tashina knight

If you read my last post, it will come as no surprise that I am what I am most missing right now is a place I feel I belong - with my peeps, ya know?

The last place I felt “at home” was my hometown of San Diego. We are having a long wet gray summer here in Austin. I’ve managed to get a few flowers to grow here, but I miss all the year-round tropical flowers of San Diego more than just about anything out there. Austin has great trees and the rain has made everything lush and green, but it’s the San Diego flowers that call to me.

Growing up, we had a bird of paradise in the front yard. That plant grew out of control and as a little little kid I used to talk to the flowers because they seemed like people (in my first version of this drawing, the flower has a face).  I spent weekends at the zoo and the Botanical Gardens and took it all for granted. I assumed everywhere in the world was like my own personal tropical paradise. When I watched TV news of snowstorms and sleet, it was no more real than any of the fiction shows.

I’m going to have to take a vacation and go somewhere with bright tropical flowers or see if they have something like that here in Austin.

This is watercolor with colored pencil and pigment ink.

I have about 6 items I’m painting right now. Another in the Bubble series (like this one) - a seascape this time. Also a watercolor house, a space-y girl with a wild hat, and two botanical collage girls. I’m headed off now to go compare archival printers online and maybe actually buy one. I FINALLY listed 23 items on eBay this week (knightmates)

and started listing a few of the jewelry supplies on etsy. Made my first sale this morning!

Check out other “Missing” images here.

I thought I’d not only make this a post about an illustration with a moon in it, but also give you an idea for a collaborative project to do with any of those people in your family who think they aren’t artists. I’ve had many people in my life that would have loved to have something of their own on the wall, but believe they couldn’t possibly produce something worthy of showing. So this is for the whole family to do together, or for a project with a bunch of friends you want to remember visually every day, or as a gift to someone who’d like to remember you and your friends or loved ones.

I did this with my husband. He’s made a few colored pencil sketches of fruit that I try to hang on the wall and he looks at sheepishly. I told him that we could do something together which could hang on the wall and not embarrass him.

This is really simple. All you need is a nice frame and mat, 2 pieces of watercolor paper (one 300 weight from an art store if possible because you don’t have to tape it down; you can just start painting on it. If you don’t have watercolor paper, use the heaviest archival paper you can find and you should be able to press the small pieces flat later). The other piece of paper can be 140 weight and is used as the background. You can use any paper for this one- it doesn’t even have to be white - just has to match the frame/mat combo. You also need some archival tape to attach the art to the mat, and whatever acrylics, colored pencils, or other art supplies you have lying around. I used watercolor ink and watercolor pencils and Neocolor pencils and crayons. If you use an medium like acrylics, make sure you put them in dixie cups already mixed with water to the right consistency if your partners don’t know art supplies. This is a no-intimidation project!

I gave him half the paper and me the other half. I took at lid from a seasoned salt shaker (you can use any size circle template that works for you) and drew about 20 circles on each piece of paper. Then I said, “No pressure, just draw and paint for fun. If one circle goes bad, move to the next. We aren’t using them all anyway.” So we spent an hour or so enjoying ourselves, and painting lots of different sorts of things. I purposely didn’t get too fancy or detailed with mine - you don’t want one person to have technically perfect illustrations and the other(s) to have abstract squiggles. Just be free and wild. You know, when I look at it now there are several I know are mine or his and a few that I am delightfully unsure of.

When we were done, I had him pick his favorites from what he painted. I cut out 9 of his and 9 of mine. I started arranging them in grid form on a second piece of paper. I discarded from the project the 6 that didn’t work as well together as the others, mostly because of color. That left 6 of his and 6 of mine, which I simply glued down to the paper with an archival glue. I took archival framing tape (but you can use any archival tape you find in a scrapbook or art store) and taped the art to the mat.

Then I framed it and hung it on the wall. Voila. Now it’s a colorful expression of our love that hangs in the entry/library area for all to see. We’ve never heard anything but nice comments about it. Each individual piece may not be spectacular, but together it makes a joyous statement. Plus it’s fun to do. Go forth into your weekend and create!!

