Paint pens

Jekyll Island Map

| Gina Lento

I wanted to do this map sooner but other projects got in the way. I am taking Mike Lowery’s “Getting Paid to Draw Course” and I am doing it as a repeat because he has a whole new group of artists and special guests for 2023. I started the class early because we are going to be busy over the next couple of weeks so I wanted to ensure I had my projects done for this class and what I had going on in the studio. I have lifetime access to last year’s class so I am able to rewatch the lessons before Mike releases them in this year’s class. This way I can timely submit my class work.

This map was on my “to Do” list so I finished it as I was listening to the second week’s lessons. The nice thing about repeating this course is I get updated information in the design and illustration world while working in a class environment which helps inspire me to create more work.

This is not an art class. It is a class for artists wanting to learn how to get their work out there to art directors of companies needing illustrations and designs. It’s fun because you get to talk to other artists and Mike has mini workshops and drawing sessions throughout the year after the course is over. The course itself runs 8 weeks but it’s great when Mike does additional Zoom parties that are really helpful with keeping us on track with our goals.

Mike is a great instructor with a lot of information and he’s very supportive with his students. The registration for the class is over but if you are interested, I am sure he’ll run it again next year.

This map is from our trip to Jekyll Island and I wanted to do it to keep honing my map making skills.

Illustrated map of Jekyll Island, GA using paint pens, pencil and ink. Colors used are a light orange, a blue violet background and black ink.
Illustrated map of Jekyll Island

Jensen Beach Map

| Gina Lento

I was playing around in my sketchbook trying to work on some illustration “to do” lists and one of the items on my list is to do more maps. I usually go very project detailed and would post them on They Draw and Travel but sometimes just freeing up my creativity to play in my sketchbook and allow myself to make mistakes takes the pressure off to explore, play and create art for the fun of it.

A playful hand drawn map of Jensen Beach, FL with blue, light orange and teal green color. Done in a square Plumchester Sketchbook. Image has not been digitally retouched to remove imperfections.
Map of Jensen Beach, Florida

I started the map the beginning of the week and made all these really cool icons. However, I decided to do the map while in the car when John and I were out and about. We were listening to the Yellowstone Podcast. I wasn’t paying attention to what I was doing until I realized that the paint marker I used was awful for this project. I didn’t like how the first map looked and the acrylic was shiny, not matte and you couldn’t write or draw over the acrylic. Well that was big a fail.

When I came back to the house, I had to go back to the drawing board, pun intended, and redo how I thought my map should look, minus the shiny marker. (The shiny marker came from an Artsnacks box.) I have Posca paint pens and Molotows which are much better for what I wanted to do. I drew the whole map again in pencil, playing with my placement of few things and I like this one much better.

I have included the image along with a version that shows what supplies I used. My Lamy Safaris are filled with Carbon Ink so they were perfect for this project. One Lamy is an extra fine point and the other is a medium point and I am really happy with how the map came out. There’s a few things that I would correct digitally but overall I really enjoyed doing this map.

Sketchbook spread of the art supplies used to create the hand drawn map of Jensen Beach. Posca pens, Lamy safaris and Molotow pens were used,
The full page sketchbook spread with supplies

That’s Right WoodChuck Chuckers…

| Gina Lento

It’s GROUNDHOG DAY!

Groundhog Day was always one of those days that you acknowledged but didn’t make much of a fuss about, (unless winter has been an especially cold and snowy one…) until the movie “Groundhog Day” came out.

I fell in love with the movie immediately. We even had a VHS version, then a Blue Ray version of the movie in our library. If the movie wasn’t on TV on February 2, then I would pop the movie in and watch the video version with my family.

My children were small when the movie came out but as they got older, it began to be a tradition to watch it in our house. It wasn’t just that the movie was funny. It was philosophical and theological. What would you do if you relived the same day over and over? Is there a Supreme Being reliving days over and over and that’s how they know everything? I am sure Danny Rubin and Harold Ramis were thinking more along the lines of poking fun at the day when they wrote the script, but the movie became so much more that I am sure they intended. It was done so well and it really makes you ponder life as you are being entertained.

The lines in the movie are classic. How can you ever look at a groundhog and not think “don’t drive angry?” That line was so hilarious in that setting. And my special favorite was Bill Murray when he’s on the phone “What if there is no tomorrow? There wasn’t one today!” OMG, that made me laugh. I am sure many of us sitting at desk job have thought that very thing.

The music, too. As soon as the opening theme comes on the TV, it doesn’t matter where you are in the house, you know what movie is coming on. It’s as distinctive as the James Bond themes.

If you are working from home today, the movie is on repeat on the AMC channel.

Enjoy!

Groundhog Day sketch done in a Hahnemuhle sketchbook using Arteza brush pens and a Lamy safari with Carbon ink. Hand lettered. Groundhog looks like he could pass on the whole day.
It’s Groundhog Day!

Friday the 13th

| Gina Lento

Today is Friday the 13th and I decided to play around with my Arteza brush pens. I used a sketchbook made out of the Arches Text Wove paper which can be a little temperamental for using the brush pens.

Black cats are not bad luck so I thought this kitty would be purrfect for today….

Water brush and ink sketch of a seated black cat with a collar that has the name Lucky on it
“Lucky”

Horse

| Gina Lento

Another project that I have been working on is horse illustrations/art. Something I did a long time ago that I picked up again just recently. We used to own racehorses and I would sit in the paddock and sketch the horses as they were getting tacked up and harnessed for races. A lot of the horse folks would peek over my shoulder as I used to sketch. It was a lot of fun and I used to love it. We haven’t had a racehorse for a while now but it was awesome. My husband used to drive our horses in the races.

