Rubber-Neckers

This is my first sketch in several days, and I'm a little rusty and unsure of myself. It's also the first page of a new Moleskine sketchbook/journal.

I was inspired by a photo that my cousin Ryan shared on Facebook during his trip to Florida this week of a white heron standing on the deck outside a restaurant where Ryan was eating. Apparently, the heron is a frequent visitor begging for food and has been  affectionately named George. He was peering through the window at the patron. Ryan says he was really funny to watch.

Something about George spoke to me and made me want to sketch him, not once, but three times. The page turned into an amusing trio of rubber-necking herons. I'm glad Ryan shared the photo, because I had had absolutely no desire to draw anything for several days and maybe George has gotten me jumpstarted.

I sketched George #1, in the middle, first with a zig permanant marker. As I said, I was a little rusty and unsure, so he looks kind of stiff and rigid. George #2, on the right, is some better, but George #3, on the left, is more fluid and relaxed looking. I was more relaxed by the time I sketched him, and he looks a little more natural.

Anyway, George was fun to sketch, and I hope my little trio made you smile. :)

Ink Experiment Gone Awry...

Leah, who hosts the Creative Every Day challenge, creates wonderful paintings with poured ink shapes. A few months ago I decided to try it. I took a piece of damp 300 lb water color paper and poured and dribbled black and red Sumi ink all over it and left it to dry. It dried into the pale wash in the background. I didn't see any images that I wanted to build on, so I poured more black ink on top and left that to dry. Sumi ink does not dry fast if you apply it very thick. The piece you see above is what I came out with. I still didn't see anything I wanted to build a painting on. So...

after a few days of studying it, I got up the nerve to spray it with water, which dissolved the black Sumi ink, causing it to run and spread all over the paper. I then dropped vermilion and indigo watercolor into the ink and around it, and tilted the paper this way and that to create what you see in piece #2 above. Left it to dry. Still nothing popped out. Hated it...

After a couple of months of trying to figure out how to fix it, I decided that I couldn't make it any worse, so day before yesterday I decided to pour India ink, which is permanant, on it. It was dried up, so I poured some more Sumi ink over it and let it run into shapes. I helped it by tilting the paper and I dried it with a blow dryer. I kind of liked it with this layer on it, but it needed more red, so I poured some red Sumi ink on it. Of course, when the wet red hit the dried black, it re-activated it and they ran together, creating some unusual effects. Still nothing came to me...

Yesterday I gave up on the ink and got out my fluid acrylics. I dribbled blue, red, yellow, green-gold and finally white, tapping the edges of the paper on the table to give them shapes and runs. Before they were quite dry, I sprayed the whole piece with water, stood it on edge, and left it to dry. The water re-activated what ink was still showing, causing it merge with some of the acrylics. I wish all the tiny lines of paint/ink had showed up in the scan. Anyway, what I have now is piece #3. Still not crazy about it, and it certainly looks NOTHING remotely resembling what Leah created, so now what...

EDM Gloves, Doodles, Sketches, & a Blue Hound

I seem to have had a temporary block with being creative for the last few weeks and have fallen out of the habit of drawing every day. At least, I hope it's temporary. I have managed to do a few doodles and sketches despite not being able to really focus on what I was doing.

The Butterfly Effect, above, is sort of a zen doodle with red and black markers that I did while just sort of letting my mind wander. It started with the shape of butterfly wings and went crazy. It reminds me that everything affects everything else in this world, like a ripple, for better or worse.

Just a little still life set up with the porcelin rabbit, doll ballet shoes, and a perfume bottle. I love the shapes of the rabbit and the bottle. You probably noticed that I've sketched them a few times. Ordinarily, I sketch something once and I'm done with it. Once in a while I fall in love with an object and honor it more than once with an attempted sketch or painting.

Blue Hound is a doodle sketch and completed another Moleskine sketchbook for me. For some reason he speaks to me and I like him. :)

EDM Gloves challenge-I got these warm soft gloves for Christmas. They are actually a pearl gray color and have a hat and scarf to match. They are one of the last gifts my sister-in-law gave me. I drew them with pencil, used watercolor pencils, then outlined them and made the spirals with a black sharpie.

The sketch below is also of the same gloves with the hat sketched in pencil. Not the best of sketches, but I thought I'd share them anyway.


Hopefully, I'll be back on a more regular basis soon. Meanwhile I hope at least one of these made you smile. :)

Christmas Moose, Meece, or Mooses....

Thought I'd share some sketches of a Christmas moose that I did a few days ago. I bought him for a gift last year and decided to keep him. He's the only Christmas decoration we had up this year, and he's been standing on the table for over a year. I didn't feel like finding anything to sketch and he was handy, so he was my model for three days. He was a very good model. He didn't moo or move once. :)

This kind of fits in with the Creative Every Day theme for this year, which is Body. He does have an unusual and colorful body. I just love his striped tights! :)


Sketch one is a line drawing with a pencil in the Moleskine. Some of the lines aren't strong enough to show up in the scan. I had so much trouble getting these scanned that I didn't darken the lines digitally, but maybe you can see.

