Art Afloat All Hands on Sketch!

Today the Tacoma Urban Sketchers had the opening of their Gallery Exhibition Art Afloat All Hands on Sketch at the Foss Waterway Seaport Maritime Museum during the Maritime Festival.  I was there sketching along with other sketchers during the morning and there will be other sketchers drawing and painting all weekend long.  Entrance is free this weekend during the Festival. Feel free to come in and visit, enjoy the exhibit and the rest of the attractions.  Below is the sketch I completed today and pictures from the exhibit.

Happy Sketching!

Daisy

Through the Window...

Last month USK Tacoma met at the University of Washington Library Tacoma Campus . Even though I have been at this campus many times, I have never visited the library before.  One highlight of this library is an incredible Dale Chihuly's piece that is amazing to see and admire. Unfortunately, there were so many sketchers in this area that I was unable to sketch there and had to move to a different area of the library.
If you are ever in the Tacoma area and would like to enjoy one of Chihuly's pieces, the UW library is one spot to visit.  Dale Chihuly's is a Tacoma local but his work in glass art in recognized and seeing all over the world. The Glass Museum in Tacoma is a fantastic place to go to enjoy his work or see him creating art as well. There is another Glass Museum at the Seattle Center that also has his pieces. In addition the Tacoma Art Museum (TAM) has an exhibit hall dedicated to his work and it is delightful. This is his web page https://www.chihuly.com/
Since I was unable to sketch Chihuly's piece I went to the back of the library and thru the window I was able to sketch the UW building across from the library. Here it is!

Happy Sketching,

Daisy

The Northwest Room!

Yesterday was our USK Tacoma monthly sketch-out and the turn out was amazing. Close to thirty people attended and we all met at the Tacoma Public Library. What does it feel to sketch at a Public Library you might ask? Well, overwhelming i could say. The Tacoma Public Library carries a lot of history within its walls. The Carnegie building is the original 1903 Carnegie Library. The collections found in the Northwest Room includes Tacoma city directories dating back to 1885, early to current newspapers, record indexes, maps, photos, postcards, manuscript collections, architectural plans, etc. In addition if you are interested in doing genealogical research The Northwest Room is the place to go. They have an amazing collection of resources and this collection covers the U.S. and other countries.
The Northwest Room is such an amazing space with a dome that is beautifully decorated that brings warm light into its space. Even though I believe that my drawing in no shape or form gives it justice, this is the best I was able to do yesterday. When I sat and began absorbing the beauty of the place I was overwhelmed by it but eventually I drew what I saw and this is the end result.

Until Next one and Happy Sketching!

Daisy

The Portable Sketcher

I am always looking for ways in which I can make Urban Sketching portable. I always carry a “purse” which is actually my art bag but that includes my wallet. In my “purse” I always carry a couple of sketchbooks, pencils, different types of pens and my watercolors among other things. In a future posting I will share what I carry in detail and how I prepare my sketch bag for my daily use. Trying to be compact but still having all I need to be ready to urban sketch lead me to find this new product, The Portable Painter. I came across this product thru Indiegogo.com  crowd funding site. It was started by Steven Padden and so far it has been very successful. I bought it for $30.00 and it arrived way faster than I expected, it took about a week!

But what is The Portable Painter? The Portable Painter is a palette with two wells and a brush. It is made of plastic and is very light. It comes with 12 half pans and I used some double tape to attach the pan to the palette to hold it tight. What I like about it is that it is so compact that it fits perfectly inside my “purse”/art bag, it is very light and you can even put it in your bag pocket. The wells slide perfectly to each side of the palette and you can place it on the ground, a table and even your thigh.

One well serves to wet your brush and the other to clean it. It comes with a double brush or you might be able to fit in a travel brush of your liking. I was able to get my size 4 Escoda Versatil, larger sizes on this brand are too thick.
So far I used it in the field on Saturday while sketching with Urban Sketchers and it was very useful. So I liked it and if you like to explore new art products and you are always on the go, The Portable Sketcher might be one to try. Here are the pictures of the product and my most recent sketch.

The Portable Painter right out of the box.

The palette has the double sided brush, two wells and 12 half pans.

The double brush has two sizes.

I added double tape to the half pans to make sure they don't move inside the palette.

And finally what did I sketched using this palette?

The Freight house Square in Tacoma!

I hope this was useful. Let me know if you have any questions and Happy Sketching!

