Sleep Tight Parker

This week I finished my Sleep Tight Parker painting for my son and I’m so excited with how it turned out that I wanted to detail the process and celebrate the cute little painting I made for him.

The Sketch

When I was painting my daughters I went with a very simple design and I think I’m just in this busy, maximalism state of mind so when I was sketching Parker’s I really wanted something that vibed that.

I love quilted sweaters and jackets so his pajamas is inspired by Camimade Patterns. I saved this pattern to my Pinterest board ages ago and although I can’t sew or quilt I thought I could paint my children in these beautiful outfits that I wish I could make them.

Here was the first sketch. Originally I had planned a star-themed pillow with a green gingham pattern bedding and a terracotta colored blanket.

I also originally wanted more green in the painting but with the star/night theme I thought blue was better.

I did a color study in colored pencil to see what direction I wanted to go.

Painting

Painting this was truly therapeutic! As you can see from the sketch I did change things up. I ended up going with a dark blue for the background and a green gingham pattern for the pillow. I didn’t want to pull focus away from his pajamas or the blanket and I was worried there wouldn’t be enough contrast between his head and the pillow if I went with a terracotta color.

I was really trying to go for a simple color palette and I kind of did - blue, green, and terracotta are the main color groups.

I picked up Coral Red, Pure Red, Ash Blue and Ash Yellow the other day and the new colors were perfect! The Ash Blue and Ash Yellow are really pretty.

To get the varying hues in blue, terracotta and green I did small mixings.

Adding Details

Adding details was the final touch. I did some samples on my paper to see how Neocolors II’s and colored pencils would look on top.

I used colored pencils on his pajamas, blanket and outline to add a bit of an outline.

I then used a Neocolor II in white to do the title.

I also used Liquitex Acrylic Ink in Carbon Black with a Sailor Dip Pen for the nose and eyes.

The Final Piece

Like I said earlier, I love how this piece turned out. I framed it and placed it by his red light and sound machine.

I love it so much I kind of what to re-do my daughters cause I learned a lot while making this one. If I do redo hers I’ll detail it here :)

xoxo,

Robynne

Striking a Balance

Tonight’s After Eight! Started working on Parker’s painting for his room. I made a similar one for Victoria and I wanted them to have this matching set. So far I am loving his! I picked up some more Gouache from Opus Art Supplies and the Ash Blue is stunning. Likely tomorrow or maybe the next day I’ll have this one finished.

Finished the night off with a little 30-minute visual journal session of our day.

I really liked today’s balance of painting and sketching/visual journaling.

Loving Todays Visual Journal Spread

I took a little break in November from daily visual journaling to explore some other stuff but for December I’m back at it. I love, love, love how today’s turned out. My favorite is probably the little reindeer sketch in the middle.

A Different Visual Journal

I wanted to try a different kind of visual journal this month! I was inspired by some accordion type sketchbooks I’ve been seeing so I thought I’d create a DIY meets Junk Journal sketchbook spread for this month. So far it’s just plain copy paper taped together.

At the end of the month I want to create a big, busy, messy, illustration encapsulating our whole month. Similar to my Victoria and Parker Celebrate Autumn but more journal like.

Happy December🎄

On the first day of December the kids opened their December boxes. What once started as a “trend” on social media has kind of stuck for me. I did a December box for Victoria last year and I just loved the idea of them having Christmas pj’s, a Christmas-y outfit and some Christmas books to enjoy throughout all of December.

Victoria has the original design of the box. It says “Christmas Box” on the lid and says from “Santa” on the side. I love aspects of the design. I’m tossed about modifying hers cause I do love the original-ness of hers but I don’t love that it’s called a “Christmas Box” and that it’s from Santa.

So for Parker’s I painted over the box and did my own design. Here’s the sketch of what I was thinking.

Here’s how it turned out! I’m thinking I’ll elaborate more on the process a different day. The top has a design and the sides are striped red and white.

This is the box all set up.

