A Few Sketchbook Pages

Micron ink pen and colored pencil.

Pencil, gel pens, colored pencil.

Pencil, colored pencil and watercolor. 

I did all three of these last night in the company of some friends and some strawberries. Looking at them today I can hear Tracie’s voice, see Cindy laugh, and remember the look on the other Cindi’s face… I just love how a drawing can bring you instantly back to the moment you were in when you created it!

I’m working this week on getting the class descriptions ready for the three online summer camp sessions that are happening in August. All the details will be up by Friday, July 1st. See you then!

 

 

Playing Catch Up

Oh my goodness.

It’s been so long that I’ve owed this little portrait that I’m embarrassed to say. But I will.

Because I want to be an honest person.

And because I weirdly want you to know what lame-o I can be sometimes.

The prize for the “Best Silly Glasses Design” in my Silly 2 class was a portrait drawn by me. These lovely kids won it back in October 2010.

Yes, the seasons have changed.

Three times.

But it’s in the mail now.

Sigh.

(A, if you still read my blog, I hope you like it!!)

Tutorial: Super Easy Watercolor Birds

Tags

Animals, How-To, tutorials

 
Hello!

This little tutorial will hopefully dispel some myths about watercolor being “impossible.” Yes, it does have kind of mind of its own sometimes, but that’s part of the fun (and is usually completely “fixable,” as you will see)!

These birds are super easy. Follow the steps below, but remember your birds will (and should) come out differently than mine! The way you lay down the paint, the colors you choose, the shape of your bird, and your unique “hand” when adding pencil detailing will all contribute to a bird that is uniquely yours. And that is a good thing!

STEP ONE

1. Gather your supplies. You will need a pencil, a set of watercolors (cake or tube is fine), some watercolor paper (I like using a “hot press,” which is smoother), a rag or paper towel for blotting paint, a container with water, and a watercolor brush (I use a #12 round).

STEP TWO

2. Using lots of water, mix up a little pool of the color of your choice. Test the paint on a scrap piece of paper. The pigment should be watered down and the color should be quite light. (This will feel strange to Bright-Color People, but don’t worry! It won’t stay this pale.)

STEP THREE

3. Load your paint brush. Blot a little of the excess water on to your rag or paper towel. Your brush will still be quite wet; this just takes the drippiness out.

STEP FOUR

4. Start painting a bird. I usually do not draw in pencil first, as I like to see how the bird unfolds using paint only. (But you are allowed to draw it in lightly first if you must!) Work fairly quickly; you want the paint to remain wet as you move it into the shape of your bird. If desired, leave a space unpainted for the eye, as shown here:

In the case of my first bird, I the paint was a little too wet… I wanted it to dry a bit more before I added the next step, so I used this time to paint in a second bird.

STEP FIVE

5. While the paint is still wet, go back to your watercolor palette and grab some darker pigment with your paintbrush (not watered-down this time). Dip the heavier pigment into the wet paint here and there (I like to go around the eyes and on the bottom edge of the bird). Just dab it; the watercolor will begin to spread out on its own. Repeat with the second bird:

STEP SIX

6. Let dry completely. (Very important!) You can see here that the green spread out quite a bit when it dried. This wasn’t exactly what I intended (oops), and occurred because my original layer of paint was “too wet.” No worries, though! We can fix it on the second layer.

STEP SEVEN

7. Now you are basically going to repeat steps 2-6, but with different colors. In this case I used a very light orange-red for my second transparent layer (steps 2-4)…

… and a darker blue for my more pigmented drop-ins (step 5).

Repeating now for the second bird.

STEP EIGHT

8. Once the second layer of paint is COMPLETELY dry (very important!) you can add details with pencil. I usually add the eyes, some shading around the eyes perhaps, and some shading on the wings and bottom of the bird.

Keep your hand loose; if the pencil lines seem too harsh, use your finger to soften the effect:

STEP NINE

10. Finished! Here’s a detail:

* * * * * * * * * *

This tutorial brought to you by Make It Easy, an 11-day tutorial blog-hop journey!

Make It Easy: 11 Tutorials for You

About a month ago I decided to take part in a collaborative tutorial project with 10 women I had never “met” before! It’s been fun to go to their blogs the last few weeks and see all of their creativity and enthusiasm for a creative life.

Tuesday, June 21st: DIY Cute Paper Quilled Gift Cards/Tags (Honey’s Quilling)
Wednesday, June 22nd: Super Easy Watercolor Birds (me!)
Thursday, June 23rd: Happy Birthday Bunting (Hollybobb)
Friday, June 24th: Pillow Case Dress for Beginners (Red Ted Art’s Blog)
Saturday, June 25th: Make Envelopes Using Magazines! (Life of Sara Nicole)
Sunday, June 26: Easy-To-Make Necklace and Bracelet (fuego, metal y color)
Monday, June 27th: Simple Embroidery Tutorial (Flex Family Arts)
Tuesday, June 28th: Upcycled Fold-A-Note (Little Green Bums)
Wednesday, June 29th: Mini Recipe Album (Stacey Winters)
Thursday, June 30th: Tidy Up Gnomes (Beneath the Rowen Tree)
Friday, July 1st: Felt Flower Cushion (Hello, Beautiful)

—————————————————————————-
The 11 “Make It Easy” tutorials start today! Go here for Emma’s introductory email, introducing all of the bloggers.

