Beach People

copyright 2007 Stacy L. Rowan

I’m back from my second and final vacation of the summer - another trip to the shore. Days spent on the beach relaxing in the sun while the kids entertained themselves by digging holes, practicing with their skim boards and riding waves on their boogie boards. It is so nice seeing my own kids enjoy similar pleasures as I did when I was their age. I know we are creating memories that they will have for a lifetime. We are passing along experiences and traditions that I hope they pass along to their own kids when the time comes.

Vacation is of course a perfect time to get caught up on reading. I admit that I bought the last Harry Potter book the day we left town and read all 759 pages of it while I was gone. What a great series! I really enjoyed the characters and places that J.K. Rowling created and know I will reread the series at some point.

copyright 2007 Stacy L. Rowan

I also took my sketchbook to the beach with the intention of creating many quick sketches. However, I found that I had little interest in buckets and shovels and things that stayed still, so instead challenged myself to sketch beach people. And what a challenge it was! Even people who looked like they were comfortably settled in seemed to start moving as soon as I started sketching. I ended up with many half drawn subjects. But I did manage to finish the two people pictured above. Even though they were also moving targets, they helped me out by frequently returning to a common stance. I have to say that I am pleased with these sketches since I don’t often draw people.

Now we are back from vacation and I am trying to get settled into routine life. One thing that I am learning as I get older is that transitions are not a strength for me. I’m working on that and at least managed to get all of our bags unpacked the day we arrived home.

You Can Never Have Too Many Books

...especially art books.

I know I have been remiss in posting lately. I wish I had a good excuse, but truthfully I just haven't felt like dealing with the lame imaging software on the laptop. I'm also wishing for my scanner back. Hopefully all of this will be rectified soon.

In the meantime I thought I would tell you about some of my favorite art books. These are just my current favorites. I have a whole shelf full of books and I find I fall back in love with different books at different times.

My latest favorites, in no particular order, are...
Incredible Light & Texture in Watercolor by James Toogood. My faithful blog readers may remember that I took a workshop with Mr. Toogood back in January. I really enjoyed the workshop and learned a lot from it and the book. One of the best parts about the book is the section in the front that deals with "Color, Paint and Pigment". This section gives details about specific pigments. It was very eye opening for me and appealed to my engineering side. But even artists without an engineering side would benefit.

Dramatic Light by Patrick Howe. I love this book because I love paintings with dramatic light and strong contrasts. When I look at other artists works, I am attracted to paintings that have a lot of darks, a lot of lights and just a few mid-tones. This is also the first book that I've seen that talks about the wetness of paper, describes how to recognize the different degrees of wetness and shows an example of paint applied at each of the different degrees. Controlling and understanding the amount of water in your paper, your paint mix and your brush is critical for painting successful watercolors. And it's tricky too! This demonstration helps speed artists along the path of understanding.

Drawing from Line to Life by Mike Sibley. Mike Sibley is one of those great artists who is not afraid to share what he knows with other artists and this book is 287 pages of sharing! Now I have to admit that I haven't read this book yet. I've looked at it, skimmed it and drooled over the pretty pictures, but read every word - no, not yet. However, I did take an online course with Mr. Sibley on Wet Canvas. I read every word of that class and it was fantastic! This book is an extremely thorough discussion of graphite techniques with an abundance of images.

So these currently are my three favorite art books and the reasons I love them. Maybe I'll lose myself in them over the next few days while I wait to be fully functional.