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 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

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.

Sketching at the Salesforce Transit Center

In September I went to sketch with the East Bay Sketchers at the garden on top of the Salesforce Transit Center. Two weeks later they discovered cracks in the beams and closed it! I hope they figure out what is happening and reopen it soon.

I did not know that there was a little funicular to get to the top. sadly, it was not open when we got there.

We walked around and looked for good views to draw. Somehow, once again, I seem to have not taken any pictures.

I drew the courtyard area. It was a very lively and colorful space!

I was very interested int eh planting plans. There were some trees that I gave the side-eye as ones that get HUGE. like is this really engineered to deal with a 130 ft.dgf Aurucaia araucana? I’m sure they did think of everything.

Some Drawings

I just thought I would post some of the various painting and drawing I have been doing. Some of it is work related and some is not!

Green and gold watercolor swatches.

I did this quick visualization for a client recently. We want to remove this lawn, a little privacy fence (not too overwhelming) and some interesting colorful plants.

Okay, so I also took this irrigation class through the Zone 7 Water Agency. the class was taught by Lori Palmquist, who is an irrigation WIZARD. She’s a good speaker and a good teacher. I may also have accosted her about some APLD stuff and she was like WhoTF are you?!? LOL. No worries, Lady, I’m just a stranger asking you for access to this website you used to work on. Don’t mind me! Anyway, here is an illustration of an irrigation manifold. As you can see, I am an excellent student who does not struggle to pay attention.

I should be learning about what these things are and do but instead I am drawing them. Don’t come at me, I have ADHD.

We had a little field trip to Drake’s Beach and I did a quick vignette.

Some other sketchy doodles for work:

Color Blobs

If I’m not feeling inspired to draw/paint anything in particular I like to just play around with color. Sometimes I even just paint circles of single colors. It helps that my paint of choice, Daniel Smith watercolors, has such amazing vibrant pigments. A mistake I see people make is buying student grade watercolors. ALWAYS buy artist grade. I don’t care if they are more expensive! Even if you can only buy your warm and cool primaries artist grade is the way to go.