February 15, 2022

Playing with fountain pen inks & bleach.

 Jan 26, 2022

For Barbara's birthday we went to "Out of Africa" for the day.  It was sunny and warm.  We saw most of their animals and snakes.  Afterwards we went to a BBQ restaurant in Camp Verde for a bbq rib dinner.

On the 11th we went to Chandler for 3 nights.  We met friends from the art group in Casa Grande & friends who are rvers & went to see The Eddie Basha Art Collection of western art.  Both Barb & I took photos to use as references for our own art projects.

After the art gallery we went to Organ Stop Pizza for dinner.  They have a huge pipe organ and the organist has a great repertoire of songs, past & present. 

The next day we went to the Japanese Friendship Garden in Phoenix.  Another very nice day, sunny & warm.  I did a couple of plein air sketches:

and after we got home I did a pen & ink wash drawing:

I bought 2 Dinky Dips that hold 4 glass bottles of ink each.  They are perfect to use with my dip pens.

After sketching the waterfall I mixed inks on a palette to brush on the color.  I can use my watercolor brush to do the mix.

I have been sketching people to put in some of my urban sketches.  Soon I will go to town to try sketching from life.

Here is another building I sketched from a tutorial on Etchr Studio

Barbara is having fun knitting socks & getting ready for planting spring flowers.

Our weather has been good, mostly sunny days with low 30s overnight.  We have had a few rainy days but it is much needed.

Hopefully, I will not take so long before next post.

December 23,2021

MERRY CHRISTMAS & HAPPY NEW YEAR to all.

We have had skirting put around our fifth wheel & have been busy painting the new siding.  Barbara now has herself a "She Shed" to put some of the stuff that has been in the closet & under the table or behind the recliners for 10 years.

I got more pens.  These are dip pens.  One is a traditional dip pen holder with interchangeable nibs & 2 are glass nib pens.  It has been fun learning how to write & draw with them.

Here are some line & wash efforts.

This is our great grand daughter Remy & her friend.  

Hope everyone has Happy Holidays with family & friends.

 November 27, 2021

I will put up some of our art work that we have done over the past few years.

Here are some of Barbara's acrylic paintings.

and some of my watercolors

and ink sketch from my sketchbook

 November 26, 2021

This is our set up at Verde Valley Thousand Trails.

 11/21/2021

I got a new fountain pen & ink so I did a doodle of a waterfall:

Here are some of my previous line & wash work:

 11/11/21

Since the last post we took a short trip to Payson where we stayed for 2 nights.  On the way up we stopped at Tonto Natural Bridge State Park to look around.  It is very interesting geology.  

I think I have figured out how to get photos of our art added to our posts.

These are some of my doodles with fountain pen ink.

This is Barb's latest painting with acrylics.

And here are her latest drawings using graphite pencils.  She is not finished with the background mountains on the elk drawing, but I was on a roll transferring the photos from my phone to email to the blog so I will put the finished drawing up later.

I am still taking classes on morse code.  The classes are Zoom meeting with volunteer instructors with the Long Island CW Club.  I am improving but have not had many contacts on the radio to practice sending & receiving.