Saturday, December 24, 2011

Julia Kay's Portrait Party December 20112012

Julia Kay's Portrait Party is a virtual party where the members draw each other. There are some wonderful portraits in the group by some fantastic artists. I am having fun stretching my art capabilities! Check it out, you might want to try it! www.flickr.com/groups/portraitparty/
You can see the portraits I have done with the links to the original photos here:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/artbybernadette/sets/72157628279265883/with/6567042407/
Here are my attempts so far, from first attempt at the top to the most recent ones completed at the bottom here:

2011.12.05 neil.davidson

2011.12.09 Marty Harris


2011.12.12 Mia Agliotti

2011.12.18 Nora Ilva

2011.12.23 Dan Duffy

2011.12.24 Rodrick
I'd like to think I have improved a bit over 20 days and 7 sketches!
Oh, here is another one completed in December-

2011.12.09 Duncan Creamer
2011.12.28 Skii Chung




2012.01.01 Rippleberry Jazz/ Tom Lambie

Sunday, December 18, 2011

2011 Christmas

Thought I'd add the snow-family seen at my brother's home on Christmas day!
I finally made the art for my Christmas cards!  Am I too late? :) 
Think I just barely made it, now to print and send...
By the way, this is a sketch of my tree this year, it's also the first one
in my larger moleskin sketchbook.  I didn't think I could fit all the
detail on my smaller one.
As it was, I only showed about half of them!

Sunday, December 4, 2011

20111030 Townhouse view

A view of the San Francisco Bay from our townhouse in Sausalito. A lovely rental with easy access to town.

20111030 Kendall Jackson vineyard

A very orange display of pumpkins at the Kendall Jackson vineyard in Sonoma at Halloween.

Saturday, December 3, 2011

20111101 San Francisco Japanese Tea Garden

One of several statues in a lovely tea garden!

0111020 Lahaina Maui Banyan tree

The oldest Banyan tree in the US at Lahaina, Maui. Planted in 1873,it covers nearly an acre and is 60 ft. high.  Now that's a tree!

20111019 Wailea Beach Maui

We saw a truly romantic wedding setting, getting their photo taken on the very rocky beach.I did wonder if he carried her over the pointed rocks!

Sunday, November 27, 2011

2011 10 Maui hotel good night cards

Every night, They would leave a different card and a plumeria flower on my pillow! *sigh* Why can't I have that at home??? :D

Sunday, November 6, 2011

Haleakala sunrise

This was a sacred place - a native lady sang the sunrise prayer during the last few minutes of the sunrise. It was very cold, but so awe-inspiring, watching it rise as we stood above the clouds.

Iao Valley Park



Three views in this amazing park in Maui!
Update Nov. 27 - I added an inset of a nearby banana tree.

Saturday, October 8, 2011

2011 Hawaii - Maui

 These 2 watercolors will be matted and framed for a silent auction which will benefit HFOT (Homes For Our Troops).  HFOT builds complete homes for service members with serious disabilities and injuries.  These homes are given at NO COST to the Veterans.

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Crossing the Sahara

Crossing the Sahara by artbybernadette
Crossing the Sahara, a photo by artbybernadette on Flickr.
From the Human Planet tv series, thought I'd practice taking a photo and uploading from my iPhone. Not sure if I can rotate it from the phone, but cropping was easy using the Photoshop app.
NOTE: If anyone can help with rotating images using an iphone, I appreciate it!

Sunday, October 2, 2011

Farmer's market

An organic vegetable table at Otsiningo Park. Pretty as a picture, I thought! Wasn't sure if I wanted to color the baskets, eh, maybe later.

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Easy Street?

After all that cleaning, I wondered, Where the heck is Easy Street? Can anyone point the way?

Cleaning!

Yes, I did all of these things in one day! Laundry, ironing, mopping, making a healthy dinner - Very tired at the end of the day, but it was a good tired. Is that an oxymoron - good tired? :-)

Monday, September 26, 2011

2011 0922 Indianapolis

I went to a work conference in Indianapolis, with only 2 nights there. What a lovely city! Had I known, I could have spent at least an extra day there to enjoy the sites!
Had a half hour to do this from my hotel room before leaving.

Monday, September 19, 2011

Mountain of rubble

Well, bless the sanitation workers & everyone else that worked on cleaning up the mountains of trash.  So sad, seeing personal items in this heap.  The pile ended up almost twice as high before they were able to haul it to the dump.  How do I know?  This is directly across the street from our workplace.  Quite a strong smell!

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

2011 Flood

"The world breaks everyone - and afterward many are stronger at the broken places." - Hemingway
This is drawn from a photo taken the first day we were working to clean up after the recent flooding.

Sunday, September 11, 2011

Amaryllis

Was just waiting for the right time to try brush and ink.  This is a silk flower I've had for years. (had to clean the cobwebs off!)
Not sure how I feel about the thick ink lines, but it was fun to try for a change! A bright spot in a not-so-bright weekend!

Friday, September 9, 2011

Cercropia caterpillar

A friend sent me this name, and once I saw it, I knew I had to sketch one!!!
These are so colorful! 

Thursday, September 8, 2011

Blue Mist

An old watercolor that expresses my emotions right now.  Epic flooding in our area and the entire northeast.  Not my home, but my place of business - over 5 ft. and maybe more to to come. So many have lost their homes in this tremendous flood.  Thank you for keeping us in your thoughts!

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Artistic License

Available to all artists, if needed, to draw and paint as you wish, not how things really are!
And to bring a smile and remind us that art can be fun!

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Mike S 50th birthday

My friend's boyfriend will celebrate his 50th birthday soon, and she asked me to do a sketch of him as a gift. I hope he likes it!

JC Field Days

Sept. 9, 2011 - The calm before the storm.  All the rides were unloaded from the trucks, but not put together yet.  Lots of bright colors!
I was imagining the screams of delight once the rides open!

Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Swarm!

My attempt at a journal page.  This morning at work, there was a humungous swarm of bees on the light pole.  So, a beekeeper was called.  His sister was visiting, so she came along with him.  He cut a semi-circle from a piece of cardboard, and used it to scrape the bees off the pole into a box he had ready.  Well, his first scrape missed the box, and the bees fell into a pile on the ground! Really strange to me! They were almost like liquid. 
They started clustering back on the pole, so he just continued scraping, and eventually got most of them in the box.  He sealed it shut, and put it in his truck. But- as they got ready to leave, I saw his sister putting on his white overcoat and hood.  I guess she didn't want to chance riding with any loose bees, and I don't blame her!
It was a first for me, and it was fascinating!

Otsiningo Park geese

Another gorgeous day yesterday!  Went for a walk after work, and the geese were grazing. or whatever it is geese do. So out came the sketchbook, but I wanted to walk, so I added color after I got home.

Monday, August 29, 2011

Sampling watercolors


I bought this set at least a year ago, and have only used a few of the colors. All of these Holbeins seem juicy, with the exception on Yellow grey and terre verte.
Just not enough room in my palette for all of them!!!





These are most of the other paints I have collected over the years. They are all Holbein except as noted.  No, I don't get commission, apparently my wc instructor was a fan, and kept recommending these.  The permanent violet is so luscious! And sap green and compose green are nearly identical. Why do I even have Davy's grey? Looks like I just kept buying colors I 'liked' instead of warm/cool choices.   Might be time to update a few of my palette colors!

Sunday, August 28, 2011

2011 0712 Old gas station

A very old pump, with leaded gas, the hose looks like it works!
Another one done from my friend's photos taken during his 3 week motorcycle trip out west. Think this was in Utah, but he can verify.
 He has the best pictures, posted here:  Jim's ride posts on ADV Rider

Lisa's garden

Visiting my friend a couple weeks ago. She doesn't tend the garden, but she gets to enjoy it!

Blind Tiger Pub

A favorite local hangout! Another local sketch done Saturday, done BI (Before Irene!)

Toms Coffee & Gifts

A great place to get gourmet coffee or a unique gift. I took advantage of the nice weather Saturday to get out and sketch before Irene came to town!

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

NYPenn Trade Center

What a perfectly gorgeous day! Took a walk at lunch and still had 15 minutes left.
So I brought out my sketchbook and did this. Not the best viewpoint, but it felt good to sketch something.
Shortly after, sitting inside work, several of us felt the earthquake from Virginia! I went to earthquake.usgs.gov and saw that California & Colorado had *many* quakes in the last 24 hours. Do they always have so many?

Box o books!

My dear friend was donating boxes of books, and let me pick some to take home. I ended up with a full box!  I should be all set with reading material for quite a while!

Thursday, August 11, 2011

Colorado pics 3

From a friend's photos taken during his 3 week motorcycle ride out west. He has the best pictures, posted here: <a href="http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=701959&page=5" rel="nofollow">www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=701959&page=4</a>  so his friends back home could follow his adventures.
Canyonlands National Park

Arches National Park

Sunday, August 7, 2011

Latest Sketch Kit and Palette

This was a pencil case - just using a small (Schmincke) palette, small spray bottle and teeny water container!