A lot of thought goes into setting up your studio. So far, I’ve laid down a floor cloth (hand painting/stenciling with chalk paint in progress) to catch paint messes, set up my standing easel, and figured out the best place for my table (where I’ll be drawing and making hand-made prints). Outside my windows is a lovely view of a farm with many cows out to pasture, the Tassajara Hills and directly behind them, Mount Diablo.

Distress #1 and Distress #2: the yellow version is done in watercolor and ink and the other is a carborundum print. They are my first works for 2018. Happy New Year!

What does it mean when a corporation owns an artist’s legacy? One artist’s multiyear project, “The Proposal,” examines this question about the legacy of the Pritzker Prize–winning Mexican architect Luis Barragán.

To learn more, watch artist Jill Magid as she talks about her ongoing project, “The Proposal” in this 12-minute video.

Works from over 200 different places have been brought together in one exhibition; Michelangelo’s drawings are a must see. This exhibition will not be traveling so if you are in New York while it is on, do go see it!! (The exhibition begins tomorrow, November 13, 2017, and continues until February 12, 2018).

Here are some old sketches from a 2015-2016 sketchbook. Funny, I never realized until now, how many of my works have lush, green landscapes (often sugar cane fields).

Drawings from my current notebooks — I am honing my drawing skills by using as few lines as possible and am also relying on negative space for the effect of making the drawings stand out.

Indian yellow: a clear, deep and luminescent yellow pigment with a color deeper than gamboge but less pure than cadmium yellow.

Yesterday at Djerassi was:

foggy with lots of fog drip

windy and cold beneath the redwoods as well as out in the open spaces

filled with bird song and bird calls; the birds were loudest down by the creek

such a lovely day; not only was the outdoor art doing its thing (trying to fit in with the environment) but there were so many rabbits about (the ones with the white cotton tails) and I was even treated to the sight of newts in the creek and also to the call of one coyote somewhere near the picnic grounds.

It pays to know your supplies! A while ago I tried doing some watercolor sketches in my Moleskine sketch book. Even though the company bills this as a sketchbook that you can use with watercolors, it isn’t as easy as you would think. The sizing on the paper is resistant to watercolor and so instead of absorbing the paints, it leaves the pigments sitting on the surface. And if you use a fancy Kolinsky sable brush like I did in the beginning, that just compounds the problem. The brush just glides ocross the surface. I put the book away in exasperation.

A year later, here I am trying to do watercolors in the book again. Now I’ve switched to a round nylon brush (a sturdy one from Princeton that has a snap to it) and switched to a honey-based paint (I’m using Sennelier). Now I’m doing better though I am not totally happy with my pen (a Pentel Slicci) because the ink blurs when I add watercolor. I had to redo the lines with my Sharpie pen. 

After much trial and error, I am beginning to understand what makes this little book happy. It likes Sennelier watercolor paints and it likes sturdy nylon brushes and Sharpie pens. It pays to know all of your materials!

Here are some of the first few pages: