Cheryl&Patti Art-ventures

Patti and I trekked off to Valley View this morning to do some painting at the at the Key's Creek Lavender Farm. It was a windy trip the way we went. We arrived just before opening and were the second car to arrive. The first thing we saw was two yoga-panted guru-guys with their little ponytails sticking out in back. They must have just completed a yoga session on a platform by a Buddha statue under a bougainvillea draped archway. Bowing to each other one walked into his tiny tent. Okay, whatever...to each his own! We weren't there for the yoga positions, but we were pausing from the everyday norm to nurture our inner artists. I'll be leaving in September, so these gal-pal artist adventures are important to pack in. Patti is getting quite good and probably owes that to the fact she's been concentrating on tonal studies and sketches. Whatever it is, it's working! After doing an oil painting at Crystal Cove, she's now falling in love with oil medium. Today we se...

June 27, 2018 Patti and I met at Carter's Hay and Feed to do some sketching, including the livestock. It was a beautiful morning as we sat under a tree in front. Patti opted to do several sketches as she continues to perfect her line drawing and tonal studies - which are getting really good! I did one sketch in my largest watercolor journal. Knowing where we were going, the night before I stained several pages in the journal with coffee to create a nice rustic tone to begin on. Usually you want to use different strengths of instant coffee, which I didn't have, so I just used leftover morning coffee. I was very pleased with the results and plan on doing this more to pre-tone the paper.  Here is my sketch of the livestock chilling out in front of the barnlike store.  These were goats and a couple of Barbados sheep who had lost there winter wool, which apparently you can just pull off in a sheet so they don't need sheering. They staged an escape while we were there but sheep...