The Studio News

Mother’s Day Greetings

Happy Mother’s Day
Watercolor, 6.5″ x 9.75″

Well dear readers, today is Mother’s Day, so in keeping with the current alphabet theme: M is for Mother.

Some mother’s are artists. Some mother’s are painted by artists, while others support the arts, spending their money at arts & craft fairs instead of the local discount mart. Still, other mother’s get stuck with an artist instead of getting a doctor, a lawyer, or computer programmer.

For all those mothers who support the arts in one way or another- Happy Mother’s Day!

Technorati Tags: art, watercolor, flowers, red geraniums, Mother’s Day

category: Watercolor author: Lisa B. comments: No Comments

I Is For…

I is for…
Ink, Watercolor

I is for imagination. I is for illustration, inspiration, and the illuminated letters that decorate this sketchbook. I is for ink, intaglio, and intarsia, an inlay method of making images.

I is for indigo, indianthrone, and iron blue. I is for Indian yellow, ivory black, and iris green. I is for their intensity in color.

I is for Impressionism, Islamic art, and Intimism, the intimate views of domestic interiors. I is for inpainting, which restores damaged works to their former glory.

I is for…
Pastel Pencil over Ink

I is for imprimatura, the first thin glaze of paint applied to the canvas, and for impasto, the thick applications that go over it. I is for intonaco, the last layer of a fresco painting, and for imbrication, an overlapping pattern that’s symmetrically repeated.

I is for Ingres, Irolli, and Isabey. I is for Ilsted, Ingham, and Innes, an American landscape painter.

I is for the ingenuity of the artist.

Technorati Tags: art, drawing, alphabet, Handbook Journal

category: Sketchbook, Alphabet Art author: Lisa B. comments: No Comments

H Is For…

H is for…
Ink, Pastel Pencil

H is for hue. H is for Hansa yellow, Harrison red, and Haarlem blue. H is for Hooker’s, Holly, and Hungarian greens. H is for heliotrope, an impermanent red-violet, and for hartshorn, which was made from calcinated deer antlers.

H is for highlight, hieroglyphics, and history painting. H is for horizon line, the perspective dependent on viewpoint, and hashira-e, a narrow Japanese art print.

H is for hake brush, hatching, and hog’s bristle brushes. H is for honey, which is used as a binder for watercolors. H is for hardboard, hempseed oil, and hide glue. H is for the hiding power of pigments, regardless of their health hazards.

H is for…
Ink, Pastel Pencil

H is for the horse sense of Hawthorne, and the Hudson River School. H is for Hellenistic art, Hindu art, and the Heidelberg School. H is for Hirshhorn’s hefty collection.

H is for is for Hopper, Homer and Hals. H is for Hogarth, Handell, and the Hunts. H is for Hahnemule’s heavyweight papers, and for Holbein’s host of supplies.

H is for the happiness art brings to the heart.

category: Sketchbook, Alphabet Art author: Lisa B. comments: 4 Comments

G Is For…

G is for…
Handbook Journal, Ink

G is for green. G is for green earth, gamboge, and giallorino, a light yellow similar to aureolin. G is for green lake, geranium lake, and gofun shirayuki, a traditional Japanese white made from oyster shells.

G is for gilding, gold leaf, and grisaille, an underpainting in gray scale. G is for glassine, and for ground, the foundation of the artwork. G is for genre scenes of everyday life.

G is for the graphite from General’s, and the gum arabic that binds gouache. G is for the glaze that goes over ceramics, and the glazing that goes over a pastel. G is for grout, the glue that binds a mosaic.

G is for…
Ink with Pastel Pencil, Ink, and Pastel Pencil over Watercolor

G is for gesture drawing. G is for the giclees found in art galleries, and genpitsu, a Japanese style of painting. G is for graffiti, and for graffito, the method of scratching through one surface to reveal another.

G is for graphics. G is for the Gothic art of Giotto and Grunewald, and for and the Group of Seven from Canada. G is for the Greeks, who gave us great art and the golden means to create it.

G is for Gainsborough, Goya, and Greene. G is for Gaugin, Grimshaw, and Gleyre, a most generous teacher. G is for Grumbacher and Gamblin, makers of artist supplies.

G is for gazing at art, glorious art.

Technorati Tags: art, drawing, alphabet, Handbook Journal

category: Sketchbook, Alphabet Art author: Lisa B. comments: 2 Comments

F Is For…

F is for…
Ink, Graphite

F is for frame. F is for fixative, frisket, and and foamcore. F is for figures, foreground, and finger painting. F is for ferrules that hold bristles on filberts and fan brushes.

F is for Fine Art, Folk Art, and the Fourteenth Street School. F is for Faberge’s fanciful eggs, and for the foreshortened fingers of James Montgomery Flagg. F is for fresco, a method of painting into wet plaster.

F is for…
Pastel Pencil, Ink

F is for Frankfort black, Flake white, and Flavanthrone yellow. F is for faux, one of the Decoative Arts, and for the Fauves, the wild beasts of the art world. F is for freehand, French easel, and French curves. F is for foxing, the brownish discoloring found on old paper.

F is for Fraggonard, Fra Angelico, and Firth. F is for Flattman, and the florals of Fantin-Latour. F is for Fabriano papers, and for Faber-Castell brush pens.

F is for the fabulous, fascinating art!

Technorati Tags: art, drawing, alphabet, Handbook Journal

category: Sketchbook, Alphabet Art author: Lisa B. comments: 6 Comments

E Is For…

E is for…
Handbook Journal, Ink

E is for easel. E is for engraving, enamel, and etching, a printmaking method employing acid and wax resist. E is for egg tempera, and for encaustic, a method of painting with heated beeswax.