I love it when you’re in the flow and all of a sudden a great idea smacks you in the face. Tonight I was working on this recipe illustration I’m making for my mom. I was trying to think of what to put in the background. I sketched out my grandmothers china cabinet. We lost her in July and she was a big baker and cook like my mom. While I was sketching out what it looked like I started thinking about all the pieces that we had talked about when I had visited their house yesterday - the sharp glass bowl, the punch bowl my auntie loves, the Arby’s glasses. It gave me a great idea to detail another painting focused on her home, her china cabinet and the stories behind all these things.

Coloring with Cousins

Today we visited my auntie and cousins that are in town and at one point two of my cousins and my kids were on the floor coloring. I snapped a few photos but on my way home I thought I needed to sketch them.

The photo below is a quick sketch I made in the afternoon just to get the idea out in the sketchbook.

This is the final sketch I did after the kids went to bed.

Paintings For My Children

Neither of my children have much “stuff” on their walls so I wanted to paint something for both of them. I finished this one tonight and I want to make my son a matching one. I love the Neocolor II for the writing and all the texture from the Gouache. I may repaint this one later when I’m better but tonight I’m quite happy with the final result.

Normally I would sketch out my ideas and then do a study on the right before moving into a bigger piece but I felt like skipping it this time. A study is helpful because I can see what I would do differently for the final like color choices and lining.

Making a Painting That Celebrates Autumn : Victoria and Parker Celebrate Autumn

I loved autumn with the kids! Around the beginning of September I was looking forward to the cooler days, the turning of the autumn leaves, and all the fall activities of pumpkin patches and Halloween. At some point when October hit and we were in the full swing of Autumn I decided I wanted to try illustrating our autumn and so Victoria and Parker Celebrate Autumn was born.

Our autumn was full of so many wonderful memories. Highlights were definitely Thanksgiving, visiting the pumpkin patch, pumpkin carving, Halloween, and the million and one fall walks we would take every afternoon.

The biggest source of inspiration for this project was real life experiences I had with my family ~ thanksgiving dinner, going to the pumpkin patch, what we would see and do on our afternoon fall walks, pumpkin carving, halloween, etc., Every thing we did I pulled inspiration from.

The second source was definitely Rebecca Green’s illustration work. I originally found her through Pinterest when I was looking for inspiration in visual journaling and I continued to fall in love with her paintings and general illustration work.

Originally I was going to create a multi-page illustration. One spread would focus on fall outfits, the pumpkin patch, thanksgiving, etc., Between my October journal and my sketchbook I sketched out various aspects of what I was envisioning.

Sometimes I would get ideas when I was playing with the kids so I would sketch out in crayon what I was thinking so I could refer back to it later. 

I made a couple full page illustrations which I was liking at first but then I eventually found that it was missing something ~ texture and lushness from paint.

When I realized I missed the lushness of paint I decided I was going to approach it with a multi-media lens. Paint as the base with colored pencil and Neocolor II for details. So, over several evenings I played with compositions, colors, textures, etc.,

It was around this point that I loved certain aspects like the trees and ground but didn’t like the concept of only covering a single topic for each page. So, I decided to scrap the multi-page illustration approach and go for maximalism…and I LOVED IT!

I made this sketch and loved how it was coming together so I decided to do a smaller study in my sketchbook.

At first I was going to just leave it as a small study in my sketchbook and move onto a different project but I really wanted to do something bigger and more final. So I picked up some Strathmore Mixed Media paper and I did another painting which I am so glad that I did.

I love the final result! I have a lot of learning when it comes to composition, sketching, basics of painting and color mixing but the thought behind the whole painting was a cumulation of everything I experienced and learned from October:

  • My kids are dressed up as Bluey characters based off our actual Halloween costumes this year

  • Parker is holding sticks in his hands with a pile of rocks, leaves and acorns around him, based on our fall walks and mornings at the park where Victoria would give us various things to hold

  • The pumpkins are based on the actual pumpkin faces we carved before Halloween

  • The buildings are inspired by the buildings at Davison Orchard where we always go year after year to get our pumpkins

  • The fall foliage in the background is based off the actual trees we loved to admire when we would go for fall walks

Some elements of the final painting are of course fictional:

  • Parker and Victoria are having a fall picnic with Toto and Cow (Victoria’s stuffed animals)

  • The table is set with Halloween candy, cinnamon buns, pie and mashed potatoes

  • The Okanagan doesn’t really glow with that many orange, yellow and red trees for autumn. It’s mostly pine in the mountain so it is an exaggeration.

