I was recently contacted by somebody wanting to know if I do custom work. I don't, really, but she was interested in a magnolia drawing that she could have tattooed on her shoulder. I thought it sounded like an interesting project (and I do love the magnolias) so this is what we came up with. The drawing itself is about 5x7" and I think it's on an 8x10" sheet of paper. I haven't tried drawing this many things that small in years!
At some point I'll get tired of these plain ol' pencil drawings, but I tend to fixate on one thing at a time. This is another 11x14" on Stonehenge. I have two 16x20" pieces cut out and ready to use and I think I'll draw some cherry blossoms on them. There's a plain old pie-cherry type cherry tree blooming in the woods next to our house and while I really like the flowers, they're all in complicated clusters. I think using some bigger pieces of paper for them will keep me from running off the edge of the sheet (as I tend to do).
Here's a magnolia for your Friday. I took a few photos while I was scanning this and I'll write up a short how-to for my best method of scanning something that's too big for your scanner sometime when I'm feeling organized.
Well, you knew this was coming. Magnolias have bloomed so of course I had to go out and take pictures to draw from. It's good for me to slow down and really take note of all the seasonal changes going on out there because this is the only time they'll be new to me. Next year I won't be surprised that there is an old wild cherry (I think) tree blooming out in the woods near our house. It didn't look like anything until this week and now if I squint, it looks a little like an iceberg drifting toward our backyard (did I mention it's really tall?). I'll still enjoy it but it won't be such a surprise. 
So here's what was hiding under all those fuzzy magnolia buds. I was planting a few things underneath one of these trees a couple days ago and the sun was shining, there was a lovely breeze, and these flowers smelled delightful. I really love spring.
Here's what the magnolia buds look like this afternoon...
...and here they are the way I like them (no snow). Instead of leaving them to sit around for a while like usual, I brought these out of the studio and popped them in the scanner as soon as they were dry. I'm annoyed at the snow and the cold so I'm trying to get some work done in defiance of wanting to curl up and hibernate.
My canvas-on-panel issues aren't entirely worked out yet. I think my next step is to try clear gesso over a print and see if a more absorbent surface works better. In the meantime, I've got a coat of regular gesso drying on a plain unprinted canvas mounted to a board. I usually put 3 coats of gesso down and lightly sand in between each one, so it's going to be a little while before I can start anything on it.
