The season at the CSA draws to a close. For the whole summer, not only I ate tasty, local, organic veggies but I also had subjects for my sketches! Two-for- one deal indeed.

I bought a new Rotring Art Pen and a bottle of Parker blue-black ink. I was assured that the ink is waterproof - which of course is not the case. 

I wanted to test the pen and the ink, so I grabbed a carrot and a bunch of kale leaves and set to work.

I call them decorative squash or decorative pumpkins, but somebody gently pointed out that they are gourds. So be it. And this is their season. We had a long and warm fall so far - cannot complain. 

Gourds make interesting subjects when one cannot go out sketching. So I painted them in various ways. 

Here are three of my sketches - watercolors, gouache and cottage paint, and collage.

It was a great weekend - sunny and smelling like fall. Probably one of the last times when I will be out sketching this year. I packed super light - sketchbook and the Rotring Art Pen I just bought. I used the Rendr (useless for the kind of stuff I sketch, the paper is made for markers), Stillman & Birn (don't remember which one I have) and a hand made pamphlet with Acquarius paper. I am still not in love with the Acquarius in spite of its qualities. 

Saturday I spent few hours at the Technopole Angus at the EtsyMtl fair. Yesterday I was in the Old Port to cheer the marathon runners passing by. 

I might revisit some of these pages to add more color ... or maybe not. Very busy these days ...

As part of the ByDesign assignments, I wanted to design a page using columns. I grabbed some peppers and a pumpkin from the fridge and set a still life. 

I also wanted to use no more than 3 washes - to avoid turning everything into mud. And I also wanted to try to use loose washes a la Jean Haines. 

I have to be more careful with the margins, now that I have a new understanding of why they are important. 
I am pleased with the spread, I like the size of the paper here  too - 11 x 15. I think I will start working with spreads more - more freedom to play with the space.

Still working my way through the material in ByDesign and I did not have any subjects that I felt compelled to sketch. So what is one to do in such circumstances? Selfies, of course!

I had fun with these. The first one was done with Pentel pocket brush pen and then collage. For the second one I used acrylic ink, bamboo pen and then acrylic paint. I put the ipad in selfie mode and sketched from it!

How about you? Do you like selfies? 

Thanks for reading!

Liz Steel launched this challenge few weeks ago. I don't have pretty tea cups, but I do have a Tibetan bowl. That will have to do for now.

I decided to use every day a different technique - as to not get bored of course!

So I used:

• left hand with dip pen and black ink
• pan pastels and eraser
• continuous line
• water soluble ink
• watercolor

I want to repeat the exercise. I think I will use the cup I made a couple of years back in a pottery workshop. Or maybe I will buy a cute cup from the antiques store :)

My favorite is the pastel and eraser one. Which one is yours?

Thanks for reading.

One of my goals is to work on the quality of my line. I want it to be more expressive and fluid.  
​I picked up again Veronica Lawlor's book One drawing a day . Lesson 6 - render a nature scene (park, garden etc) using only graphite and marks - no lines until the end.

It was surprising to realize how many marks can be done with the humble pencil...and this exercise is certainly something that I will be doing more often. 

​Do you have a favorite tool to make marks with? I'd love to know - please leave me a comment.

This exhibition is presently at the MMFA and I could not miss it. I sketched after some of the posters, but the most fun was to sketch the patrons.

I spent some time in the Laurentians at Lake Monroe and used the unsuspecting beach goers as models for these vignettes. 

Pen and watercolor on Fluid watercolor paper and hand made signatures.