this past sunday was the last drawing workshop of this month. another great group of drawers, as you can tell from the photo above!

since they’ve received such a positive reaction, i’m adding two more workshop dates for july…

summer sunday nature drawing workshops
dates available: july 19 or 26
noon – 5pm
park location tailored to participant’s portland locations
limited to 5 people per date
$55 per person

i’ve still kept these dates affordable and intimate. email me to rsvp or for more info.! now i’m off to do some drawing in the garden!

loren asked what kind of pens i use. here’s a picture of the well-used pens in my studio!

i’m about to begin another round of sewing. stay tuned to see the results of these fabric piles!

and hey, check it out: here are some garden drawings! on the left, one of the pumpkin plants. on the right, one of chard plants before i ate it! i literally drew it, removed most of the leaves, and sauteed them with tofu, mushrooms and cashews for dinner.

this week’s reads:

the red shoes, gorgeously illustrated by sun young yoo. sigh. someday i hope to make a book this stunning! unfortunately i can’t find more info or work by sun online… i also re-read the gathering moss book i’ve obsessed over in the past. i’ll leave you with more pics from the red shoes book…

happy weekend everyone!

as usual, sunday was my drawing workshop. the weather was so unpredictable that we moved indoors to a nearby cafe for the first half of the class. it was pretty classy actually to sit at a proper table with hot tea, and have access to a clean bathroom!

once the intermittent rain dissipated and the sun was out again, we moved back to the park.

gotta love summers in portland!

in the studio this week i’m finishing up more sewn goods for the online shop, and finishing up a few client projects i can’t tell you about yet. oh, and working on the weekly garden drawings which are taking up a lot more of my time these days now that the plants are mature.

ok this is a horrible image, but it’s a quickly thrown together collage of the weekly drawings of one of my broccoli plants this past month. neat, huh?

a much better photo is of one of the pocket wallets i finished and posted to my webshop this morning.

i’ve very busy working on lots of projects in the studio, but, sadly, i can’t tell you about any of them yet! at least it’s raining today so it’s not so bad to stay inside and draw snowflakes: summer is when christmas gets designed!

happy weekend everyone!

been busy sewing this morning! there’s 4 new slim wallets in my webstore today. more large pocket wallets and datebook cozies on the way later this week!

i’ve slowly been cleaning my studio and evaluating all my supplies. i have so many! and so many i’ve never used, or probably will never get around to using! so, i’ve created a new etsy shop to share them with you! i hope to add new items every day.

a friend lent me a new book to read for this week. i’m only about 50 pages in, but thoroughly engrossed. the author’s family raised and bonded with a wild goose who disappeared one day but returned two years later with her mate. the book chronicles the author’s close observations of her and her mate’s life in the bog near his house. it’s a great in-depth examination of the entire ecosystem around them, complete with author illustrations and photos. he’s written a list of other books i can’t wait to add to my library hold list!

yesterday was another great day in the park, drawing with new friends! also known as my summer sunday drawing workshop 2.0…

in other drawing news, the garden veggie plants are getting so big i have to devote a whole page to each! here’s a small patch of the lettuces.

i’ve been playing with making my drawings into repeat patterns, with varying rates of success. creating repeat patterns is an art form in itself! above is a drawing i did during last sunday’s drawing workshop. below is a drawing/pattern you may recognize…

oops, i’ve been slowed by allergies and forgot to post these earlier this week… the progress of my seedlings! they’re getting big! the biggest growers so far are the potato plants, planted from the red potatoes from my kitchen counter mentioned last month.

when my eyes and nose are too itchy to work, i retire to the couch with my latest read: wisdom sits in places. i read this book for my mfa thesis a few years ago, and now i get to re-read it as a normal person. i’m halfway through the book and so intrigued! the author spent years living and working with a group of native americans in arizona to uncover their relationships to their land.

most of the place names describe the way the place looked when it was named by ancestors, which is an interesting way to track changes in the landscape throughout the years. additionally, each place also has a short story tied to it, usually a morality tale involving an ancestor that did something wrong. in this western apache culture, when someone in the community does something wrong, someone else will tell the morality tale about a specific place relating to the person in question. in this way, the wrong-doer is gently scolded into behaving properly by the landscape itself. the landscape this community sees everyday, and all the place names and stories tied to them, are daily reminders of their community’s history, identity, values, and morality. isn’t that amazing?

yesterday i held my first nature drawing workshop of the summer! despite the overcast weather and a few cancellations due to our unexpected second allergy season here in portland [i myself was hopped up on allergy meds], it was tons of fun! the participants made great progress “getting their drawing eyes on”, unraveling the secrets of natural objects, and translating the small things around them onto the page. magical!

i couldn’t think of a better way to spend a sunday afternoon, six hours of concentrated drawing time is such a luxury. and, bonus, i get to do it every sunday this month! interest has been so strong in these workshops, i may add a few dates in july. and a small business workshop in the fall. please email me [jill@jillbliss.com] if you’re interested in being put on the email alert list for future workshops!