -- arrived this morning. He and Adam put it together and roasted a small batch of Costa Rica Tres Rios. The best part about roasting beans on your own was that the whole house smelled wonderful!

He then made coffee for everyone. It was quite tasty: tobaco, medium finished, some acidity but no bitterness. Next time he'll roast beans a little longer to make them more flavorful. Also, beans taste better 12 hours after after they're roasted, kinda like Spaghtti sauce.

Not a great sketching; will have to do another once we build a more intimate relationship.

Media: technical pen.

Japanese Maple

I placed the maple leaf in front of my sketchbook instead of next to it, and as you can see here, the distance made it look short and fat.

Believe it or not, drawing can cause a repetitive strain injury (RSI). I thought only programmers could get it, but apparently that isn't the case. No wonder I've felt the pain on my right arm, shoulder, and lower back; I thought I was imaging it, since I've only been drawing a little more than a month.

Well, I do have bad posture and don't have ergonomic setup. I think I'd better stay away from colored pencils for a while until I feel better (good posture, frequent breaks, and stretching). In the meantime, I think I'll focus on pencils and technical pens. *sigh* Black-and-white-only drawings can get kinda depressing.

Media: pencils.

Abutilon megapotamicum?

Is this Abutilon megapotamicum? I looked it up in A-Z encyclopedia of Garden Plants, but the photo doesn't quite resemble this one. The photo shows that the top part is bright red and is about 2/3 to 4/5 of the flower length. The top of this one is pink and yellow and is only about 1/3 of the flower length. Very confusing.

Media: pencil, colored pencils.

Mulan's Albatross

This Albatross is done by Mulan, who gave me an introduction course on art material and took me to The Art Store to spent $$ on all the cool art supplies a month ago.

This bird is awfully cute and realistic, and I really like the way she handling mixed media. Well, one day I'll get there (probably not with a bird though).

Red Onion, Jicama, & Avocado

Yesterday I had planned to draw Abutilon megapotamicum, but today was so hot that I didn't feel like to spend an hour or so in the garden. Staying indoors meant still life sketching, so I grabbed a red onion, a jicama, and an avocado as my models.

David rejected my red onion once (missing the stripes) and my avocado four times (unrealistic bumpy texture)! *sigh* But after each fix, things looked more and more like the real things. The avocado still didn't live up to his expectation, but we both liked it a lot more than the original one.

Some description on jicama:

Jicama (/hikama/) is a root vegetable from Mexican. David uses it as an ingredient in salad, because it's crunchy, cool, and mild with a hint of sweetness. It can be cooked, too, but we've never tried that. Go check out your local grocery store (we get our supplies from Safeway) and give it a try! lt's especially great for summer; you wash it, peel the skin off, and chop it into sticks. Afterwards, it's your choice: place it in salad, eat it raw, or dip it with vegetable dressing. Endless possibilities!

Media: pencils.

The Fog @ 7:20pm

See how different the scenary was at 7:20pm?

The Golden Gate Bridge was no longer hidden behind the fog. (The Bridge always reminds me of the Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland.) Some lonely fog hung lowly above the Bay while the majority of it was waiting behind the Bridge. Quite a few people took advantage of this beautiful day and sailed around the Bay after work.

I tried to sketch at 1:40pm and 3:40pm when the fog completely dominated the Bay. But, boy, it was such a lousy model! It moved so fast that it was impossible to place it on paper.

Media: pencil.

Abutilon Nabob (or Flowering Maple)

Abutilon Nabob... I like how this little guy looks and David loves its rich, dark, purplish red color. I didn't know Abutilion util I looked it up in A-Z encyclopedia of Garden Plants, and I didn't know its name until I Googled the Net. No kidding when they say that one learns something everyday.

Abutilon Nabob is related to the flower I drew back on May 20. (I think the other one is called Abutilon hybridum, but don't quote me on that.) I knew that they looked alike, but I didn't know that they are in the same genus.

According to the book: "Erect to spreading, evergreen shrub or small tree. Leaves are ovate to rounded, 3- to 5-lobed, 4-8in (10-20cm) long, and rich green in color. From spring to autumn, bears large, nodding to pendent, open bowl-shaped, deep crimson flowers, to 3in (8cm) across." This sounds about right.

What came as a total surprise to me was that Abutilon megapotamicum, a flower that does not resemble either A. Nabob or A. hybridum, is in the same genus as well. Gotta go draw it tomorrow.

Media: pencil, colored pencil, technical pen.

The Fog @ 2:04pm

Summer in the Bay Area can only mean one thing -- fog! And it moves fast!

At 2:04pm, except the one occupying half of the Golden Gate Bridge, most fog around the Bay already got burned off. A giant blob of it was waiting behind the Bridge, preparing for another assault...

Media: pencils.

Meyer Lemon (Half & "Zested")

I started my Nature Journal today, and I planned to fill it up with my observation of our garden.

Well, I spent too much time shopping at The Art Store this afternoon and couldn't get to it soon enough. So I drew the only natural thing that I had my hands on today -- a Meyer Lemon. But since I didn't draw it when I picked it up from our backyard, I could only draw its "after" picture.

Media: technical pen, brush pens.