I also collect model horses and being part of the model horse world, you have to go to Kentucky for the Breyerfest at least once. Breyerfest is an annual model horse event held at the Kentucky Horse Park every year. I went a few times and it was a lot of fun. I did a lot of things there, like watch a polo match, that I was never able to do before. I was able to see John Henry and Cigar, were stabled there. (John Henry was a naughty biting horse so there was extra fencing around his paddock.) Some racing greats like Man O’ War are buried there. There are breeds from around the world there so you can see them in person. My personal fave is the Akhal Take. I want one.

The American Saddlebred Association is headquartered there and that brings us to today’s sketch. This was originally intended to be posted on Independence Day but didn’t, and it was the next one in my sketch book, so I am posting it today.

American Saddlebreds, aka Saddle Horses, were bred to essentially be gaited riding horses. They are a true American breed and they have a long history for gentle temperament, used as mounts in battle, performance in the show ring, as well as just pleasure riding.

Chocolate Palomino Saddle horse with rider with red white and blue banners for a national holiday. Horse is doing an gaited pace.
American Saddle Horse Sketch in my Pentalic Watecolor Sketchbook

Mixed media Tempest

| Gina Lento

As mentioned in my last post, I have a homemade sketchbook in which I have been creating mixed media/collage spreads, and I have been trying to finish it for a while. Sometimes, I spend so much time on things I think matters, that I forget about the things I used to enjoy doing. It took me a while to get the hang of the whole collage thing, too. It’s smart to keep up the practice, at least weekly.

I have a large amount of 4×6 collage art because of my cat project that I started several years ago. I’d like to keep doing the postcards because I get a ton of ideas which led to creating larger works from those 4×6 pieces. Whenever you feel like you are getting stale, play in a sketchbook or do some postcard sized work. It really helps.

For instance, this page from my sketchbook has elements in it that surprise me. I look at the page and realized that I created some patterns that I can use in design work. This page was all intuitive work, placing things and not thinking about it, or at least, not planning. Just going with the flow. Sometimes when you go with the moment and don’t get hung up about perfection, creativity just happens. This isn’t meant to be a masterpiece, just sketchbook play to see how far I can go with it. Looking at this, I can almost hear Richard Dreyfus and Robert Shaw singing “Spanish Ladies” or something from John Williams and “Jaws” just a little ominously playing in the background.

(Like right now, I can’t get that Tango music out of my head, you know, the one from “True Lies?” …with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jamie Lee Curtis…. Por Una Cabeza. I now have it as an ear worm because “Discovery of Witches” closed Season 3 with Por Una Cabeza. I am sure that will turn up in something I have created LOL….Harry, Helen, let’s not get distracted…….)

I guess there are worse things that could be an ear worm. Por Una Cabeza is pretty bad ass.

pale aqua background with collaged ephemera enhanced with gel and paint pens. A few sharks, fish and a clipping from an old painting magazine.
Mixed Media – Tempest Sketchbook page

Mixed Media/Collage

| Gina Lento

Well, it turns out that the Inchie challenge was only 11 days, not 12. I was surprised when I pulled up emails Saturday morning and there was no prompt. Well that was a bummer because the Inchie challenge was fun. I’ll probably keep 2×2 squares with me to work on when I am out of the house. They would make cool thumbnail squares and I have plenty of art that I haven’t posted yet.

That being said…

Several years ago, before Teesha Moore had her stroke, I was a member of Teesha’s Artstronauts Club. I really miss that club. It was chock full of mixed media collage (MM/Collage) goodness. I started a few mixed media collage sketchbooks that I still have to finish. Some morphed into my Zombie doll Sketchbooks and my creepy portrait sketchbooks that I did finish. I never really thought of myself as a collage artist until I took a few of Carla Sonheim’s classes and things started to click. I have been playing with patterns, lettering and other techniques that gave me the skills I need to finish some of these unfinished sketchbooks.

Most of my MM/ collage sketchbooks are home made and hand stitched so that they would could be a specific shape or size and they have a theme. Most have a limited amount of pages which makes the project easy to finish.

This sketchbook is a mixture of cut collage from pretty much anything; some collage is home made from paint drips and such. I used Teesha Moore’s “Amazing 16 Page Journal” format. It’s a full sheet of 30 x 22 hot or cold press Fabriano watercolor paper that’s cut into 3 10×22 pieces and are folded into pages and stitched to create the 16 page sketchbook. On my mixed media pages I use paint markers and gel pens, fortune cookie fortunes, cut out lettering and quotes, basically a miss mosh of pieces assembled to make a whole page.

This has been in my “to do” pile a long time and I and finally posting some of these pages. The page size is 8×10 and the excess wasn’t trimmed, it is a flap that became a design of it’s own on one side and on the other it was part of a full page spread. I had a ton of chihuahuas from a 365 desk calendar that I save and used in various art projects. Lots of paint marker embellishments.

8x10 Mixed media collage sketchbook page using various bits and scraps of collage. Chihuahuas, old ticket stubs, embellishments with paint markers. The Chihuahua heads were added to "bodies."
Pages 2/3 Mixed media collage
8x10 Mixed media collage sketchbook page with lavender background using various bits and scraps of collage. Chihuahuas, embellishments with paint markers.
Page/Flap 1 Mixed Media Collage

Found

| Gina Lento

Hubby and I were out walking and came upon a tree that looked like it had washed out avocados hanging from it. Turns out, it was a mahogany tree. We were awed at the beauty of the tree and the rarity of its wood.

An older woman gave us cuttings from the tree and told us to root them. She told us how old her tree was. I secretly thanked the tree for the cuttings.

I found one of the pods on the ground and it popped open this afternoon, seeds spilling out.

I’ll try planting the seeds, as well.