Lastly, it’s an cumulation of everything I learned (a lot of which is from Rebecca Green’s Dessert Club):

  • Color mixing to get various hues

  • Line work

The smaller study helped me figure out what I wanted to change with the final painting. The color of the buildings, the textures of the grass, the colors of everything.

Currently, this painting is hanging above our play area in the living room and I just love looking at it everyday. Like I said earlier, looking at it reminds me of everything our autumn was and I am excited to do something similar for December/Christmas!

This Weeks Visual Diary | September 14-20th, 2024

September 14, 2024

I loved this afternoon! I’ve been really trying this year to do something for myself every week. This week I decided I was going to pack up my supplies and sit at the park and sketch and paint. This was my view which was pretty great.

I always love treating myself to a drink. This weeks was an Iced Caramel Macchiato from Starbucks with extra caramel drizzle. I brought my paints with the intention of painting but realized when I got to the park that I didn’t have water…

Because I was working with markers I didn’t feel like coloring in the whole pages of sketches and I ended up liking it. It gave me some ideas of things that I want to explore later. The image below is a loose sketch of poppies, playing with stripes and color.

Another sketch playing with loose flowers, colors and mixed media (markers and pencil crayons).

September 16th, 2024

We have “seasons” where we go on more walks around the neighbourhood. Some seasons we’re walking the block every day (sometimes multiple times a day) and some seasons we’re not out at all. Summer was a season where we honestly weren’t out walking the block very often. Most times I opted to take the kids to the park or a trail. However, now that we’re going into Fall and Parkers wake windows are quite lengthy I find myself gravitating towards these walks again with the kids.

On this afternoon I took some reference photos of some flowers along our walk that I wanted to try sketching or painting at a different time.

September 17th, 2024

Every time we go to the park we pass an apartment building with these pretty yellow flowers at their entrance. Took a photo so I can try sketching later.

I always love this balcony on the way to the park. I have this idea to create a background pulling colors of the planters with some flower sketches overtop.

I’m always looking for ideas on what flower to sketch or paint so I started a page in my sketchbook that pulls all the flowers I’m learning to draw. As you can clearly see on the right page my flowers are looking a lot better but my animals need some serious work.

I was doing a lot of experimenting with these “still life” paintings and I liked them but I found myself gravitating towards these loose, messy paint and sketches of flowers so I started revisiting that idea.

September 18th, 2024

The whole family came down with the bug. Usually we would go for a walk or visit the park. We always make a point to leave the house at least once a day and do something outside but today was an indoor and survive kind of day. After the kids went to bed I did sneak in a little bit of time painting and working out some ideas.

The page on the left was continuing on my train of loose paintings of flowers - these are peony inspired. The page on the right is a scene from Ponyo that I was interested in. It actually gave me a lot of ideas. The lines are created using Gouache in a more water-colour fashion and the boats were drawn in with markers.

September 19th, 2024

One morning while playing with some play dough with my daughter while my son napped I realized that when you spell “mom” with a little tweaking you create a series of hearts. I took this photo (again as references) so I can maybe do something with the idea for later.

Another walk on a sunny afternoon. There is a house in the complex that always has a. beautiful garden that we like to stop and admire. He’s got these vibrant red and yellow flowers that I wanted to try sketching and then I noticed the flowers and black planters off to the side and I thought the juxtaposition of the flowers to the black plastic was interesting.

