Some more drawing and my birthday

Since my peeps are off having adventures I took myself to a nice little gouache painting workshop at ARCH Art Supplies w/ Nathaniel Bice for my birthday. He was super nice and a good teacher! I think this was my first time painting on one of these gessoed panels. I liked it! I especially liked the magenta underpainting idea and I kind of wish I had left a bit more pink peeking through on the final painting.

Other drawing stuff I have been working on is in procreate. I need to get my Dirt Bag stickers finished!

OMG my screen was so dirty, please don’t judge.

I also came across this sketch I did at the ASLA conference workshop with Chip Sullivan. I’m back to being inspired bye the idea of tarot-like cards for landscape design principles. How can I work with this idea? I ned to sketch more!

Tunnel Tops Field Trip

There are so many things I would like to be doing but I swear I am just absolutely bone tired. SO TIRED. All the time. Like, really, really, really tired. I suspect perimenopause and I do not like it.

Anyway, my tiny baby is going off to college and before that he is heading off to Iceland with his Dad. I am not joining them because it is a biking trip and like I said, I am too freaking tired to do that shit. I can however muster the energy for a local field trip to Tunnel Tops park.

We started with lunch at the cute little cafe and then lounged around in the windy sun. There are lots of good seating areas to choose from and we tried them all. I do love the wooden benches that echo the distant landscape of Marin.

I may have talked a bit too much about plants. but look how gorgeous these colors and shapes are. I just want to paint them.

We visited the very cool natural playscape. I stacked some wood with some little girls and had fun with them. I absolutely love a playscape with natural loose parts. They had an area with smaller loose parts and this area with much larger sticks to build with. So cool! I took a picture of Jack jumping on some tree stumps and I MUST find the pic of him doing the same thing at the playscape I designed at his elementary school. It looks like they might be expanding the garden in some way too. there is a new undeveloped area fenced off.

Our ultimate goal was to make it all the way to the Golden Gate Bridge. Walking along the beach and lagoon areas was also very beautiful!

Gorgeous color and texture along the SF bay coast

As we approach the bridge I am getting a bit tired and it is so cold and windy!!!

It has been like 30 years since I have been around this particular area. I swear there were not so many gift shops back then.

We got like 5 steps onto the bridge and turned around. :D

There was no way I was making it back so we rented Lime scooters and zoomed back really satisfyingly. This was definitely a very good and satisfying field trip.

BAD Pet Art

The past few years I have participated in the Oakland Animal Services Bad Art fundraiser. For this fundraiser folks send in pictures of their pet with some other info about the pet, donate some amount of money, and OAS gives the pic to an artist who has signed up, they paint the pet and send the picture in. the artist can make produce any level of art in any flat medium.

I do not paint animals very often but I have tried to make cute pics for folks. Here are a few I’ve done.

And then I was cat sitting for a friend and I painted her cat. How could I not with the adorable pose draped over the couch!

I really like painting a fake fancy frame.

If you sign up as an artist you can let them know how many you are willing to paint over the course of the fundraiser. This year I only did one.

I've been working on a cute logo

Here is the sticker I ordered. I meant for it to be diecut… So I have ordered more and actually ordered them correctly.

I did a bunch of sketches and then started tracing in Procreate. I’m not very good with Procreate yet and was getting very frustrated!! I asked my friend Jenn of Vettha Arts to help me out as she is an amazing artist and very skilled with Procreate!

Well, she transformed this for me by refining the quality, changing p some shapes to read better, and also really made the CA poppy leaves look WAY better. so, thank you, Jen!

I’m using her Procreate file to help me understand some of the ins and outs of this program. I admit, even after watching a bunch of masking videos, I am still a but unsure how I will need to use that feature.

My Animal Crossing New Horizons Island

I got a Switch Lite in 2020 during the pandemic and it was a huge source of comfort. I had played one of the other Animal Crossings, one that was on my phone and I eventually deleted it because it was taking too much of my time. At some point in 2020 I had to back up my island and move it to another switch and I thought I lost the save data and I cried. In front of my kid. Since then I have started a bunch of new islands. This newest one is called Eschscholz and my character is Poppy, obviously.

