Creative Saturday: Art Books & a Sketchbook

Yesterday was Creative Saturday with Lita. We were scheduled for a Traditional Art day. Although we are better digital artists, traditional art still calls to us. We aren't professionals, we've not had many lessons, but we have passion and determination. Normally you would find us delving into something with abandon. But, since I had been on holiday for nearly three weeks we had more on our minds than art. We had some catching up to do!
So, we met in the morning at our favorite store Barnes & Noble for coffee and a chat before perusing the magazine rack where I purchased the latest Creative Photoshop and Lita bought Writer's Magazine.(I'm now trying to convince her to join me to write an entire novel in November!) Then, we hit the art books. Lita was a good girl and only purchased two items. We like our limit to be $60 or less when we go, which is usually just once a month during our Traditional Art days. I went a bit over that but got a bevy of fun stuff including the "How to Be An Explorer of the World" book that Lita and I have been doing tasks from. She was having to email them to me each week because I couldn't find it at B&N before now:

When we finally got back to my house we only had an hour before Lita would need to leave so we decided to have a creative powwow and come up with a list of ideas for my Sketchbook Project theme "Below the Surface". I had started the first sketch the night before with every intention of working on it for Traditional Art day but since time slipped away from us, the creative idea session seemed more feasible. I had already begun a list and had twelve ideas but by the time Lita left, we added 25 more to the list! Thanks Lita for helping with the brainstorming session!
Now, it will be up to me to execute them all!

The Moleskine provided it's own challenges, with thin pages not really suitable for watercolor. We can add our own paper to make it more durable but the dimensions must stay the same. My first sketch was a test to see just how my media would hold up. I chose pen, colored pencils, watercolor pencils and traditional watercolors. The paper did wrinkle from the water just a bit but not as bad as I thought it was going to. I'm probably going to stick with colored pencils and pens for this years project and maybe next year, after seeing how others incorporate other paper, I may try watercolor for the year 2012 (if the world doesn't end like the Mayan's say it will!).

My first sketch for the project comes from a dream I had which is also written on the page:
"The night before I received my sketchbook
I dreamed I was standing in a murky Thai river
and there were catfish all around my feet."

As I start the next sketch I wonder how my cohorts in this project are coming along...Missy? Phoebe?
Next week Lita and I will be participating in Worldwide Photowalk Day! Til then, keep art close to your heart! :)

Creative Saturday: Traditional Art

Creative Saturdays with Lita include one Saturday a month for Traditional Art. This day is not about creating some masterpiece or even finishing a small work of art. It's about doing. It's about practice. It's about learning something new. Lita has always wanted to take the time to learn to draw and our Creative Saturday was a perfect day to start this new experience. She recently received a set of drawing pencils for her birthday along with a basic drawing book that I had given her. She sat to work on this beautiful fairy:

I think she may have a natural talent for the art of drawing!

Before Lita arrived that morning, I had worked a bit on my Girl with Horse painting, adding more layers of thin paint, building up the image with shadows and lights:

With this painting left to dry, I turned to watercolor only to discover I was plumb out of watercolor paper.  So, I decided to do an acrylic on canvas. I've been watching the sunflowers grow and bloom in my garden which inspired me to paint the flower of my home state of Kansas:

As usual with our Creative Saturdays, we take a break for lunch, a walk through Barnes and Noble (Lita came out with a armful of books!) and a visit to Kilwin's chocolate shop. Also, as usual, we ran out of time and didn't finish our art. But, as I said before it's not about "finishing" but "doing" and that's exactly what we did! When our paintings and drawings are finished, a future blog post will proudly display the results.

As this week begins, I look forward to our next Exploration Task and next weekends Digital Art Day at Lita's. I hope this inspires you to "just do it"...get out those paints and pencils and feed your creative soul!