More Playing Around

Here's....Tripoli! It was introduced as the new grid in town.  This is as big as I have gotten with the grid as I am having trouble keeping it even.  Beside that little problem it is very fun to play with.  Once you get the grid of triangles you can fill in the triangles with other patterns and get wonderful secondary patterns. I will just have to play more to get the grid pattern down.  Gabby and I figured out the center cluster needs to be even to start.

Pepper is fun, they look like peppermint candies.  I really need to push this one a little more and see where I can take it.  I like flipping the stripes in an elongated area.

Rick's Paradox is a must to play with.  So cool!  When adding an adjacent triangle you have a choice in which direction you start in that triangle.  Go one way you get the first cluster, go the other way and you get the second.  There are six triangles in each cluster.  The square looked really hard but nope it's not.

This is the first one I've done!
skinny, skinny, skinny, fat

9" x 12" Sketchbook
Pen

Playing with Mooka

 My friend, Sharla, recommended to our ZenFriend group to work in a bigger sketchbook to explore tangles.  So I took my 40% off coupon to Michael's and got a new sketchbook just for zentangles.  My first two pages are playing with Mooka, which is a continuous line pattern.

It amazing how just "playing around" can produce some pretty fantastic stuff if I do say so myself.  It really helps to build muscle memory so the pattern becomes easy to do.  When you don't have to think about the way to do the tangle your creativity is unleashed and allowed to run free.


Zentangle Sketchbook
9" x 12"   Pen

Summer Painters at Irvine Park

Our little summer painting group met up again today.  This time we went to Irvine Regional Park.  It was a most glorious day with sunshine, shade and a great breeze.  Sharon and I started with sketching part of the stone walls and then I found lots of interesting bits and pieces of the park.  The one little insect decided he liked my little paint palette. Ann worked on a upo watercolor and Yukon made up a landscape composed of different elements including Ann! Sack lunches and lots of laughter made for a great day, so much so we are going back to the park in two weeks.

Robert Bateman 5" x 7" Sketchbook
Pen and Watercolor

Playing in the Dirt

I try to do a little art everyday.  Well, yesterday I played in the dirt making some dish succulent gardens. A zen kind of art thing, so I thought I would post them.
This silver rimmed crystal cut bowl has a big crack running through it, now it is a new kind of vessel.  I like the juxtapose of the elements.

I received some thank you flowers in this little bowl and thought the shape was nice for another little garden.  I placed a little pine cone from my studio in the middle though I am not sure where I picked it up maybe in Alaska.

Sarah and Pedro gave me this little treasure for Mother's Day but two of the plants grew too big for the orb so I replanted it which was not an easy thing to do.  Thank goodness for chop sticks!  As you can see one of the plants is blooming so I pulled the bloom out the little hole on the top.  Hopefully I won't have to replant it very often.

Painting Group at the Arboretum

It was a very warm day at the Fullerton Arboretum but a few of us braved the heat and humidity for art.  There always seems to be a breeze and lots of shade but silly me, I ventured out to the cactus garden to capture a few of these beauties.  In two weeks on July 20th we are meeting at Irvine Regional Park.


Robert Bateman 5" x 7" Sketchbook
Pen and Watercolor

Euhla's Backyard

Summer is here and so our little band of Summer Painters has started our group get togethers.  Last week we all gathered in Euhla's backyard with art supplies in hand.  She has a beautiful garden with lots of interesting things to sketch.  We meet every two weeks and next week we are off to the Fullerton Arboretum, anyone want to come and play?  Weds. July 6th 10:30 a.m. on the grass by the gazebo and Victory Gardens.

Robert Bateman 5" x 7" Sketchbook
Pen and Watercolor

Ito Jakuchu Exhibit

Friday I went with some friends to our little Bowers museum to see the Ito Jakuchu exhibit. Ito was born in 1715 in Japan, was a monk and did scroll and screen paintings.  It was a great show and only the first half!  It is now closed but the second half opens on June 18th.  Most of his screen paintings had what he called an absence of color.  It was interesting trying to capture the brush strokes with my micron pen.  Yukon actually did a little brush painting of a crane in the lower right corner.

The scroll paintings had lots more color.  Andora wanted me to try the tiger so I did.  He looks a little juvenile even though he was an adult male.  I'm not sure I have the colors right on the lobster but I like him.  The bougainvillea branch was from our flowers at lunch at the museum restaurant, Tangata.  Very yummy lunch, good company and an excellent exhibit, well that equals a great day in my sketchbook.


Robert Bateman 5" x 7" Sketchbook
Pen and Watercolor

South Pacific

Bowers Museum had an exhibit from the South Pacific.  It had lots of very interesting, somewhat barbaric but very beautiful things to see.  There was also this wonderful music, drums and sounds of the forest playing as you walked around. I think I walked the exhibit three or four different times.  I'm never disappointed with Bowers.

Robert Bateman Sketckbook 5" x 7"
Pen and Watercolor