These are probably some of my favourite spreads in my sketchbook. During the day I don’t have a lot of “alone time” to sketch or paint but I do have access to regular paper and crayons. So when my daughter is drawing I’ll sketch something out. I wanted to experiment with continuous line drawings so that’s what I did. I did a turtle because we’re in a huge turtle phase with my toddler and a jelly fish. I then had this cool thought to combine something I had done the previous night with the continuous line drawing and the page on the right is a test run of the idea.

September 20th, 2024

The bouquet painting on the right is inspired by an actual bouquet of flowers I have that my husband bought me for our anniversary. It’s one that I have experimented with over and over again in my sketchbook. All with varying techniques to see what I like and didn’t. This was the loosest painting that I had done of the flowers and I changed the vase slightly because in reality the vase is a similar color the flowers. The greyish florals and the single purple floral are Daisies, the top burgundy red are Carnations, and the pinky florals on the bottom right are Roses. I combined what I had been liking with my still life studies to create something looser. This was also a challenge because at the time I was working on these Parker was waking up every 20 minutes after bedtime so I was often doing this in the dark so I didn’t always know what the color mixing was going to look like.

'We Love You' | A Generational Poem

Today was my grandmothers memorial. I’ve had a whirlwind of emotions and thoughts running through my head all day ~ what am I going to put in the niche with her, denial that she’s physically gone, why is it I only see my extended family during funerals and weddings, what relationships I’v let slip and how can I rekindle them. I’ve shedded a thousand tears today and my eyes feel heavy with some slight stinging from all the crying.

When they were putting her in the niche and in the ground with my mothers father and everyone was saying their last goodbyes something I wrote a couple months ago kept ringing in my head.

Last week while we were camping my mother had made my grandmothers popsicle recipe. That first bite I was flooded with memories eating those in the summer at her house. Back then I was a child and it wouldn’t have been allowed but I’m an adult now so I ate five of these in one day (they’re on the smaller size if that helps my case any). They were so good and although I can’t remember a specific memory eating them, I remember the taste and texture of them, and this odd memory of perhaps my grandmother pulling them out of the freezer to give to us.

After the memorial my aunt said that every time they came home to visit the kids would run into the house and ask if grandma made her jello. She would make these jello cubes that you could pull apart layer by layer. Typically they were red, green and orange. My aunt also made a comment about a favourite dish of hers that she would always make when she came home. Other family members mentioned her ketchup spare ribs, her cracked crab, cabbage salad. One family member said she was the “queen of desserts”. As I write this I am eating leftover cabbage salad (her recipe) from our family dinner earlier today.

There are deep memories, deep connections with the food she would make.

So although she is physically gone, although today marks the “end,” somewhat of a final goodbye, she is still with us. Our loved ones always leave something for us.

I started a series called “We Love You” to honour her memory and to honour my thoughts and feelings as I navigate my memories with her and my journey through grief of losing her. I have in my head something physical and beautiful to sit with and flip through but I can’t quite put a period on that sentence, on that chapter. So, for now “We Love You” will remain my live memorial of her that I will continue adding photos, thoughts and musings about her life, our life together.

'We Love You' | An Introduction

At the beginning of July I lost my grandmother. She was eighty-three years old. In 2023, my mother and her siblings started the process of “treating” her dementia. When my parents told us of her state I was shocked, sad, and depressed. My grandmother was the first close relative of mine that I experienced dementia with, I have distant relatives that suffered from dementia or Alzheimers but none that I was close to. Even in the dark I thought we had year(s) to still be with her. Which is why when she was hospitalized in June with a stroke and brain bleeds (due to a fall and her dementia) I was shocked, sad, depressed with a ton of denial.

On an unrelated but related note. At the beginning of May I had begun daily(ish) journaling ~ musings of my day, thoughts, experiences, gratitude, what I loved and didn’t, etc., So throughout June when she was hospitalized I started documenting everything ~ memories from my childhood with her, recipes that she would make us, any and all little detail that I could remember of her, and my journey through grief of losing her.

For years before she passed I had been pursing photography both creatively and in the interest of profession so I had many photos that I had taken of her whenever we visited each other.

