Learning New Tricks (Test)

Posted on June 9, 2016 by Dana Burrell

Yesterday I learned a technique or two I’m hoping will streamline how I post my sketchbook photos.

Previously I scanned my pages and loved its bright, clear look… but my scanner has since stopped communicating with my laptop. The last time that happened I lost nearly a week of my life on the phone with tech support. I have no desire to experience that again. Over the years I’ve also found myself relying on my phone to handle more and more of my life. In fact, last October I started posting with the WordPress app for iPhone.

Since the scanner debacle I’ve only been posting photos of my work. They’ve been OK but I’ve had to do quite a bit of editing to get an acceptable image.

Enter Tina Koyama of Fueled by Clouds & Coffee. Tina did a test post in preparation for her July trip to Manchester, UK as an Urban Sketchers Symposium correspondent. She’s testing various apps and methods for uploading photos and images of sketches to the urban sketchers blog. Her June 7, 2016 post, Green Lake Intersection (Test) prompted me to ask why she preferred to use a scanning app, in particular Cam Scanner. (available for both Android and iOS)

Based on her images I downloaded CamScanner and gave it a whirl. Fantastic! It saves me multiple steps as it brightens, straightens, and crops with just one click.

See for yourself… the image was done with carbon black ink and watercolor on Strathmore 500 Mixed Media paper.

Natural evening light… dusk, approximately 8 PM.

Same, with Cam Scanner.

Indoor LED desk lamp. 8 PM.

Same, with Cam Scanner.

Natural morning diffused light, west window.

Same but with Cam Scanner.

The mid-body yellow was burned out in both of the other attempts but the Cam Scanner image from yesterday morning shows the yellow glow and came the closest to the true image in my sketchbook.

One more thing. The majority of this post was dictated! Yeah, I felt funny talking to my phone but it worked surprisingly well. I need to brush up on the commands, like what to say to get the program to capitalize, but I think I’ll be dictating more and more.

You CAN teach an old dog new tricks!

Eureka!

Posted on May 20, 2016 by Dana Burrell

Once upon a time there was a huge and maple in our front yard with a lovely deep green blanket of pachysandra beneath it. Along cams freaky spring snowfall and our beloved maple split in two!

Now the maple’s logs have long been burned as firewood and the pachysandra??? Well… it hasn’t been happy getting bleached by the sun.

So it’s bye-bye pachysandra!

Even though I always wear gardening gloves I always manage to get my fingernails filthy. But wait… they’re clean! …not very pretty, but clean!

I have a secret weapon from my fabric dyeing days… skin barrier cream. I’d rub a teaspoon or two into my hands before dyeing and when finished any remaining color would wash off with soap and water.

Hmmmmm… would this work with garden dirt as well?

Eureka! It does!!!

Both Blue Magic’s Invisible Glove and Marvelous Marianne’s SkinSafer Barrier Cream work wonders. Just make sure to get cream under the nails so it can do its job.

Now we have a flowering crab standing where the maple used to be and soon we’ll have more sun-friendly plants in place too.

And with a layer of barrier cream my hands will clean up nicely!

Malus ‘Prairifire’… glorious rose-red blossoms followed by tiny fruit the birds adore! Highly recommended!

Want to see what I’ve been up to?

Posted on April 30, 2016 by Dana Burrell

This is just a taste of what I’ve been doing this April. You’ll remember it’s IFJM… International Fake Journal Month. Well, my character decided to use only simple graphite pencils in her journal. 30 days of graphite… Whew!

See the entire month beginning with the 1st… Woo Hoo!

games – 04/01/16

Life Drawing Session

Posted on April 6, 2016 by Dana Burrell

O6 April, 2016

For a size reference , all of these drawings were done on 18 in. x 24 in. newsprint.

Two 5-minute, two 10-minute, three 20-minute drawings of the same pose, and a final 30-minute drawing.

This post is a test. I found these photos in an old sketchbook and wanted to backdate the post so it would show up chronologically. I’m also testing to see if it triggers a notification to any followers so could someone please comment below if you see it? Thanks!

April is for Fakin’

Posted on March 31, 2016 by Dana Burrell

Yes, tomorrow’s April 1st!

If you’ve been paying attention the last four years then you know I’m not excited about April Fool’s Day as such. I’m excited that April 1st marks the start of International Fake Journal Month! Although I’ve only been participating since 2012, Roz Stendahl took this project public in 2009.

“Shift In Place” is the theme for 2016. This is my big chance to be someone else for a month… an alternate “me”… like me only different.

Interested in seeing where April takes me? I’ll be posting regularly (I always try for daily) on my Fake Journal Blog… skylarkkarma.wordpress.com

Channeling Nora Ephron

Posted on March 28, 2016 by Dana Burrell

I look at this and my eyes are immediately drawn to my neck.

sigh.

If you’ve ever had the pleasure of reading Nora Ephron’s book, I Feel Bad About My Neck: And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman, you know where I’m coming from.

This is another of my ink sketches on a pre-painted acrylic ink background… this one with a watercolor wash… and I see I need a haircut too!

Bird and Its Backdop

Posted on March 27, 2016 by Dana Burrell

Last October I participated in InkTober and found I really enjoyed working on pre-painted backgrounds. The added bit of color and pattern seems to really make pen and ink sketches pop.

For this spread I used a mixture of shimmering FW Acrylic Inks sprayed over one of the dried oak leaves from the garden. I love the blue splatter!

What goes with oak leaves? A bird of course!

Happy Spring!

The Year of the Monkey

Posted on February 19, 2016 by Dana Burrell

Each year I commemorate the Chinese New Year by drawing the year’s totem animal. This year February 8th, the first day of the celebration, came and went without a page in my journal. I was uninspired.

Until yesterday.

I spied this little guy nestled behind a silk flower blossom on my design wall. He called out… “Hey! What about me? I can do it!!!”

And so, for me, 2016 is the year of the Sock Monkey!!!

Elegant Bleeding

Posted on February 12, 2016 by Dana Burrell

I was cleaning out my sketch bag when I found a pen in one of the pockets… totally forgotten. I also forgot how much I enjoyed working with it for fast sketching. It’s Speedball’s felt-tipped calligraphy pen, the Elegant Writer.

I don’t know if you can purchase them separately but I bought a set of four at my local art supply store. There are two 2.0mm Fine pens, one 2.5mm Medium pen and one 3.0mm Bold pen.

This is the 3.0mm nib.

It has a lovely chiseled tip which gives great line variation.

And the bleeding! Did I mention the bleeding?!?

The black ink bleeds into gorgeous pink, blue and purple when hit with water.

I don’t think I’ll forget it any time soon!

EDM 112 – 115

Posted on January 20, 2016 by Dana Burrell

Oh my! I can’t believe how long it’s been since I’ve worked on my Every Day Matters challenges… I posted my last set of EDM pages on June 22nd. Yowza!

I see #112 was sketched on June 21st but then there was this huge gap of nearly 7 months. I hope I can post my next set in a more timely fashion.

So without further ado…

Text on the above page has been obscured for privacy. Wish I knew how to do this better but until I figure out a way, this will have to do.

Dana Burrell… Art

… adventures in creativity.