In the beginning | All ideas start small.

With my eyes closed | I really want to be more free from worry with my drawing. This is a white elephant. The line drawing is done with my eyes closed. It isn’t even ink on paper but it still makes me nervous to share. learning to let go of the fear.

100% Organically grown Cello | Made of real wood.

Selfie

Headache | Does anyone else have a headache right now?

Butterfly | I think she is kind of cute.

Mixing with 3 Primaries | In a subtractive color system, Red, Yellow, & Blue are the primary colors. Conventional wisdom teaches that you can create all of the other colors from these three. That isn’t exactly true. Color mixes in a straight line.

Color mixing using the three primary colors, Red, Yellow, & Blue | Notice the green in this example. It is neutral and low in saturation.

Choosing 6 Primaries

Identifying 6 primary colors. Choose a set for each primary that lean toward the other primary.

Mixing with 6 Primaries

Mixing with 6 primaries produces tertiary colors with more intensity

Mixed up Primaries

Don’t get the primaries mixed up. (Unless that is what you want.) Notice how Blue (+R) and Yellow (+R) does not make green. The red in the blue and yellow add complementary color to the green and it becomes neutral.

Ah Ha Moment | In college I always bought the list of colors that the teacher put on the supply list but I had no idea why the specific colors were picked.

One day in my watercolor class we were on location and I was running out of yellow paint. I rummaged through my paint box looking for yellow and found 2 yellows. I didn’t know which one to choose and so I chose both of them and mixed them together in my palette so that I wouldn’t need to decide again. It was years later until I understood why I needed 2 yellows, 2 blues, and 2 reds.

To get an intense green choose primaries that don’t contain red. Red is the complement to green and it will lower the intensity when mixed together.

Seahorse | That is it for today.

Maybe even a little Japanese | This drawing was completely unexpected but I kind of like it. I have been working on an octopus character and it looks nothing like this. I like when sketching opens up options.

August’s Caterpillar | One of my favorite home movies

Blue Flax | Blue flax has long been my favorite wildflower. I first noticed it on our honeymoon when I picked a small bouquet of it for my new wife. So whenever I see it I think of her. It blooms for a long time. There was a patch of flax near where we once lived. Each morning new blue flowers appeared in the early sunlight. By the end of the day the flowers were gone. But the next morning they were back as fresh and beautiful as the day before.

Self Portrait | Blind contour drawings are fun, painless and kind of cool.

So beautiful | This is defiantly worth watching. It is jaw dropping.

Balls of Yarn | Repetition, Rhythm, and Overlapping

Family Reunion | It started with the lady in the beehive and then I added more faces and a rabbit. It doesn’t really mean anything more than that. I like it and for today that is enough. Have a great day!

Rain | It has been a creative rainy day. I made changes to my picture book. It feels like it is going in a good direction but I can’t quite see where it will end up. So the process goes on and I am looking forward to a creative sunny day.

Do you ever find yourself suddenly in the middle of nowhere? | I received a good thoughtful critique about the picture book I am working on this morning. There is still more work to do but for the moment I am feeling a bit stuck. I know that if I dig in that the new ideas will start coming.

At age four, my youngest daughter once said:

“Ya know. If you are ever standing on the edge of a cliff with a broken leg and there is a stampede coming, you just jump, you just go with it.”

I need to listen to Art & Fear. That usually gives me some perspective.

Corrugated Trees | The corrugation is one of my favorite textures that I haven’t found much use for. I think the texture and repetition of the vertical lines are comfortable regular rhythms.

Window Flowers | I am growing several plants right now a geranium, a pineapple, and a dwarf blueberry bush. I am having a difficult time deciding if they should be inside or out. Inside is too easy for them and outside is too harsh (It isn’t the heat it is the hail). So in and out they go and at least they are still alive.

Wild flowers | This year I planted a big chunk of my backyard into wild flowers. I highly recommend it. The seeds were a Western wild flower mix. It has been fun to see what comes up. I have more seed to plant this Fall.

Postage

There is a grain field through my back window. I love to watch a gentle wind blow through it. Today I planted a seed by sending a request for representation to a literary agent. It will take some time but I am glad that I have finally planted. I hope there is a harvest.

My mind is feeling a bit slow today and so here are some snails. Have you ever stepped on a snail? It has the most unpleasant hollow popping sound.

A self portrait emerged today. Once one of one of my friends said to his dad. “Dad him have a long neck.” True statement.

A flying penguin with fairy wings flying through rain clouds. The penguin is a bit strange and a little sad. I like the spiral line clouds and should explore that as an option in future images.