Maupin Whitewater Institute Sketches, July 2011

This week I attended the Whitewater Institute in Maupin, Oregon.  It's a four-day training program on community college outcomes and assessments.  Maupin is east of Mt. Hood and is in the high desert area of Oregon.  Each day we had class and then took a raft trip on the Deschutes River.  Our raft team was GREAT, even though we had a few mishaps along the way - poor Katy got bounced out of the boat twice and I whacked her on the head with my oar once.  Also, Tracy did a somersault off the front end into the river.



Bridge over the Deschutes River near Maupin

Rafts tied to the Imperial Hotel dock

Beavertail Overview

Blue Heron on River

More Beavertail Hills

Yellow Headed Blackbird

River Rocks Picked Up Along the Deschutes

Words of Wisdom from Yvonne, on Supervision Issues



Sunriver Sketches, July 2011

These are a couple of sketches I made in Sunriver this year.  I didn't take too many pictures or do alot of sketching.  We stayed at a new Meadowhouse condo this time, I think it was #70 something.

Lyrics from the song "Human" on my iPod for walking

Sketch of trees in back of our condo

Big Island Trip Sketch Book

 We went to the Big Island of Hawaii, June 8-15. We stayed at the Hapuna Prince Beach Resort. Here's my sketchbook of what we did:

Wednesday, June 9th

Had a GREAT SNORKEL - lots of fish & crystal clear water. Drove to Kona, shopped at Ross (our favorite store!) and found some bargains, had lunch at Don's Chinese, walked through downtown Kona (to the palace, the old church, the shops), swam at the hotel but water was rough, had drinks at the Reef Lounge and fed the feral cats (and a mongoose or two).

Thursday, June 10th

Had another GREAT SNORKEL in early morning, clear, calm, lots of fish. We drove to Hilo and saw all of the lush vegetation. We did some more shopping in Hilo at Ross & Macy's, looked around town. We've been there before, so didn't do any of the tourist stuff. I swam in the snorkel cove because the waves were high on the beach. In the evening we went to our lounge and then took the shuttle over to the Mauna Kea where they had hula.

Friday, June 11th

We went snorkeling again in the early morning - the water was more cloudy and wavy, but was still pretty good. Rick was bitten by mosquitos in the night and had welts all over his legs. We went to the King's Shops in Waikoloa and had lunch at Arnie's Clubhouse at the hotel. Afternoon swimming was GREAT. It was hula night at the lounge and we saw students from the local halau. Back in the room we went on a mosquito seeking mission to rid the room of insects.

Saturday, June 12th

We didn't snorkel today because it was wavy and Rick's mosquito welts were bothering him under the fins. We drove to Hawi on the north coast. The King Kamehameha statue was draped with leis from the holiday on Friday. I got a red garnet necklace at a cute jewelry shop. We had lunch at the Snack Shack (where we've gone several times before. Afternoon swimming.

Sunday, June 13th

Morning snorkeling was not very good today. It was wavy, windy and murky, though we did see three turtle! That was fun. Today we went to Waimea to look around. I wen to the bead shop and the Parker Ranch shops. We found out that feral cats who have been fixed have snipped ears to mark them! We'd noticed that a number of cats had notched ears and just thought they'd gotten in fights. There's a local group that spays and neuters the many, many area cats. In the afternoon I drove to the Shops at Mauna Lani and went through the Lahaina Gallery. I wanted to see their Darrell Hill paintings. Great afternoon swimming!!

Monday, June 14th

This was our last full day. Snorkeling was again wavy and cloudy, but we did see some turtles again. Had lunch at the Beach Bar and spent the afternoon reading, napping, and swimming! We didn't take the car out at all today.

One Million Giraffes

Ok, so here's a fun thing....I just submitted an entry to One Million Giraffes!

Here's the link: http://www.olahelland.net/giraffes/

"My friend, Jørgen, doesn't believe I can collect one million giraffes by 2011. I'm gonna prove him wrong, but I need your help. You can create your giraffe(s) in any way you like, but not on a computer and no store bought objects. You must create your giraffe(s) yourself! Click here to read why. So far I've got 146 399 giraffes, so I need 853 601 more and I have 493 days left. Let's show Jørgen how amazing the internet is."

Ya GOTTA take a look and see all the creative giraffes! There's one made from an orange peel, a "Giraffe with a Pearl Earring", a "Last Supper" giraffe, a "Scream" giraffe, giraffes made of twigs/leafs/coins/fruits/potato chips/Legos/origami/clay.....from all over the world! It's amazing!! Whole classrooms of kids have submitted drawings.

I saw this on alissa4012's flickr account. She submitted two beautiful drawings.

fun, fun

EDM #236: Draw The Palm of Your Left Hand

This challenge was to draw the palm of your left hand, which sounds easy enough to do. But it was hard to hold my hand tipped over for so long! And I have more lines and wrinkles in my palm than I ever noticed before! And then I had to make a hand shadow.....

It would be an interesting task to draw my right palm with my left hand. Maybe I'll try that next.

EP

San Francisco Street Challenge

Today I learned about a blog that posts photos for people to base a painting on. It's called Different Strokes From Different Folks.