Daisy

Getting to Know my Brand New Sailor DE Brush Stroke Style Calligraphy Pen

Wow, what a long name this pen has! Because there is a large variety of Sailor's pens and this is quite unique. In my journey of experimentations with fountain pens I kept hearing that this pen was fantastic for sketching as it has a bended tip that gives you the freedom to sketch making very thin lines and transition into thicker lines. Last year I had bought one that unfortunately I ruined as I didn't know the dos and don'ts of fountain pen handling. By know I am very happy to have a bit of knowledge in the matter thanks to my fellow urban sketchers (just a little tiny bit of knowledge mind you) and I did not ruin the pen this time by using China Ink (please never do that!). I am using Platinum Carbon Ink and that works fabulously.

This type of pen is made with a 55 degree nib and a 40 degree nib. I chose the 55 degree nib to start and later I may want to experiment with the 40 degree nib to see the difference in lines. I off course will keep you posted. This pen I have is green in color, is made of plastic, is light and easy to handle. I tried it on Friday during a quick lunch sketch and I was able to move the nib in ways that produced lines with different degrees of thickness and I enjoyed how my trees turned out. As follows I will show you a series of pictures describing the process of filling the pen with ink using a converter (this was a learning process for me) and then the sketch I did Friday using the Sailor pen along with another sketch I did before with a Micron 005 so you can compare

Above you can see the pen and converter as it came in as well as out of the packaging along with the instructions on how to use the converter.

Above you can see that I pushed the converter inside the pen once I broke the pen apart, I twisted the converter cap clockwise until I was able to see the length of the tube through the converter and placed the pen's nib inside the ink bottle and began to twist the converter's cap counterclockwise to fill it with ink. Once that was completed I assembled the pen back together and I was ready to test it.

Above you can see that I began playing with thin and thick lines as well as thick and thin lines in one same stroke simply moving the tip of the nib. Really nice and easy to handle. Now I can see how so many Urban Sketchers love this pen. Below I will show you two sketches I did during my lunch "sketchcapades." The first one was done with a Micron oo5 and the one below was done with the Sailor pen.

Metropolitan District Park of Tacoma

Titlow Park Tacoma

I hope this was informative and I will be back with more sketching!

Happy Sketching you all,


Daisy

Experimenting with Fountain Pens!

One thing I love about this artistic endeavor is that I get to experiment with different mediums or
combination of mediums in a regular bases. A few weeks ago I received two items that I was waiting for, a LAMY fine point fountain pen and a Platinum Carbon Pen with the ink and the converters as well. LAMY pens creator was C. Josef LAMY, who until 1930 had worked as a manager for an American writing instrument manufacturer, started his own business in Heidelberg, by the name of the Orthos Füllfederhalter-Fabrik. The LAMY I am using is the LAMY Safari who was unveiled at the Frankfurt Fair in 1980 and from that point on it became the best-selling fountain pen in the world.
I was not sure what the best ink would work best for sketching and using watercolors. I was close to buying the Noodlers brand but a colleague sketcher recommended the Platinum Carbon Ink and the Platinum Carbon pen as well since it is extra fine and it is a great complement to the LAMY. She stated that she prefers the Platinum Carbon ink because is dries fast and it is easier to apply watercolor on top very quickly. Thank you Kate! I am a fast sketcher and my time for sketching is quite limited during the week so I need to make sure that my ink dries quickly so I can paint and have a finish product in 30minutes. I followed her recommendations and voila, this is the result.

This is the pulpit of the University of Puget Sound Chapel in Tacoma. Painted with watercolors.

This is another sketch I did from my home looking at the neighborhood recently using the LAMY Fountain pen with the Platinum Carbon Ink. Painted with watercolors.

And finally this is a view of Center for Health Sciences at the Tacoma Community College. I did this quick sketch during lunch using the LAMY pen as well. Painted with watercolor pencils.

So far I am very pleased with the results and plan to continue experimenting with the fountain pens. I will keep you posted!

Happy Sketching,

Daisy

Falling in Love with my New Green!

I live in the Pacific Northwest and when sketching, what do you see the most unless you live in the city? Come on guess! nope not that… nope that neither,  yes you got it!  Pine trees, all kinds and all varieties you might imagine and finding the perfect green in watercolors is challenging! I own and use the following green watercolors; Sap Green from QOR Watercolors, Sap Green from Windsor & Newton Professional Watercolors, Windsor Green (Blue Shade) from Windsor & Newton Professional Watercolors, Hooker’s Green from Windsor & Newton Professional Watercolors and my newest addition Jadeite Genuine from Daniel Smith Extra Fine Watercolors. All of my greens from Windsor & Newton Professional Watercolors are very nice but so far they don’t match the intense green I was looking for. A green that can provide the illusion of the beautiful green forests of the Pacific Northwest. In my search I stumbled upon QOR colors and I will definitely talk about them in more detail in a future post. I like them a lot and the green shade of Sap Green I found that it does a very good job with the evergreens, not perfect, or at least not the intensity I was looking for but I could live with that. Never the less my search continued.

