Robin Arnold Art

It's been a long time since I've posted anything but I'm going to try and breathe some life back into my blog. I've had problems with a pinched nerve over the last year that was so debilitating I had to resign from my job and for a few months it was hard to lift my arm to paint. This was no great loss to the art world but it left a big void in my life. Although it hasn't gone away it has gotten better. I still have a hard time taking photos, lifting binoculars and sometimes drawing/painting but I am getting the strength back in my arm and the pain is much more manageable than a year ago. Despite my physical limitations and my utter lack of confidence in my abilities I do think I reached a new plateau in my watercolor painting. After a ton of bad paintings ending up in the wastebasket something finally clicked. The painting below of a Cedar Waxwing was a breakthrough and although I still have many failures they are not as frequent as they were a few months ago. ...

 Gena and I have had a problem with this ever since we've had chickens. We also have tons of rabbits and every year a few of them go the Easter Bunny route. We have actually caught them in the coop, yanking eggs out of the next boxes. This particular hen has obviously made a deal with one of the bunnies in return for a pile of dew worms. This was a very fast sketch using Micron pens and watercolor. I had a fever while I did this so that might explain a lot :)

The last few days have been gorgeous in Ohio; so gorgeous that the bullfrogs are lined up all along the bank of the pond enjoying the sun. They know that soon they'll be buried in the muck until spring so they're taking advantage of this bonus weather. I sketched this little guy near the back of the house along with his snaky friend. The drink is swamp juice, a replacement for orange juice in northwest Ohio. The frogs weren't the only ones basking in the sun. This is Susie and Harriet, two of our 8 week old hens we bought from a hatchery in Polk, OH. Susie, on the left, is a Barred Rock and Harriet is a Golden Laced Wyandotte.

Sketching and painting from my photos hasn't been going well lately so after disgustedly  throwing another one in the waste basket I decided to try sketching without any reference material. I figure I'm almost 60 years old so there should there be something floating around in my head that I can pull out. The first one I sketched was this Teddy bear sitting on a rug drinking a beer and eating snacks.  I went to bed thoroughly  bummed out after spending the evening trying to sketch an animal from one of my photos . While I was swearing  I would never try this crazy stuff again I picked up my sketchpad to do who knows what. I had no reference photo and I wasn't interested in drawing a blob of fur from one of our two dogs who were already curled up in a ball and fast asleep. In around 15 minutes I had drawn this very simple Teddy bear and the following morning I added the watercolor which really made it pop. Is it perfect?...not by a long shot. Teddy lo...

It got pretty interesting in the marsh last night! I saw frogs, turtles and our resident Bigfoot flying around on brooms. It was too dark for photos so I tried to sketch it but the action was so fast and furious it was tough to get on paper. It should be even better tonight....stay tuned!

I'm still plugging away with my watercolors and I have a couple to share that are at least recognizable. On September 8th we went to Meyer's Hatchery in Polk, OH. to pick up six tiny chicks. They are the cutest things ever and Gena and I have been spending as much time as possible with them so they will not only be good egg layers but also good friends.  The new additions to our family are Maggie, Debi(both named after high school classmates), Amelia, Susy(named after my junior high German teacher), Harriet and Cuddles. This painting was my third attempt and although it has a lot of flaws I'm happy with it. I painted this from one of my photos....no way I can sketch constantly moving chicks! Amelia, as in Amelia Earhart,  is the yellow chick and was so named because she was trying to fly since she was a day old. Amelia is a Blue Ameracana, which is considered a rare breed. Susie is a Barred Rock and although she was named after my German teacher, her name also pays tri...

I am a nervous person riddled with panic attacks on a good day but this year has been more challenging than usual and I'm to the point where I feel like I may end up in a padded room before my 60th birthday in November. To try and bring some calm back into my psyche I've been drawing and playing around with watercolors as often as possible. My drawings show promise; the watercolors, not so much. Maybe it's because of my age and the fact that I grew up with a black and white TV but I do much better with gray scale than I do with color. Charlie This is Charlie, a former neighbors cat who decided he liked our place better. This is my second attempt at this drawing, the first one ending up in the trash. Charlie was a challenge and I probably should have picked something smaller and more manageable. By the time I got his head done I just wanted this drawing to end but a cat head floating in space doesn't have much appeal so I kept at it until I finally had a complete ...

I finished my second pencil drawing of this male Lesser Scaup over Memorial Day weekend. There are areas that could be improved upon but I'm amazed it turned out as well as it did. These drawings mean more to me than words can express, not only because I just love to draw but for several years my right thumb hurt so badly that it made that hand essentially unusable. Everything I loved to do, including my wood carving, came to a grinding halt. I couldn't even hold a pencil or paintbrush without extreme pain. After a few years my thumb finally got better but then it started to hurt because of arthritis. After almost ten years of being side-lined the pain has lessened and I'm finally able to do some carving and a little drawing. I have to be very careful though, because if I overdo it my thumb starts to hurt.  I think painting with watercolors would be less stressful on my hands so I bought a set along with a couple books and I'm trying to paint something that looks r...