I think I know how she feels.

Thudwink the Big-Hearted Moose

Thing one and Thing two.

Coquille Board

I've been doing some pieces with Coquille Board lately. The piece above is a detail of a work in progress. Coquille Board is a type of board (paper) that has a very unique, textured surface. One big advantage of Coquille Board is that it makes pencil rendering go much faster and also lends itself to strong, rich, dark areas without a lot of layers. The surface is a very uniform pepply texture. I had tried Coquille Board years ago but was using colored pencil. I found that I preferred other papers for color - papers that I could apply an underpainting to. It wasn't until fairly recently that I became interested in building a few portfolio pieces in black and white. Not just black line, as I'd done a lot of in the past, but more atmospheric rendered pieces. My pal Judith Moffatt suggested Coquille Board. I'd actually sort of forgotten about it! But, immediately decided that I should give it another try!

Here's a swatch to give you a closer look at the texture. When I decided I wanted to give Coquille Board another try, I discovered that it was a bit hard to find. I now buy it from Hyatt's. They are really nice, they ship very quickly and --- they have a store in the town where I grew up, Clarence, NY! Glad to give them my business.
This little swatch was done with an ebony pencil, but most of the time, I have been using Faber-Castell pencils.

This is a finished piece on Coquille Board. I wanted to challenge myself with something fairly complex and with a strong light source.
After I finish a few pieces like this, my next challenge will be to do something simple! And to try and get looser with my color work. Trying to stretch in both directions, but in both cases trying to stay focused on atmosphere. (amongst other things!)

I Love My Little Studio Home

It's small. It's cluttered. But, I really love this place. My husband, Paul, is a genious at utilizing space and he's built most everything here. Some of it has just evolved, but most was very carefully planned to use almost every inch. I love him, I love this room.
He put in the big bow window in front of my desk too.

I can keep an eye on what the neighbors are up to.

One of my favorite things in my studio is the pencil shelf that Paul built. I'd wanted something like this for a long time. But, as usual, he not only made the idea a reality, he made my original plan much better! It's about 8 inches down from the ceiling and is less than 4 inches deep. It starts here.....

...continues across this wall....

goes round the bend.....

.....and over another bulletin board.

The pencil shelf ends here. (Way up top.) This is the area that Paul calls...... the cockpit! Hi, Arianna!

Did you notice this little guy?