I am at the point in my island where I have most of my villagers and am already crapping up my layout.I need to get this thing under control so I have made a bubble diagram.

Key Elements/Areas

  • Shopping/Commercial District by the airport

  • Housing areas - mainly the suburbs, a beach community, and my personal estate.

  • Secondary housing areas - Hermit in a woodland swamp that leads to my cheesy Florida Beach Motel.

  • National Forest and camping area with a large lake. I might add an island in the middle that you can access using the Mario pipes.

  • The River Anduin that leads through river valley to The Argonath and Mount Doom where I will attempt to create a rock circle.

Why, you may ask yourself, is an adult obsessed with this kinda silly-seeming decorating game? Because it's awesome, that's why. It's a cozy, low-stakes game where all my cute little animals are happy to see me. I can decorate their houses and yards to match their personalities, and I can terraform and breed flowers to my heart's content.

Moving people through space and 'decorating' that space is what landscape design is all about, after all. We're constantly thinking about circulation patterns, sightlines, and spatial hierarchy. Where should paths lead? How do you create inviting gathering spaces? What views do you want to frame or conceal?

While the flower colors and textures are limited, breeding them is fun, and so is experimenting with color combinations and accessories for the gardens.

Personally, I think this is a perfect video game for landscape designers.

I should do a post about flower combos at some point!

Landscape Sketchbook - Vignettes

I like to do little landscape vignettes. Not a whole landscape design but just a bed or a small area. It’s fun to use these informal, made-up sketches to explore color and texture and layering of plants.

Here is one with lots of maroon, red, orange, and yellow plants.

Another one with some red and adding in some boulders and gravel, IDK, I find drawing these fun and soothing!

I guess I'm drawing apples now

I thought I would post some more pics of the random apples I have been drawing. This was the beginning of my florescent orange obsession. :D

More apples!

A couple of other drawings in this sketchbook… A jar of beets, I guess. and another nice moth.

Some Drawings

I’m getting in some more sketch time. this first drawing is colored pencil on printer paper. I was just trying out some different styles.

These are some pages in my sketchbook. I was remembering the summer class I took as a young teen at RISD. My aunt came to pick me up and had no idea what we were drawing. We were each standing in front of a huge piece of newsprint paper. What she dis not see was that wee all also had a tiny shelf made of card board taped next to us with a single piece of popcorn on it. Hahahahah.

Experimenting with different colors in watercolor.

Watercolor of a Mission Blue Butterfly

Landscape Sketchbook - Blobs of Color

I was just playing around with color in this sketch. I really love seeing a landscape where there is super bright color introduced. So far I have not really had a chance to get a client to do this. I have certainly suggested it and tried! I really have! I just love a bright contrast and pop of color!

I will never be bored.

Maybe this is one of the ways ADHD is a blessing. I will certainly never be bored.

Photo of a sketchbook with watercolor painting of an embroidered pouch. The desk is cluttered with paints and a Nintendo Switch Lite in yellow.

Sewing is another hobby I have not been as active with. It is time consuming and I have just had other things consuming my time. But I do still admire my dragon hoard of supplies.

Landscape Sketchbook - Plan View

I came to landscape design through drafting and design, not through plants or gardening. When I first started landscape design classes I seriously did not know a single plant. LOL. One of the first classes I took was planting design for some reason. It was kinda hard since I knew absolutely zero about plants. :D

But I looooved hand drafting so much. It’s one of those activities where I can really get into a flow state. I like CAD drafting as well but it is not nearly as soothing.

I like to doodle these plan view symbols. Would it be weird to get some of these tattooed on myself?! No, no it would not be weird.

colorful plan view plant symbols

colorful plan view plant symbols

Time for a Tea Party

Just a few pics from our back porch tea party. We have some delicious treats from Lovejoy’s in SF plus some extra crumpets and pastries.