This is a new piece this week and actually is based on a poem.

In 1989 or so, my friend and roommate Jeff Lucas wrote this poem:

“Where all form is thrown aside

incensed and temperamental

the parting of blue waters

then the reaching of hands

tenuous meaning, perception,

marionette,

the deceptions”

Jeff is primarily a musician and you can find his work at his web site: Jeffrey Luck Lucas

I was just starting to draw then. I illustrated the poem in colored pencil (see the bottom of this entry). You know how when you first start anything the first ones aren’t much good, but sometimes you love them anyway? That’s the way it was with this piece. I continue to love it today.

In 1991, I reworked it again with Prismacolor markers. That version didn’t survive very well. It was mostly blues and yellows and I’ve found that almost all blue and yellow Prismacolor markers (at least from that era and probably still today) turn yellow (bright yellow!) around the edges of the original marker color. I know alcohol markers aren’t meant to be archival, but that was my first real world wake-up call.

Anyway, I found the old color pencil drawing and decided it was time for another update. This one is in watercolors and unfortunately doesn’t photograph as well as I would like. It’s about 12″ x 12″ and a bit big for my scanner. I tried every setting and I still can’t capture the delicacy of watercolors. Guess it’s time to do some photographic research.

In other concerns - what happened to summer? We’re getting the Portland winter (but warmer) here in Austin this summer. It rains several days each week and it’s staying cooler (mid 80’s) but really humid. It’s too humid to open the windows until evening so I sit inside painting and staring out at the gloomy sky.  I haven’t had to water the lawn once yet this year!

I’m not really complaining. Austin’s summer is the miserable part of the year. Hot hot and more hot for the most part. 96 during the day cooling to 90 at midnight and 80 at 5am. The rest of the year is gorgeous here. So if this is to be the summer of thunderstorms and rain, bring it on.

Hope you enjoy and have an excellent weekend. I’m planning a lazy library, Borders Books and Chipotle burrito weekend. 

What would you think if you were walking through the forest, came to a clearing and there in front of you was a rabbit girl swinging and dreaming? Would you sneak away quietly and leave her in peace? Or invite her for a picnic under the swirly trees?

This is a new little series of mine called “bubbles”. I tire of painting inside of rectangular boxes and wanted something a bit more fun. This is watercolor and pigment ink on watercolor paper. I’ll probably make a print of this one as soon as I order my printer.

I’m almost done with another bubble painting of tropical flowers and am also painting a sort of whimsical mandala.

And exciting news for me! I finally received my package from Taiwan with 8 DPI magazine issues. (I ordered 7, but they graciously enclosed a bonus issue, probably due to the 6 weeks it took to get my order.) The magazines are beautiful and all I hoped for. I’ll make another post - or maybe a series of them - next week to show you some photos.

I also wanted to show you all my mother’s new etsy shop: crystal pendant’s etsy shop

She makes knitted purses and is quite good at it. She’s been in Belle Armoire twice and she’ll have a fiber bead project in Step-by-Step beads - can’t remember if it’s this issue or the next. Will have to ask her.

I have a little toothache today. In my experience, big toothaches happen on Saturdays and little ones on Fridays. Since it’s little, you’d like to wait a day and see if it goes away. Then if it doesn’t go away, it’s a Saturday and you have to wait til Monday and then they make your appointment for Wednesday. Why do I never get toothaches on Mondays? :)  

This one didn’t take me much thought at all. My paradise is wherever the sun is. A sunny day, a blue sky, warm breezes. That’s what makes me happy.

We have the opportunity to move to Portland. I think of how many artists live there or are from there, Judy and Kelly for example. I think of how many art galleries and events take place there and I will myself to be able to make the move. I just don’t think I’d survive the winters though. A week without sun starts to make me a little crazy. My poor husband lived with me for a year in the Bay Area in 2004 and would come home every winter day to The Wife Of Gloom. Ha.

Arizona, Palm Springs, Southern California. That’s my paradise.

Where’s your paradise?

Happy weekend!

