"ELEGANT PEN" DRAWINGS FOR NAVA AND NANCY

Here are the drawings I did in Phoenix for the two winners of the "build my blog" offer. I am ready to create more drawings, so if you want one, let me know who you have referred. These were done with the "Elegant Writer" Caligraphy felt tip pen. Only the black ink bleeds out blue and pink. Once you get comfortable with contour drawing, it is very fast and fun. A great way to pass the time. I keep a tissue in my hand for blotting so I can control the value a little better. I use one of those brushes that hold water in the handle to wet the ink. I redraw back into it where I need it darker if I have blotted away too much color. You can go back and forth this way any number of times. I bought the pen at Michael's Art Supply.

I have a painting in the San Diego Watercolor Society International show which is going on now. I received news that I received an award. Amazing! This has been such a wonderful year for me. I checked their website today and discovered that the award winning paintings have been posted. I have included the url for the page with my painting of Vern. You can copy and paste as I don't know how to make it a direct clickable link.
http://www.sdws.org/international/artwork.php?is=53&ap=a

Nava, who is the President of the Santa Clara Valley Watercolor Society, was telling me of an artist that came to see the show. She found her work at the following web address:
http://www.aviscafineart.com/Featured_Artists/Shan_Kelly/shan_kelly.htm
You can see more of her artwork here: http://www.aviscafineart.com/Featured_Artists/Shan_Kelly/Works_by_Shan_Kelly/works_by_shan_kelly.htm
You will be in awe of this fantastic artist. She was so unassuming and self affacing that Nava thought she was a beginner.

While you are at this website, check out some of the other featured artists. There is some incredible work here, much of it has interesting exaggeration. I am going to work on exaggeration some more and see where it leads. I am trying to stick with a few images and push them as far as I can. I finally found a set of colored inks that are lightfast but not waterproof, so they will bleed when wet. Now I can try Shirley Trevena's use of ink. It is so difficult to find colored ink these days. Remember when fountain pens were in common use and you could get all these fabulous colors of ink at the drug store? Peacock Blue rings a bell!

Since I fell in love with Van Gogh's reed pen drawings, I tried to make a reed pen out of a plastic drinking straw the other day but it didn't work too well. I think I will try one of those very thin coffee stirer straws. That might work.

From the comments I am getting along with your drawings, I see that you are taking these challenges and adding your own twists! That is exactly what I was hoping for. Hilda is drawing Jeopardy contestants right from the TV. Nava is using TiVo to slow things down a bit. The "What if ???????" factor is at work here and I look forward to seeing what you are doing.

If you have discovered some artists' websites that you find exciting, please share. I will post and we can all check them out.