Sketch 2 is a shaded drawing, which I didn't darken either. It is also pencil.

Sketch 3 is a Zig permanant marker. Yep, I'm still having trouble with the feet running off the page! I actually had to shorten his legs to get this much of his feet on. LOL

Now I'm wishing I had done one in color before I posted! He's very cute with his long burgundy & camel colored striped legs! Hope he made you smile! :)

Happy New Year and some Misc. Sketches

I have been MIA for several days, but I hope you all had a great Christmas and I want to wish you all a very happy New Year. I have missed you all.

The past 3 weeks have held good, bad, ugly, blessings, and trauma for us. They have been busy and bittersweet, but God is helping us to go on. On December 16 my husband's only sibling, Kay, who was the same age I am, died suddenly and without warning. We are a very close family and the loss has been almost unbearable. She was also an organ donor, which was not easy for us either. My father-in-law was sick already and the shock of losing his baby girl was almost too much for him. Kay loved Christmas so much, and already had her gifts wrapped and tagged, that her kids and grandkids wanted to go ahead with Christmas, which we did. It was hard. Kay was so full of life and always doing everything for everybody that she will be greatly missed by many people, besides her family. She left a big hole in our lives, but with God's help, we will all carry on. She would have wanted that.

I have tried to continue sketching every day, although there were some days when I just couldn't. I am sharing some of my attempts with you in this post. I scanned them as BW documents, and I don't know whether that was a good idea or not, but the pencil sketches just don't show up enough.

The first one is an attempt at a Zentangle that I call "Hiding in Plain Sight." One has a bluejay feather with a perfume bottle, which I'm sure you recognize if you've seen previous sketches, and a resin pear. One is a wild turkey feather, which is mostly fuzz held by a doll hand that fell off while I was sketching the doll in the doll challenge. Then there is a page of one white porcelin rabbit ornament jumping all over the page. He wouldn't be still. :) The last one is for Kay. It's a stone angel that I kept from her mother's funeral almost six years ago.

I hope I didn't depress anyone. I just felt like sharing today. :) I also got hung up on a Christmas Moose and sketched him 3x. What can I say? He was fun and he took my mind off things for a little while. Look for pictures soon! :)

Happy New Year All! I pray that it's healthy, happy, and creative for all of us.

PS- If the paragraphs don't seperate when I publish this time, I give up, for now. It's getting on my nerves. Will try to fix it later! Sorry!

Holiday Wishes...

I just wanted to thank you all for all of you visits and comments, and to wish you a MERRY CHRISTMAS and HAPPY NEW YEAR. May we all be healthy, happy, and prosperous in the new year.

EDM-Turnips, Key, Pencil, Christmas Ornament, Oh My!

Mama brought us four little turnips and some greens a few days ago to cook, and the turnips were so pretty I had to try a colored sketch. I left the overhead flourescent light on, so there were 2-3 light sources, which was not the best idea, but I tried anyway, It's kind of a study in purples and yellows, which went slightly awry. Those were white paper towels that the turnips were sitting on. The reddish blob under the front turnip is actually a blob of dried acrylic paint left on the masonite board . I didn't notice it until I started drawing, then the quote, "blood from a turnip," crossed my mind and my paper. One of the biggest lessons learned here is that charcoal pencils don't work that well on smooth Moleskine paper, at least not for me. I don't know which EDM challenge this would fit, but I think it must fit one of them. :)

EDM 37-Keys-This is a brass doorbell key. It has four sides and a round tip that fits through the door into a bell on the inside. When a visitor turns the key, the bell rings. It was given to me by my mother-in-law for Christmas years ago, and I've only seen one other one like it. I love it a lot.

EDM-240-A Favorite Pencil-This pencil is one of the handful remaining from two boxes of a gross each that a salesman gave to daddy on his job in the early sixties. He brought them home to me for school, and I still have a few in my hope chest. All of the pencils had a lumber company ad on them. I have been using this particular one for a long time. The green eraser is so old that it's too hard and slick to erase anything, but it looks good. The pencil has been getting tons of use since I started sketching every day, and is getting shorter by the minute. I think of my dad every time I use it. :) Both were sketched with a black sharpie and slightly colored with wc pencils.

EDM 46-Holiday Themed-This quilted ornament was given to me for this Christmas (2009) a few days ago. My aunt hand made them in a cathedral quilt design and gave mama and me one each when we visited her last Friday. It's special, because she made it for me, but it's made even more special because the red center is made from my uncle's bandana. He passed away at the end of January this year, and he is dearly missed. She says they also make good pin cushions, but mine will remain a hanging ornament, whether I put up a tree or not. I have sketched it 2-3 times, and I printed off a Christmas card, which I'm going to send my aunt in a few days. I think she will be surprised. I love it! :) WC pencil in Moleskine WC book.

Hope something on here made you smile! Thanks for looking! :)