Don’t laugh (at least not where I can see you).
I’ve never drawn in Photoshop before. I thought I’d take a basic photo from the web (below) and work from it since I’ve also never drawn a car before - not once. I almost passed on IF this week, and then I decided to stretch a little and learn something new.

I didn’t really want to draw a boy; I’m in a girl phase. Up until a year or so ago, I was mostly doing abstract art and stick figures. I’ve “graduated” to real illustrative faces, but I don’t claim to be good yet. I’m getting better and that’s all I can ask.

In the end, I feel like I learned a little something. And I feel better about it that when I post something I did a year or more ago.

For other beginners: I just opened the photo in Photoshop. I then clicked on Layer, then New and did all the drawing on the second layer. I actually even started a layer three for making guide lines on the face for where the eyes and nose should go. Then I just unclicked the eye next to Layers 1 an 3 before I saved the final. Probably my biggest problem is that I had the resolution of the original image so low that I couldn’t really draw the face. I had to increase the image size and that made my pen lines even more jaggy. That was my other mistake. I drew the car outline with the pen tool and everything else in the brush tool. I should have just started with the pen tool.

Happy weekend, everyone.

I just bought, after all these years of wanting it, Adobe Illustrator. They rarely have reasonable competitive upgrades, but as they released CS3 they finally offered an upgrade from CorelDraw for $199 and I jumped on it. So far it’s lots of fun, though not as intuitive as CorelDraw. This drawing is for Illustration Friday and is my Citrus Mandala.

I showed you last post what I had on my “easel” and I’m somewhat mystified by what happened next. First, I wasn’t sure I liked the clothes I cut out, then I wasn’t sure I liked the face so I painted a new one and it turned into a rabbit girl. Then she wanted all new clothes and now it bears very little resemblance to the original. Sometimes that’s what happens and I try to go with it. I haven’t decided whether to finish it by gluing it all down, or by doing a digital version. Some of the pieces are from vintage seed catalogs and I don’t want to glue them. So I’ll have to wait til I get my new printer with archival inks (coming soon so I can make etsy prints!) to make copies and use those instead.

It’s lovely in Austin this week. 80’s and perfectly sunny today. I went to Goodwill and bought half my summer wardrobe for $43 plus a tchotchke (love that word) for above the kitchen cabinets - a delightful little summer pail good for absolutely nothing but looking at.

I also got a box in the shape of a cat’s head to paint, a set of 4 ice cream dishes for $3 and a small fork because I like little forks to eat with and I threw away my favorite one by accident a month ago.

Things are going to be busy around here. I’m finally going to invest a little money into getting my art business going. I’m frugal to a fault but I can’t get anywhere without a decent printer, and maybe even a new digital camera since mine is a heavy 3.3MP beast that I bought for my eBay bead business about 7 years ago. I’m off to look at the other Illustration Friday entries. Have a great weekend!

This is a painting I just finished. I did the big areas in acrylics and the detail work in watercolors. I have no idea where this idea came from. I just sat down one day and there it was.

Sometimes your neighbors live in houses; sometimes they live in pots.

I haven’t taken part in Illustration Friday in awhile.

I was looking at this week’s illustrations and saw the topic - Remember - and the first thing that came to mind was “Remember the Alamo” which seemed fitting since I recently moved to Texas.

While I was sitting in the hotel room waiting for my house to be ready, I painted this version of a Texas flag. I’ve never seen anyone so proud of their state as Texans!

what  areyou waiting for?, originally uploaded by tashina.

The Illustration Friday theme this week is "Clear". I’ve been unclear about a lot of things lately. What sort of art am I meant to do? I’m 42. Am I sure I don’t want kids? Is one dog enough or does he need a friend (husband says one is plenty. Ha!)? Do I have the motivation to lose the last 10 pounds?

When I need to get clear, the best thing to do is to get outside of my own head and try something new!

This is acrylic and ink on watercolor paper. It’s about 10" x 12" and has glued on crocheted flowers (not crocheted by me- sigh - I need to learn how) and scrapbooking stickers for letters.