Summer’s quick sketches.
First, let me define quick.
For someone who can spend hours on the final details of a sketch, quick for me means finished in less than two hours, not including photographing the art. There is nothing I paint or sketch that can be called quick.
For those of you who do not blog, taking photographs or scanning art can be just as tedious as all the endless last minute touch ups. In the end, I decided to post the photo with the ripples (see those greyish areas at the bottom of the sketch). Arrrrgggh!
Prompts for each day in July
The prompt for July 5 was "shades of blue" and so I thought of wild blueberries I used to pick in the woods as a child. Farmed blueberries just don't taste the same. Often big and pasty, they lack the juicy sweetness of their smaller counterparts. Long ago, we didn't have to go far from home to find lots of blueberry patches in the woods. These days, people search a long time to find wild blueberries.
Other memories surfaced as I noted the daily prompts.
July 7th prompt was "Playing Games".
Why croquet came to mind, I couldn't tell you. When I was a child, any little patch of grass was good enough to set up the croquet game. I remember adults playing croquet, the "clack" of the mallet against the wooden ball trying to get the latter through wickets that had been set up here and there.
I can still see the ladies in cotton gingham dresses or "pedal pushers" today's equivalent of capris, and the often shirtless men playing croquet. Of course, there would be cold beer and iced tea somewhere close by...and the iced tea might have been doctored just a little bit as it seems that as the afternoon wore on, the rowdier the game became.
But this was so long ago...
Art stirs up long forgotten memories
And now I can tell you what I love most about art...many forgotten memories are stirred up and bubble over. As I paint, and especially so with watercolours, I enter into "the zone" and so much that was hidden and forgotten surfaces. I am never certain if I can trust the accuracy of those memories.
World Watercolor Month is the perfect time to try little watercolor sketches. I know, you are thinking, really? World Watercolor Month?
Yes, that is actually an event on Instagram and on Facebook.
The original idea of Charlie O’Shields,’ World Watercolor Month is meant to encourage all artists at any stage of their artistic journey to join in posting watercolour sketches, even if they don't match the prompts. Charlie just wants everyone to experience the joy of watercolour and he suggests prompts. The magic happens.
Finally, this last prompt (actually the first of the month) was my favourite.
"Sunny Days" for July 1. And boy! was it sunny and hot.
That was the day we spent the afternoon with friends watching Cirque du Soleil's Corteo in an air conditioned arena. Then, to celebrate Canada Day and several birthdays, we had a pool party and barbecue.
Nothing is more glorious than that on a summer day.
