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Art of Map Color
Color on maps has history ranging from aesthetic to symbolic, from decorative to the complex color theorems started in the 1800s to distinguish countries, states and bodies of water. In the 19th century before complexity set in and before maps were printed with color it was a popular hobby for society ladies to hand color […]
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The Color of Maps
The next few posts are going to include how color was introduced to the genre of maps and charts. The earliest maps were used for storytelling and wayfinding on land and at sea. Military planning and plant hunting were specialized areas using early colored maps. In the 1780s the profession of ‘topographic artist’ was introduced. […]
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Too Brilliant Color
If you pause and look around the environment where you are right now, do you see much Orange? Orange, our color this week does not casually creep into our personal environment… possibly if we are outdoors in the fall foliage, or maybe if we work in an industrial site surrounded by safety messaging or drive […]
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Yucca
The Yucca has become a smart plant for urban gardens. The plant is low maintenance, copes well in sun or shade and brings an interesting heritage. Seeing the flowering Yucca on my daily walk route and a family members visit to the Fremont Indian State Park & Museum has inspired this post.
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Getting Started
When starting the watercolor sketch for this post it was to explore the three watercolors that made it onto my palette when I first started watercolor. The plant I chose to sketch is – Akebia quinata or 5-Leaf Vine. Synchronicity set in … it was 5 years ago that I took my first ‘encore’ / […]
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The Perennial Daisy
A patch of daisies has started to bloom in my city garden, and I am prompted to make this cheery flower the subject of this week’s color exploration. The prompting came from a variety of angles. Jean Mackay posted an image done in negative painting technique on IG that encouraged slowing down to paint, I […]
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Solstice
On this day, the Sun rises farthest left on the horizon, and sets at its rightmost possible spot. Sunlight strikes places in your home that get illuminated at no other time Almanac.com The solstice on Tuesday, June 21, 2022 happens at the same instance for all of us, everywhere on Earth. In my time zone that is […]
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Mauve Madness
As I was researching a ‘food archaeology’ dive into cinchona bark for my Around the Table sketching class I ordered a copy of the book Just The Tonic. As I was reading this well researched and very interesting book about the birth of tonic water, I came across a color note regarding – Mauve.
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Around The Table
The Art of Painting Food is a class I recently completed with Jane Barton. Barton took us through sketchbook exercises to examine our food likes/dislikes, a favorite memory of food and we took a dive into food archeology. Great class with fellow food sketchers!
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Something Different
Introducing a new way to look at getting an artistic idea on to the page is my message this week. My preference is watercolor and pen but occasionally I step boldly into trying new techniques and media to see what happens and what I can learn [and remember]. Two classes have helped me try Something […]
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WordPrompt May STRONG
This month ‘Strong’ is the WordPress monthly prompt and an opportunity for me to share how sketching makes ‘strong memories’. For those who are not WordPress publishers the monthly prompt challenge is to help writers with a creative topic, a ‘monthly word to inspire a new post whatever you publish’. So here is my May […]
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Lettering Lesson
Adding words to a sketch is a good practice to understand so Jean Mackay provided us with a few tips for hand-lettering during the Nature Sketching workshop in Italy. I am not much for adding phrases into my work but some simple steps for making lettering look polished were welcome. We spent about 20 minutes […]
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