53 - Flamingo

Flamingo ___12 x 9 watercolor pencil

#53 in The Birdseed Project

 

Click the blog image, to see some detail on this, and how the watercolor pencils work...I enjoy the drawing aspect...just LOVE scribbling...then finishing it off with the unpredictability of WATER!...add to that, the component of doing this "live" for my mom, while she sits by...watching quietly....

It brought back many memories... painting with mom watching. Almost ALL of my art memories as a child include mom there.

I was the youngest of seven kids, so there was never a "secluded" place to be doing my art. I often sat at the kitchen counter, with family coming and going...ALWAYS taking a chance that something would spill on my masterpiece...sometimes it was mom's coffee!

Mom chose this flamingo from a stack of my photos that I brought to the nursing home...it reminds her of her long legged daughter, and reminds ME of MY longER legged daughter!So, we sat on the hot patio, while other residents smoked nearby. Mom prefers to sit alone with me in the gazebo, but the sun was beating down at an angle, and the roof of the gazebo provided no shade, so we sat on the smoking patio.

Mom was especially quiet and several times I stopped to ask if she was OK?...bored?...hot?...she assured me that she was LOVING to watch....just like mom...

Skull Study__demo

Skull Study__demo with watercolor pencils on paper

The photo below this one shows "step 1". Watercolor pencils are a fun medium for sketching. We are working with these in my high school art classes, and ALSO in my month-long weekly evening drawing class "Chiaroscuro and Chocolate"...tonite is the last class, and I look forward to the "new folks" who are coming!...We have had a blast! I supply the drawing materials, and a little bit of encouragement, Brad supplies the chocolate (and coffee and teas) and the artists bring their paper...

If you would like to know about this series, EMAIL ME and I will put you on the info list...we will resume again in a few weeks...maybe!...below are the locations for my other workshops...

 

_______________________WORKSHOPS_____________________

September 27__Austin___ "Chocolates and Chiaroscuro" contact V...,. 

Oct. 28-30__Texas__Full Moon at Fredericksburg Artists School, contact V...,.

2013___New York City, Colorado, Massachusetts, Michigan, Pennsylvania...

2014___February 23-March 1___New Zealand

**BE SURE to tell me if you sign up! I like to send things to my students to get them ready, keep them "seeing", and thinking, and talking about it!

 

Some Sophomores from Hyde Park Baptist School, Austin, TX...on Tuesday I helped this group serve at the Reveal Ministries Food Pantry...this group helped unload, and distribute 13 tons...yes TONS of food, like potatos, cabbage, carrots, onions, cereal and other things...and they sorted thousands of childrens' clothes for distribution to some of Austin's needy people...This is the "after" photo!!!... yes, they did it with a lot of JOY!!!