PAISLEY

I obsessively design, draw, and doodle paisleys, when I'm not cartooning, and I have for years. I have a fantasy about going to the PAISLEY MUSEUM in Scotland and just spending ridiculous amounts of time staring at paisleys (or IS IT ridiculous? I should make a plan!) This is a piece I'm working on currently - with a new Holbein gouache set I got at New York ComicCon (from Vermont Art Supply/HOLBEIN booth, on the main floor! It's always a great one.) The colors are SO deep and rich! AND the HOLBEIN gouache is smoooooooth. In a word: JUICY. I carry travel paints with me most of the time - a very minimal set, usually black and white plus one other color, usually red (this time blue). This travel set is an AVEDA eyeshadow compact I'm upcycling - it has a magnetic strip in the bottom, and these are beer bottle caps with gouache in them. I've added a tiny travel brush which fits in the case when it's closed. The silver pill bottle can carry a tiny amount of water, which is all I need when working with a limited palette (and it's easily changeable with a water bottle on hand, which I usually have anyway!)You could easily do this with any old compact, which has a metal bottom, by adding magnets to your beer, wine, or soda bottle caps.

This system also easily works with old ALTOIDS and MYNTZ and FISHERMAN'S FRIEND tins, as well :) If you follow me on TWITTER or INSTAGRAM, you've seen my concert drawings - this is a great system for that, too, easily takeable in a small bag. This past Wednesday I went to hear Daniel Lanois at The Hamilton DC and got some fun drawings from that - I always give them to the artists after. It's great figure drawing practice to draw musicians on stage (fun, too!)

In other news, please check out my MUSE CRUISE 2015 FACEBOOK page - we have a great group going so far, but plenty of room for more! I'm teaching Art Journaling, and the amazing writer Vicki Kuyper is teaching the writing (she's authored well over 50 books - for many publishers!) Art journaling, writing, and photography on the Caribbean. Some of my favorite things in the world, combined! You are welcome to sign up, details on our FACEBOOK page, and feel free to PM me with any questions!

In FURTHER other news, I've become obsessed (yes, I've overused that word today) with podcasts, particularly those from Nerdist Chris Hardwick (you might know him as the host of Talking Dead, the WALKING DEAD aftershow?) - they are frickin' hilarious, and great to listen to while I work. Yesterday, though, I had to lift my brush from my work because I was cackling too hard to keep it steady. So, it can be risky . . .

Have a great weekend, y'all. peace, trl

INKTOBER DAY 21

Pen and ink on McDonald's bag

INKTOBER DAY 5

ART JOURNAL: Angels Watching Over Me

Art Journal (second today) . . . I draw angels A LOT. Here's another. Watercolor pencils (Caran D'Ache) on paper bag (from Chipotle, I think!) and taped into a painted Moleskine Journal page . . . I used Caran D'Ache watersoluble crayons for the scribbly background and pen-and-ink for the lettering, and Faber-Castell (FINE and SUPER-FINE) Artist Pens for the paisley flowers and the angel outlines.

STUDIO TIPS: travel paints

  I take art supplies with me everywhere I go, because I'm an obsessive art-maker. (A friend told me I have an "artist personality," and we laughed, because it's not necessarily a compliment.) Though I mostly work in pen-and-ink and art markers these days, I do love painting. I love working in acrylic on large (as in "bigass") canvases, and I love working small and detailed. I carry this art journal everywhere I go, and I tape in different types of papers for different things (though this Moleskine book with the thicker pages takes watermedia fine.) I've been practicing painting and drawing food and drink, wine and cocktails. It's a challenge to show the food and drink realistically, but make it appetizing. Which is usually a goal for me, I'm not one of those Dutch painters who wants to draw rotting fish. Well,  now that I say that, it's sounding kinda interesting . . . I've always thought food and drink are art forms - it fascinates me the way people come up with tastes, recipes, and visual presentation of their work.

So, I take art supplies with me everywhere, and I'm always looking for ways to make them travel-friendly. I save tins and tops of all kinds to mix paints in, and I saw a watercolor palette in a tin on Pinterest, where a guy glued half-pans into Altoids tins.

I wanted something where I could change out the colors, and this is the perfect thing for me. This is my traveling pomegranate palette - using screwtop wine tops, just placed (not glued) into a MYNTZ tin (from Trader Joe's.) The height is perfect (so that the tops don't slide around or up-and-down when the lid is closed), and the colors can be changed out at will. It's working great - I just squeezed gouache into the wine tops. That one hard lump of paint you see is a tube which was dried up - I just cut it in half and peeled back the tube. (DON'T THROW AWAY OLD GOUACHE - you can just open the tube up and make your own half-pans for travel or studio.)

Do you have any studio tips? They are always welcome!! Happy Painting, Y'all. :-)

FOG OF WORRY: PINTEREST

FOG OF WORRY: Political Ads

I tweeted this on the twitterer last night, and today, I made it into a cartoon!! It's a form of upcycling :-)

Great Wave at Paisley-gawa

Today's art journal post (with apologies to Hokusai!):

Thought note: Today's art journal post is an homage (a modest one, of course!!!) to Katsushika Hokusai's "Great Wave at Kanagawa," which is a gorgeous piece of artwork, which I never, ever get tired of staring at. I dunno if it's because it's such a technically amazing work of woodblock cutting and printing, or because I love the ocean so much, or because there's a picture of it on a ruler I got at The Metropolitan Museum of Art many years ago . . . but I love it. I doodle paisleys sort of obsessively . . . and am working on some acrylic works incorporating designs such as these. Will post when finished with those . . . I plan to start showing them publicly by early fall.

Tech note: Faber-Castell Superfine pen + a Faber-Castell grey brush pen (#272) . . . in my Moleskine notebook (thick pages, 5.5x8.5 each page); if you want to buy the thicker pages and they don't have a sample open at the store, just look at the page count. The ones with a lower page count (which are the same thickness) are the ones with thicker pages. These take watercolor and acrylic and gel medium, and Mod Podge, and collage, and almost everything else I've thrown at them.

Happy Art-making,

trl

Psych Book Drawings, Day 15

thought note: i love to draw angels - and iconic women - Anywayz. Yesterday, i buried a little tiny baby bird  - outside my studio window, between the daffodils. I found him on our driveway, i think he left the nest a bit too early - and just didn't make it. made me really sad, even though i'd like to be all philosophical and talk like The Lion King "circle of life" stuff (remember when Simba asks, "hey why do we eat our friends, Dad?" - Yep. "Circle of Life."  i like to think he's in a better place now (the bird, not Simba), but i don't know how all that works . . .

tech note: Faber-Castell artist pen, "F" (fine)