Posted in knitting, painting

Unraveled Wednesday from Here

Waking up again to new snowfall. The wind blew it all about, and it’s clear that we are in for some of the coldest weather I have ever experienced.

Not to fret, I have my yarn (and blog friends) to keep me warm. Here’s what’s on my needles today.

In December I promised Bill that I would knit him a pair of socks. At Christmas, I formalized the promise with this gift, wrapped up with a swatch of the yarn.

This yarn has been in my stash since last January. It is Regia, by Schachenmayr. I have wanted to try this classic self-striping sock yarn for a long time. It was a bit fiddly getting started. I chose to knit from the cuff down using a 1 by 2 rib pattern. Getting cast-on with four sock needles was hard and the first few round tedious. But now I have my rhythm going.

As far as reading goes, the desire to stay inside and curled up has me almost desperate for new reading material. Succumbing to the stacks of detective novels that Bill has sprinkled throughout the house, I chose StillLife, by Louise Penny. I pretty much raced through it in two days. As murder mysteries go, it was fairly gentle, with more writing about relationships than graphic descriptions of violence and cruelty. It turned out to be just what I needed to get through the long, cold nights of January.

To read about posts by Kat’s other Unravelers, visit her site and link into the party.

Posted in painting

Sunday Sketchbook Play

This month I have been participating in an art forum called Sketchbook Revival. For this page of my sketchbook I am following Faith Evans-Sill and her workshop that has us experiment with color and pattern prompted by an image.

I chose to be inspired by a photograph I found in my Rotary Magazine.

For the technique, we are asked to sweep stripes of color across the page, then intersperse shapes and patterns between and among the stripes. I decided to be somewhat more literal in my experiments. I wanted to reproduce the colors and elements that I saw in the photo, especially the trees.

In addition to regular watercolor paint, I worked in some metallic paints to capture some of the shine that’s visible in image. Once everything dried, I made marks with a black micron pen and a few colored pencils.

There were two benefits to the exercise. 1. Splashing the paint around was relaxing and stimulating to my brain. 2. I discovered colors and mixes that were new to me.

If you are interested in Faith Evans-Sill and her class offerings, here is her webpage.

https://www.faithevanssills.com/online-classes

Posted in painting

Sleeping Babes Revisited

Yesterday I made a watercolor version of the sleeping baby posted earlier this week.

Here is the original photograph:

And my take on this portrait using watercolor.

Somehow in the process of painting, the little mite’s coloration was translated from dark hair to straw-colored red hair, and the facial tones got very rosy, especially the lips. I guess I am channeling Lu.

Anyway, this sketch pleases me. With practice I am learning how to manipulate multiple layers of wash, getting the colors to blend better.

Pigments used were raw sienna, yellow ochre, quinacridone red, burnt sienna, ultramarine blue, carbazole violet, and tiny bit of permanent alizarin crimson. This was worked in my brand new 5 x 8 inch Hahnemuhle watercolor sketchbook. The paper was very forgiving.