About four years ago, I bought a jumbo potholder loom and loopers from Homestead Weaving Studio. I wove a bathmat, quickly bought ten more pounds of loops, and then just as quickly stashed it away in my closet. Fast forward several years, and I’m using up some of the loopers with this new bathmat. The other one still looks great, but I like this color and design better.
I probably have eight pounds left. What to make next?
I snapped a picture of this medium-sized woodpecker this weekend and discovered it’s a female yellow-bellied sapsucker. I took a 6”x8” Ampersand Claybord that had the start of a project that wasn’t going well and painted black ink over it. This drawing is mostly scratchboard with some additional Ampersand ink for the tree and bird highlights.
I’m on a gouache kick. I’m waiting for a set of acrylic gouache, and in the meantime, I’m using the Winsor and Newton set I bought a few years ago to remember the qualities of it.
It’s vibrant but dries matte, reworks easily with a little water, and is opaque so you can paint lights over darks. It’s very similar to casein, but casein dries fairly permanently after a period of time.
There are a lot of similarities with Neocolor II crayons, one of my favorite mediums. I’m looking forward to trying the Liquitex Acrylic Gouache set, however, as it dries permanently.
I haven’t felt much like sketching or painting until the past few days. We discovered a new park, and I snapped a photo of what I think is an American Tree Sparrow. My photo was a little blurry, but I had enough detail to finish this drawing.
This is in colored pencil—Pablo and Derwent drawing—on a background of Neocolor II. I used Pastelmat in a yellow orange color.