I am very lucky that Daniel Smith Art supplies store is not horribly far away from home, roughly 50 miles away. One day due to work commitments I was 10 minutes away from this place and I could not resist stopping there on my way home. WOW I found paradise! “The missing link,” “El Dorado.” There I resumed my search for the perfect green.  Stumbled upon Jadeite Genuine, a beautiful shade of green that is so pure and intense that brings tears to my eyes, well probably not that much but very close. This particular color is part of a collection called the Prima Tek colors. One thing I learned about Daniel Smith Watercolors is that they are built from the ground up meaning they use pigments from the earth to make the Prima Tek watercolor! Daniel Smith has a mineralogist that travels the world finding the right minerals for these exquisite colors. In particular Jadeite Genuine is made of two minerals, Jade and Nephrite. This color is a series 4 and the price is higher that the other ones but it is totally worth it! The price is $13.77 for a 5ml tube (small) but is currently on sale for $10.33. If you live far from the Seattle or Bellevue area you can always buy Daniel Smith online, this is the web address; www.danielsmith.com
As follows these are a couple of sketches I have done using this beautiful Jadeite Genuine Watercolor.

               

I drew this sketch of my neighborhood a week ago as I was waiting for a storm that never showed up! You can see the contrast between the pine trees and the Sap green of the bushes and grass.

This is another sketch I did yesterday while waiting for some new tires at Les Schwab. All the pine trees are painted with Daniel Smith’s Jadeite Genuine and the bushes are done with Sap Green from QOR watercolors.

Well this is my Urban Sketching journey for the last couple of weeks, experimenting and learning more about color. Now that the Fall has arrived there will be a lot more pportunities to experience new colors, shades and vibrant tones.
Until next time and Happy Sketching,
Daisy

Urban Sketching, more than just a drawing...

My name is Daisy Abreu. I am a licensed psychotherapist working in the healthcare industry, a disaster mental health relief volunteer for the Red Cross and I am also an Urban Sketcher. I came across Urban Sketching accidentally in my search to learn more about art, watercolor painting and drawing. I have no formal art education other than a strong background in photography which I completed during my bachelor’s degree three decades ago in Puerto Rico. For many years I had wanted to learn watercolors and finally about a year and half ago after the loss of my parents I decided to embark myself in this fantastic journey. One thing led to the next as I realized that painting will require me to learn how to draw, what a discovery! In my search for some drawing instruction I came across some of my favorite urban sketchers such as Stephanie Bower, Paul Heaston, Hugo Rocha or Alfonso Garcia and many others. As my research intensified I came across the Urban Sketcher blog and website, searched for a chapter and to my surprise there was a local chapter here in Tacoma! I joined immediately and became addicted to urban sketching. I felt in love so much with this organization that became a volunteer working with the blog and helping in all I possibly can.

I believe that Urban Sketching has different meaning to every urban sketcher. To me urban sketching works as a process in which I can reach the “flow.” A concept developed by Dr. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi that states creativity is a central source of meaning in our lives. He states that "When we are involved in [creativity], we feel that we are living more fully than during the rest of life." Flow is the creative moment when a person is completely involved in an activity for its own sake. To me Urban Sketching is a form of mindfulness practice that helps me be grounded, relaxed and experience joy. It teaches me patience and acceptance. It helps me see my mistakes and flaws in the drawing and embrace them as learning opportunities. This process translates into daily life experiences as well. Urban sketching also serves as a way to record time, place, experiences and my life as a whole. Life is like a fleeting thought, what is here today is no longer tomorrow. Everything changes and creating a record of our experiences thru the process of art is magical.

As follows I will share with you some of the sketches I have completed during the past six months with Urban Sketchers - Tacoma.

This is my very first urban sketch done at Chambers Golf Course in University Place, WA

This sketch was done from my car while having a lunch break. This lady and her children caught my attention as they were asking drivers from financial support.

Most of my sketching opportunities happen during lunch as you will see over time. This was done in Tacoma and this is Tacoma Community College or TCC.

This is a view of the Tacoma Dome from the Glass Museum during our West Coast Urban Sketchers Sketch Crawl.

 As you can see Urban Sketching has become part of my life and I hope to share this journey with you all along with the USk-T blog correspondent team.

Happy Sketching,

Daisy