Month: October 2020

Their Faces Shone

As some of you know, our daughter Kate published her second book this summer, Their Faces Shone: A Foster Parent’s Lessons on Loving and Letting Go, about her family’s experience fostering a two-year-old girl. In the book, Kate explores the question of where family begins and ends, and how things change when we invite strangers–with complicated stories and baggage–into our lives. Kate is currently giving away ten signed copies of the book! You can find out more about the book and the giveaway here. 

PS – I love the colors in the book cover – don’t you?  A good example of making it “pop” by using opposites on the color wheel, in this case the cool colors (blue/green/purple) opposite warm orange.

Vivid Color

When painting, especially abstractly, it’s helpful to think about the color wheel. If you want a vibrant image, a surefire formula is to use opposites, with one side dominant. Here orange, sliding toward red and yellow, is dominant, with a touch of the opposite turquoise.

Watercolor, water-soluble crayon, 5″ x 5 21/2″, $45.

Sketching at a Bakery

It’s really fun to sit and sketch. Since people are usually moving, snapping a photo to freeze them in one position helps. Drawing figures from the back avoids facial features. Once you’re happy with the figure, you can sketch the background with no time pressure.