Simple pleasures

I really like to draw fruits and vegetables.  Not for me the soaring mountain ranges, or golden light of Italy. I am a simple woman of simple needs and I find inspiration and beauty in the everyday things that surround me.  The graceful shapes and vibrant colour of these peppers for example, make me want to draw and paint them before I even get home from the store.
Because I was having trouble photographing in the other sketchbook that was so curved and buckled, I was on the lookout for a new one.  At my last dental appointment, I made a short detour to the art supply store.  This is a Handbook sketchbook. I had heard many raves about these sketchbooks, but had never seen one sold in Canada. I liked the size and texture of the paper, and the price was good, so I took the very last one that they had in stock.  So far I like it.  It takes a wash nicely although the paper is not too thick.  It also has a hard cover which helps the pages flatten out.  It photographed quite well - not too many shadows or crinkles.  The paint is regular water-colour paints with a bit of the Inktense pencils added in.  Thank you to the commenter who told me that they are ink pencils rather than water colour.  Despite the name, i had not clued into that.

Inktense angel fish

This sketch is of a juvenile angel fish in the Bay of Ixtapa. We spent many happy hours snorkelling here.  The fish are plentiful and the water is calm and warm.  The adult versions of these fish are bright blue.
I coloured this with the new Inktense water-colour pencils. These pencils are buttery soft and dissolve very easily with the addition of water. Water makes the colours even more intense and vibrant.  I like these pencils a lot.  The down side to this brand is that they are so soft that they don't hold a point so it is hard to get a sharp, thin line.  But the strong colours make up for that.
The paper is Bee paper's Co-mo sketchbook.  I like the texture of it.  It is thin, only 80 lb so won't take a wash of colour without wrinkling badly.  But as a take-along sketchbook, it's the perfect weight and size.  I took the photo with the iPhone in natural light.  No shadows this time, except where the paper had crinkled a bit.

Onions

The beautiful onions were part of good haul bought last year at the Farmers Market.  They were coloured with the new Faber Castelle Aquarelle water-colour pencils that I bought.  These pencils are quite hard and create a very sharp line.  They don't blend instantly with water and so even if you add water, you retain the edge of the lines.  I'm not sure that I like that although for this drawing it worked well.  In the actual onions you do see distinct lines of colour, but it makes
the shadows not so believable.
And in the continuing adventure of learning the Mac Book and flying without a printer/scanner, I uploaded this as a photo taken with the iPhone in natural daylight.  This little sketchbook is nearly filled and over time the pages have curved quite a bit and it is hard to take a good photo.  I think I'll switch to a different kind that stays flat.  I do think that the photo colour is very true to the sketch colours.  I think I can make this work!

After a long absence I am returning to blogging.  My mother was ill for a long time and passed away in February.  My computer gave me all sorts of trouble and I am now using a brand new Mac Book Pro.  It has no printer and scanner, so I took a photo of this sketch using PhotoBooth and uploading it as a photo.  I had to crop my finders out of the left hand side.  I took the photo using natural light by the window, but there is still a shadow.  I think that taking a good photo will take a little practice.  I also notice that while I've been away, Blogger has changed quite a bit, too.
It's like starting over with everything.
This sketch is of a Bohemian Waxwing.  There was a whole flock of them in the crabapple tree on my way home from work the other day.  I think I want to continue to work on this sketch and refine it a bit.  I used my new Derwent Inktense pencils which are really nice.