My step-by-step is scheduled for Wednesday, June 22, and I’ll show you how to watercolor birds like the ones shown above. In the meantime, here’s the official blurb for the project:

Make it Easy is a series of 11 crafting tutorials hosted by talented, artistic and enthusiastic women. You will be shown how to create 11 unique and beautiful items — there will be one tutorial every day for the next 11 days — and we really hope you will find some inspiration to get your craft on!

At the end of the series there will be an ebook of all the tutorials available for a small fee of $1.99. All the tutorials will be in this one convenient download that you will be able to print off and read over and over. The money will go to the person whose blog you download it from and, by doing so, you will be showing your support for the hard work of this crafting community. Thank you!

And here are links to the 11 players… as their tutorials go live each day, I will update the link to go right to their tutorials!

 

Happy Father’s Day

This is a photograph of my father, Clifford Hewitt, Jr., holding my sister Kelly and me. (I am on the right.) c. 1968.

My parents divorced when I was 4 and the arrangement was made by the court, common back then, that I would see him every other weekend and six weeks during the summer.

Dad remarried and became stepdad to four children around our ages. One of those summers, I remember clearly the six of us standing outside his workshop garage with our hands extended: we wanted money to buy some candy at the nearest 7-11 store (a two-mile walk away). He gave us each a dime; .60 to get rid of us for the entire afternoon? Deal!

After several of these dime-excursions I remember my oldest stepsister, Jenny, demanding on behalf of all of us that he up the ante to a quarter each. The price of candy had gone up, see, and the four-mile round-trip walk wasn’t worth a single Pixie Stick.

My dad passed out the quarters cheerfully.

($1.50 for several hours of uninterrupted time was still a deal, and he knew it.)

I recently came across this photo of my dad, taken in 1986 when he was just 53 years old. (He is holding my little brother, William.)

Dad died 9 years later of a massive heart attack at just 62.

I miss him.

Sea Changes

Every three or four years things shift for me work-wise. When younger and working for others, that meant that I would change jobs (or even career paths, see my bio!) every few years.

(Embarassingly, the only person I’ve worked for for longer than four years is myself. But even then, it seems my “job” is always changing and morphing, again on that 3-4 year time schedule.)

When I first started pursuing my artwork 10 years ago, I made a lot of paintings and had some gallery shows and did many art and craft shows and that was the main way I made my income.

A few years later, teaching adults kind of rose to the top and I traveled around teaching for events such as Artfest, Art & Soul, Art Unraveled and others.

And here I am again, watching the seas shift once again. Recently I made the decision to focus on online classes for now, thinking that it is all that I can handle (and do well). I love that I can reach so many people and that I don’t have to travel… with my husband traveling extensively for his work, it was starting to get quite stressful, both of us coming and going so often, especially with Wes still home.

But! (and I just love how life works this way), no sooner had I made the “online-class only” decision when a second book opportunity began to gain momentum.

So it looks like I will be focusing on writing another book AND teaching online classes in the year ahead.

Not as much traveling, but it’s good timing, as we’re expecting our first grandchild in September! Staying closer to home seems like the right thing to do.

Feeling Lonely!

Well, we put our son Wes (almost 16) on a plane this morning; he’s spending a few weeks in Colorado visiting friends and family. It was so sad to see him walk out of sight after going through security… it was one of those moments when one feels so heavily that their children are growing up and away.

I’ve also felt a bit lonely the last week since Silly 4 ended… but that is just par for the course! (But I do so enjoy the silly chatter and energy when a class is in session!)

* * *

Hey! I was inspired the other day to take out my camera for the first time in YEARS. I have no idea if these photos are any good at all, but I LIKE them, and it was FUN, and truly, that’s the only important thing, right!?

(Obviously I am being inspired by Steve’s photo class, which I’m sort of vicariously “taking” since I’m the Chief-Head-Honcho-Squeenly Proofreader.)

See you soon!

 

“F-stops and the Bees”

“Once upon a time there was a princess locked in a tower with one round window and surrounded by magic bees.”

* * * * * * * * * *

Hello! Everything non-silly has ground to a halt over here at Snowball Journals; Steve’s “Photo Silly” class starts Monday and I’m his graphic designer and tech person, as well as the “illustrator” for his Technical Guide.

Still time to sign up… we’d love to have you! Go here for all the details.

Now… back to work!

Elephant Musings

When drawing or painting elephants, I almost never use a reference; I prefer, for whatever reason, to rely on my imagination and (distorted) memory of what an elephant looks like.