The current challenge is to paint a San Francisco street scene. It's due August 12th, so I didn't have much time. I just did a quick watercolor sketch in my sketchbook. Thanks to Leigh for the info on this fun project!

"A bi-weekly challenge for any artist who would like to join in - I'll post one photograph every other Wednesday evening and I want you to paint or draw or etch it your way." Karin Jurick

There are some beautiful paintings already posted on the blog

EDM #235: Draw a Butterfly

The EDM Challenge this week was to draw a butterfly. I drew the hippo in my sketchbook on Friday and added the butterfly when I saw it was the new topic.

I haven't seen any butterflies around here lately....of course, I haven't been looking for them either! But I will now.

Several Sketchbook Portraits

I've been working on drawing faces. Here are a few of my recent face
sketches. These are from photos and magazines. The "Gorilla Dog" is my friend Melissa's new dog Boo with her husband. Boo is a big Newfoundland puppy and she kind of looks like a gorilla......though I did enhance her face just a bit!

This is Baby Boo

Boo with a Gorilla Face!

The drawings below were done on thin, sketchbook paper, which wrinkled with the watercolor :(

  

EDM #232: Draw the Last Thing You Bought

The last thing I bought is a Winsor Newton Sketchers Pocket Box of Cotman Water Colours. It comes with 12 color cubes and a nifty little brush. And I got it for 40% off at Aaron Brothers!

This is Challenge #232 from Everyday Matters.

(Like I don't have enough watercolor kits already, but this is so small and cute and I really, really needed it, and it fits in my purse, and the colors are so nice, and......well, you always need more paints, right???)

Spirit of the Sketch Class

Last weekend I took a weekend class called "Spirit of the Sketch". My friend, Leigh Bunkin (findingmywings-leighbunkin) recommended it to me and it was great! Another friend, Ann, also took the class. There were 24 students in all.

Leigh and I worked together last year and we discovered that we both love art and we both participate in Everyday Matters (though I haven't done any of the challenges for quite awhile). I had never met a live person who does EDM. Leigh has just finished a self-challenge to draw and post to her blog daily. Congrats to Leigh for completing her year! She posted her sketches from class on a daily basis: Day 1 , Day 2, and Day 3. I'm going to post mine all together.

We learned lots of neat things in the class:

Gesture Drawings- this is a quick sketch of the movement or gesture of an object/person. We had from 30-90 seconds to draw each pose. We used graphite pencil, micron pen, brush pen, and three colored pencils. I really liked this because it forced me to be quick and and will help with sketching people in public. Here are just a few of the many poses we sketched:

Memory Drawings - for this exercise, we intently studied a picture for about a minute and then drew what we could remember. The picture was from a calendar and had a number of elements. I found the original calendar picture on the web. It was interesting to see what different people remembered....most people got all of the objects and general colors, some drew in the dog's little red tongue, most people got the purple outfit, but didn't get the sleeves correct. Almost no one remembered the hair exactly. It's a good exercise for capturing an image to draw later.

Drawing Values - we practiced various methods of adding value/shading: pencil shading with watercolor wash on top, ink shading with wash, watercolor shading only, w/c wash with ink on top, watercolor pencil. Ann and I went out to the college garden to draw nasturtiums.

Sketchbook Drawings - we collected natural and human-made found objects and made a page with comments; we copied a painting in the gallery and made our own painting in response and commented; we looked at lots of books and sketchbooks for ideas.


Sketchbook Page Treatments - we practiced collage, paint splatter, color wash, various borders, frames, lettering styles, drawing and writing placement/design.

Contour Drawing - where you carefully follow the outer contour of an object and capture it's shape - we drew right handed, left handed, and blind (without looking at drawing). I drew a padlock on a color-washed background sample.

Face Drawings - we did quick 1 minute sketches of everyone in the class. Mine are too bad to post!

Sketchbook Drawings

I thought I'd post a couple of my sketchbook drawings from our Sunriver trip earlier in July.

The first is a tree right by the patio of the condo
we rented. I used Micron pen and colored pencils.

The second, below, is a sketch of Jack sleeping, in pen and watercolor.

Miniskirt Memories

Here's a little sketch I drew whilst at the coffee shop yesterday afternoon. This couple was sitting at a table outside and I could see them through the window. The young woman was facing the window, but perhaps forgot that people inside could see her quite clearly!

It reminded me of being a teenager. I'm 52 years old now, and when I was in 8th grade, miniskirts were brand new. We all wore our skirts at least 5 inches above our knees, which caused problems for our parents and school personnel. I remember one English teacher asked the boys to leave the room and lectured us girls about how to sit in our desks and admonished us to keep our knees together!!!

Then when we were sophomores, our Algebra teacher, Mr. French, liked to look up our skirts when we sat in his class. He was a creepy guy, to say the least!

This "view" reminded me of that English teacher and her lecture. She was right, it's not a real attractive look! At work I see so many students who are always tugging their pants up or pulling their skirts down

Emma Pod

Airport Sketches

We went to Las Vegas for a Moody Blues concert, which was really great! I didn't get any good photos of the band because our seats were too far away. : ( I did get a few pics of hotels and such.

Here are a few sketches I did of fellow travelers in the Portland and Las Vegas airports. This is my first time drawing people just using pens (no pencil or eraser safety net).

    

An earlier drawing from McDonalds: