I spent some time painting a couple of flower planters on a day when there was a storm threatening, casting a muted light all around. It's definitely more of a challenge keeping a painting dynamic when the light is lower and there is less tonal contrast in the subject matter. Another challenge is keeping the whites of the paper for a more brilliant painting - practice, practice, practice!

This was an exercise for myself - a reduction drawing in which you begin with mid-tone greys, then pull out whites and add in dark tones.

We spent an afternoon and evening at a friend's farm yesterday, and I had the opportunity to grab my watercolours and do some painting. The landscape is beautiful looking out in any direction, and I could have spent the entire day painting, surrounded by colourful dragonflies keeping the mosquitoes at bay (yay dragonflies!). It's a joy to get out of the city every once in a while!

Another watercolour study of my petunias, and my view from the third floor... Not sure how I feel about this second painting. It turned out a bit too opaque to me, but there are areas I quite like as well...

One of the gardens in Mom's backyard. I'm obviously clinging to July, as I started to write the date as July -. So, after a quick calculation by my sister Lori, I've titled this piece July 35th...

In 1996 I added digital art to my traditional art practice. I started out in the field of graphic art by using a mouse to create drawn graphics (!) for a strategy game, then moved on to using a Wacom digital pen and tablet two years later. For any artist who has attempted to draw with a mouse, you'll agree that using a mouse in place of a pen, brush or chalk can be incredibly difficult and frustrating! Back when I was working on the strategy game, I had detailed character graphics to create that were 20 x 20 pixels in size. Yes, that's pixels, not centimetres. Needless to say, switching to the digital pen and tablet was a huge relief.
The Wacom tablet had a run-in with our cat one day while we were away, and it died (the tablet that is, not the cat. The cat is at this moment trying to walk across my keyboard). After that I moved on to a Genius tablet which lasted many, many years, and has now found a second home with a friend of ours. Which brings me to the subject of this post - my Wacom Cintiq tablet (a Cintiq12WX for those of you who want details).
I haven't named the tablet (yet), but we are in love, spending long hours gazing across the desk at one another...
But seriously, there is nothing that compares to working directly on the monitor's surface, pen to screen. As much as I liked my old tablets, there was still the challenge of drawing on one surface while looking at a monitor somewhere else. This tablet lets you work flat or on an angle, and has a pivot ball built into the back so that you can turn the tablet's work surface when it's laid flat. Hot keys are built in on both left and right so that oft-used functions like save, undo, scale, and colour select are right under your thumb as you work.
I'll stop blathering on now. Here is a picture of the tablet in action. I made a work glove out of an old pair of manicure gloves by cutting the thumb, index and pinkie fingers off - MUCH cheaper than the tablet gloves they sell on-line.

A watercolour pencil sketch inspired by the fish and other elements in our fresh water fish tank.

Another go at painting in the great outdoors - this time a tomato plant. I could spend all day doing this!

I took the opportunity to enjoy the lovely weather here today (after a pretty rainy week) and go out to do some plein air painting. Two of the flowers in my little garden are petunias and moss roses - flowers that love the hot, sunny weather. As living things however, flowers react to sun, heat and wind, constantly shifting and fluttering: a challenge to draw and paint!

Another simple line drawing - black Staedtler fineliner and water.