When she died I started putting this piece together because it helps me. I want to share this piece with you because maybe there’s something you’ll see as a mirror, window or door into your own experience.

With that, this is the excerpt that introduces We Love You, a piece made of photographs and musings of my grandmother:

July 2, 2024 my grandmother passed away.

At the time that I am writing this it has only been a day since she passed but I’ve been grieving for weeks. In earlier June she was admitted into the hospital. She was a fighter, I truly believe she fought tooth and nail to keep living. As my dad said “physically her body was done but spiritually she was not ready”.

I’ve been fortunate. My grandmother took care of us a lot when we were kids. Both my parents worked and although I don’t remember anything before age five (roughly) I do remember that every Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday (plus some weekends) we would be spending time with her. When we entered middle school she stopped "babysitting” us but I always made this effort to visit her as often as I could. This continued on when I went into High School, graduated, went to College, moved away, came back home and had children of my own. So, I have a lot of fond memories with her.

Over the last few years I have taken many wonderful photos of my grandmother with my daughter and son and over the last couple months I have written many thoughts and musings over past memories and my journey through grief.

This body of work is in progress. My grief runs deep but going through old photos and writing down my memories and musings helps me navigate this difficult time.

I have called this piece “We Love You” for that is what I embroidered on her blanket while she lied in the hospital room then the hospice house. No matter where or the time of day I wanted her to always know that.

A few pieces that are currently displayed:

For more on this series please visit ‘We Love You'.”

moments this week | photodump 09

Moments this week! Every Saturday night I enjoy looking through and editing all my photos that I took throughout the week. It’s a way to slow down in the world of digital photography. Here’s a mixture of photos taken on my Canon M100, OM Digital Solutions EM1 Mark II and my iPhone.

Parker and I tried to spend as many mornings as we could down by the water.

Victoria’s has really gotten into her Yoto Player. She loves playing the song cards and I think Parker enjoys listening too.

I photographed the moon! One night I had the inkling to go and photograph the moon. It wasn’t quite a full moon, this was three days before but I wanted to experiment with using various trees and foliage to frame. I don’t do lunar photography often so next time I’d go out a little earlier cause I really want to capture like a daytime moon sighting. For this I used my OM Digital Solutions EM1 Mark II with the 40-150mm F2.8 PRO lens and the 1.4x Teleconverter.

Parker and I spent one of Victoria’s nap time cleaning up the front porch so we can enjoy nice quiet times during the day outside. I also picked up a small pool so we can have some water fun. Of course, Mothers Day weekend we had a huge heatwave and this would have been perfect. Since then it’s been very cool and rainy.

Victoria and I quite enjoyed this time outside.

One evening I took Victoria out for a spontaneous walk and we ran into our neighbour that has a grandchild around Victoria’s age. It was really cute watching them run around.

We spent majority of the week enjoying our new space at home so this was actually our first trip out to the park later in the week. Parker was in the process of dropping a nap so we came out fairly early which was really nice.

We’ve had some crazy thunderstorms roll through here throughout the week. One afternoon Parker and I were sitting outside when one started. All of a sudden torrential downpour came and thunder and lighting were right above us.

By the end of the week we continued picking away at cleaning up our patio to make it a nice space for us all. We’ve got the pool and sand area setup but we’re now working on the sitting area for us.

my healthy sweet boy

My sweet boy had two doctors appointments this week (just regular four month checkups) and everything is good with my little guy which makes me so happy.

we can laugh

Tonight we had some spontaneous evening fun with a neighbour. It was totally unexpected and it was perfect ❤️

a quiet retreat

My gratitude entry for today.

Yesterday I spent some time cleaning up our porch so it would be a nice spot to hang out. We still have some work but it’s starting to work out nicely. I like having a spot to sit outside while the kids nap.

counting to a good life

“A good life is not how it adds up in the end, but what you’re counting along the way” (101 Essays That Will Change The Way You Think, Brianna Wiest, P. 207)