I’ve spent a lot of time drawing and LOOKING at elephants, though. In photographs, of course, but also at circuses, zoos; I love them!

When I was in India three years ago, I got a chance to visit with three live elephants. They were the cutest things ever, especially the one who reached over with its trunk and twisted off the 1/2″ cap from my water bottle, then proceeded to take the bottle out of my purse and drink all the water. Possibly a Top 5 moment from that trip to India!

So what do I love about elephants? 

• I love that they are huge and no one makes them feel bad for it. In fact, it’s their very hugeness that is part of what we love about them. (Why can’t it be that way with people, too?) 

• I also love their wrinkly skin. (Wrinkles are fun to draw, and very forgiving.)

• They are grey. (Grey is one of my favorite colors.)

• Sometimes they have tusks (which are incredible to me — so huge)!

• Their toes are really cute (and fun to draw).

• Their trunks (of course), their tiny bottoms…

Come on, what’s not to love about elephants?

 

“And the Survey Says…” Survey #2

Tags

"Life", Surveys

Me: Today I’m going to give you the results of Carla Sonheim’s Survey #2.

You: Well, it’s about time!

Me:  So sorry!

+  +  +

Remember the Second Survey? I asked you all this question: “Should Carla Sonheim Pay Survey Monkey $16.99 a Month?” It looked like this:

The second survey came about because, as you may remember, in the first survey, 113 of you answered, but I was only able to access the first 100 responses with my free Survey Monkey account.

Well, 105 of you responded to this second survey, which means there are five responses I can’t view! (LOL) But here are the first 100 answers.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

1. To the question of whether I should pay $16.99 month so I can see those last few answers…

• Eight of you said “Yes, absolutely.”
• 12 of you said, “Maybe.”
• And a whopping 80 of you said, “No, duh.”

Heh, heh.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

2. The second question asked the “Maybe’s” to explain their answers. Sixteen of the 12 responded. Here are a few of them:

Would the responses probably change your world?

Curiosity didn’t kill the cat, not knowing did. 16.99 a month for what? 5 sets of answers.

Why not just do another free survey with the other 5 questions?

Depends if it is worth $17 to you to see them. The curiosity would be killing me, and I would pay the ransom, I mean fee…

Heh heh.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

3. Okay, the third question was for all you naysayers. I asked you, if your answer was “no” to question #1, then help me with suggestions of how I was supposed to  LIVE with not knowing the answer to those unseen responses. Of the 80 who said “no,” 75 answered this question. You wrote:

Think 100 out of 105 is a fair sample, as the question says duh.

Carla has a great imagination. She can make up her own last five responses.

If it were me, I would not think my 2 cents worth was worth $3.50. Think about children starving in India.

You know you are only supposed to ASK 100 people when you survey, therefore the last 5 don’t count anyway.

Distraction. Suggestions: Exotic Antarctic vacation, astronaut training, become a Liberace impersonator…

You have to accept that those 5 will just have to be part of the big mystery that is life.

If you take $16.99 and divide it by 5, you get approximately $3.40. Instead of paying the monthly fee for 5 responses I think you should take 5 people a month out for coffee with the money. You could even ask them to fill out the survey… *

Most comments were likely moronic, or very similar to the ones you have already viewed. There is a small chance someone said something incredibly revelatory which could, in fact, change your life – but at $16.99/month (which is $17/month, who do they think they are kidding?) that one comment would have to be something along the lines of…….. YOU MUST UPGRADE TO READ THE REST OF THIS MESSAGE.

Since I do these during my job, I’ve learned those last 5 are in reality old ladies who ride the cross town bus every other Wednesday just for fun.

When all else fails… there’s always chocolate.

Heh heh.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

3. Okay, this last question was supposed to be tongue and cheek! Anyhow, of the 8 respondents who answered “yes” to the original question, a whopping 12 of you responded with ways of how I could raise the $16.99/month:

Car wash, bake sale, or offer up some of your art for sale.

Hold an auction: a copy or two of your book, one of your drawings, your old scarf, a set of eight of your most used colored pencils, etc. and your favorite coffee cup. Or sale of tickets at a min of 50 cents and draw for the above prizes. I say yes because you said monthly and if you are to continue to have a survery you will need to see all answers to guide your decision for your business.

Again, just cancel after the first month. Or maybe earmark a print a month so the buyer knows they not only get the print, but they help out Carla webbiness.

Really? $25 per participant in Silly times how many people = how much?

Heh heh (3). Humpf (1).

_______________________________________________

So… I guess you are wondering which advice I took! The answer is: at the moment I’m too cheap to pay the money. So, for the time being, I’m just living without knowing…

BUT!

* Taking 5 people out to coffee is a GREAT idea! It’s a date, then. Any takers? Let’s say the first five people to email me who can join me for coffee next Thursday, June 9, 2011 at 10:00am in downtown Seattle? Email me, and I’ll tell you where: carla@carlasonheim.com.

YAY!