E is for eraser, and for the earth colors of ochre and umber that come from the ground. E is for emerald, an exquisite green that’s poisonous, and eliminated from use. E is for ebony, and for Egyptian Brown, the color of mummies.

E is for…
Ink, Graphite

E is for eschi, the Japanese word for artist. E is for Egyptian, English, and Etruscan art. E is for exhibition, where the epitome of Expressionism is found in the works of Van Gogh and Gaugin.

E is for Elsley, El Greco, and Eakins, an American watercolorist and oil painter. E is for Elliot, Charles Loring and Virgil. E is for Escher, who’s artwork entrances the viewer.

E is for the effort required to create a work of art.

Technorati Tags: art, drawing, alphabet, Handbook Journal

category: Sketchbook, Alphabet Art author: Lisa B. comments: 2 Comments

D Is For…

D is for…
Handbook Journal, Ink

D is for Decorative Arts. D is for drawing, draftsmanship, and design, the ingredients of a pleasing composition. D is for decoupage, dry-brush, and Damar, a final varnish for oil paintings. D is for diptych, a two-panel painting, and diorama, a three-dimensional display depicting a moment in time.

D is for dye, and for deckle, the pretty edge found on handmade papers. D is for Davey’s Gray, Dun, and Dioxazine Violet, a lightfast purple pigment.

D is for…
Pastel Pencil, Graphite

D is for Daumier, Dali, and Degas, the painter, sculptor, and pastellist remembered for his ballerinas. D is for Durer, and for Duchamp, a member of the Dada movement which in French, means hobbyhorse. D is for Da Vinci, the creator of the Mona Lisa.

D is for the 20th century art movements of Der Blau Reiter, where Wassily Kandinsky did his best work, and De Stijl, a Dutch art movement headed by Piet Mondrian.

D is for the diligence required for the artist to perfect his craft.

Technorati Tags: art, drawing, alphabet, Handbook Journal

category: Sketchbook, Alphabet Art author: Lisa B. comments: 6 Comments

C Is For…

C is for…
Ink, Pastel Pencils

C is for creativity. C is for caesin, canvas, and copal, an oil painting medium made with resin. C is for collage, cartoon, caricature, and calligraphy, the art of beautiful handwriting.

C is for chalk, charcoal, Conte, and Crayola. C is for color wheel, where we find celadon, cerulean, cyan, cobalt, and all the beautiful cadmiums.

C is for Corot, Cezanne, and Caravaggio, a practitioner of chiaroscuro. C is for Chardin, and Cassatt, who mastered both oils and pastels. C is for cube, cone, and cylinder, foundation shapes learned by every art student.

C is for…
Ink, Watercolor

C is for curator, colorist, clay, and ceramics. C is for Cubism, a 20th century art movement starring Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. C is for the Cycladic art of ancient Greece, and the Coptic art of the early Christians residing in Egypt.

C is for centuries of artistic craftsmanship.

Technorati Tags: art, drawing, alphabet, Handbook Journal

category: Sketchbook, Alphabet Art author: Lisa B. comments: No Comments

Weekend Update

Mr. Pelican
Sketchbook, Ink

Here sits ole Mr. Pelican
His beak holds more than his belly can.
He can fill up his beak,
With enough food for a week,
But I’m darned if I know how the hellican!

I finally have a studio update! The shelves are in (no doors yet) and the bookshelf supports have been marked. Yipee! There’s still a lot of work to do down there, but I should have a place to work sometime this year.

The shelves are done!

Note: This was supposed to be a month long job. As soon as it was started, my contractor (husband) had to start working overtime at his other job, 7 days a week. The good news, is the stadium got done (enough) for opening day, and he’s not at work all the time now. The bad news, is that spring is now here and there are a million other things (people) demanding his time (don’t ask).

In the meantime, I’ve started a new sketchbook to occupy my time. I got a little Handbook Journal, and I’m having a lot of fun putting the A-B-C’s of A-R-T into it. Each letter of the alphabet is getting entries about art. The entries might be artists, items, or methods, but they have to pertain to art in general.

Anyway, I hope you’ll come back and see what I have in there next time!

category: Sketchbook author: Lisa B. comments: 4 Comments

B Is For…

B is for…
Ink, Colored Pencil

B is for brush. B is for blue, brown, black, and bistre, a fugitive color made from beechwood around the 18th century. B is for brayer, a printmaker’s tool consisting of a handle attached to a hard rubber roller. Used for block printing, not all brayers are democrats.

B is for Bazille, Botticelli, Bouguereau, and Boudin, a French plein air painter who took a very young Claude Monet to the beach, and taught him how to see. B is for the Barbizon School, where Corot, Daubigny, and Millet successfully passed all their landscape painting classes.

B is for bottega, and for botanical, a detailed, realistic rendering of small plant life. B is for batik, a method of dyeing fabric using a wax resist.

B is for…
Ink, Pencil, Paper

B is for Baroque, a 17th century art movement using selective lighting and deep shadows to create dramatic religious figures, and the Batignolles Group, consisting of Edouard Manet, Camille Pissaro, Edgar Degas and Alfred Sisley. After a long day of painting, they’d meet at the Cafe Guerbois for aperitifs, and discuss their work.

B is for the beauty created for us by all the artists who’ve ever sacrificed work for sleep, or food for paint.

Technorati Tags: art, drawing, ink, pencil, alphabet, Handbook Journal

category: Sketchbook, Alphabet Art author: Lisa B. comments: 4 Comments