Rough couple of weeks for art

Day job schedule, the sudden death of my ten-year-old Wacom tablet, and general domestic futzery has put a crimp in my posting (odd how "The Holidays" mean people work more instead of less). Today was the first full day I've had free to draw & paint in too long. Not much success to show for it, sadly. 1st image is from a sketchbook thumbnail of a field on my morning commute, seen at sunrise. 2nd image was a quick gouache of the view off my porch when I went outside for a fresh air break.

I have an unhappy backlog in the sketchbook, including work from a business trip to New Orleans last month, which I'm eager to get down on paper.

Wednesday Pen & Ink sketches

I went looking for clarity and found a whole lot of mush. Annoyed, I decided "When in doubt, do something different" and took out my new waterbrushes and sumi-e. I tried "serious" and ended up sketching cats (again!). I wanted action and started drawing baseball... I guess the World Series is still rattling around in my head somewhere. Today just didn't go as planned.

Gouache Apple

I'm ashamed to admit that I haven't used gouache in far too long. I've gone back into it recently and I decided first to experiment with painting simple things like fruit. It's nice to be able to paint in the real world again (outdoor painting isn't much fun in Texas during the summer!), and this time without the trouble of toxicity and travel-unfriendly equipment.

A couple of speedies

90-minute digitals. Cats seem to be a theme this week. I thought for sure I was on a "robots" kick, but most of my current sketches happen to be of cats.

Monday Night Sketchbook

No kitty, you're not allowed on the art desk.

Surely I'm not the only artist who's had this problem.