My Winnings!

Over on Ewian's blog I signed up for a give away and I won! I am a bit late in saying thankyou Ewian but I do. I picked up the package last week when we went to town. It was fun to open and see everything in person. It came with a nice handmade note card too. I will love using all these items in my various crafting projects. The stamps are so cute and I've really been wanting to try those Neocolor II crayons. Thank you so much Ewian.

Now, if you will all follow that blog link you will see Ewian enjoying her drawing, painting and the EDM group.

Hey everyone! I know a lot of you live in snowy
areas but look what we got here in sunny, northern Arizona! This is the first time in seven years that it snowed all day. We've only had a few other snow days and they ended and melted off by about 10a.m. but not today. It snowed all day and now that it's night time it's turned to rain. Our big dog Sarah had fun running in it during part of the day but doesn't want to go outside now that it's dark and rainy. Look at that palm tree - and I thought I'd even throw in a pic of me out in the snow. We were only in the mid 30's so it was cold but not freezing! Lol, I even got a pun in there.

Well we thoroughly enjoyed watching all that white come down. It is such a rare occasion for us I wanted to share it with all of you.

And the last picture if I can be allowed a super amount of leeway is my bit of art here with the few ornaments I found in the house (without going out to the shed and unearthing the big Christmas box) put on one of the snowy trees for a picture. I might use if for a Christmas card next year. For this year, it's just a bit of Christmas from me to you.

Christmas Cards

I've got my cards done and mailed. I took part in a card exchange this year and sent the original of this colored pencil drawn card to the person I was trading with (it was a group trade but each person was given one person in the group for which to make a card. That way we could go to their blog to see what they might like and make a card accordingly - a neat way to do a trade. No one knew who would be making theirs). I liked the card so much that I decided to make prints of the kitty and glue them onto cards I made with Elements which I am learning how to use.

Originally these were all going to be red cards with green envelopes but I goofed so many times on my layout of the words I ran out of red cardstock. So now I have red cards with green envelopes and green cards with red envelopes and the recipients won't know it was due to mistakes. The envelopes are handmade out of Dick Blick construction paper. It is actually a nice 80 pound weight craft paper and I don't think they call it construction paper anymore. The colors and feel of it are great. I recommend everyone try it for crafting. I think you'll like it.

Hope you are all busy getting ready for your holidays be they Christmas, Hannukah or Kwanzaa. It's good to celebrate something especially when times are not so good.

A New Inchy

This week's theme from Inchy by Inch is Trees. I can do trees. I didn't have a tree stamp and especially not one small enough to do an inchy but I did have a tiny 3-leaf sprig stamp so I stamped it all over the top of my inchy for the tree top. Then I took a fine tip pen and added a few more leaves and a trunk. Colored the whole picture with watercolor pencils and wet it down. I edged the square with a wet watercolor pencil and felt it was done.
Hope you enjoy this little tidbit and wish some more people would join in. You can draw, stamp, paint, quilt, embroider or bead an inchy. They cover all the art stuff you can think of so don't be shy - come on!

I would really like to see some of you drawers and painters do one. I see so much beautiful work out there and wonder how you'd do on a really small scale.

EDM #34 Draw a Leaf

I'm trying real hard to draw every day but find it a goal I am not always attaining. Yesterday Jessica of Cre8it suggested going small. We don't need to paint a big picture to reach the goal of some art everyday. Her example was a leaf.

I've been wanting to draw a leaf and had even brought some in the house but let them sit until they dried out and crumbled on my work table. But since I am working on the goal of drawing every day and being encouraged by Jessica and her sister Cassie I picked up a leaf at the store where we collect our mail. I sat down last night and first did an almost blind contour (I glanced at my paper just a few times). I surprised myself in how closely I matched the leaf's outline but this is a simpler shape than people or buildings or pets so I'll temper my elation at that. Then I picked out some colored pencils and working very lightly, I gradually filled in my leaf. I was really happy with how it turned out and that I spent some time drawing.

The leaf has a bit of extra drawing overlapping the leaf because I am working on a spread that is taking me much more than a week to do but it's coming along nicely and I'll share it when it's done.

The picture of the actual leaf was taken this morning and the lighting is different plus the leaf is now dried out with the shadows and shape changing a bit because of it. It will be a good picture to draw from later and will make a different one than my current drawing.

Many thanks to Cassie, Jessica and Nina (for the weekly spread idea).

My Work Space

I've been hearing a lot of talk about messy studios and the need to clean them up lately. I thought I'd post some pictures of my area messy as it is right now.

I'll get it cleaned up but in general I am happy with my space. It doubles as my bedroom or I'd be able to get more shelving in here for more storage for more art supplies. I guess that's where I am stuck right now - where to put the excess away. As you can see, even the closet is full! I could add another shelf or two to the bead wall and probably will after I make another trip to California and then to IKEA. In the meantime I have to realize more than space, it's me who is
keeping my space unorganized.

If anyone wants to share what their space looks like, messy or not, I'd be happy to drop in and see. Some people pay for magazines that show studio spaces but we see some by blog hopping to others who want post. Leave me a link to your blog if you do post your space.

Tagged!

Lynn of Cordelia's Place has tagged me to share six random things about myself. I've played this one several times on my other blog but not here so I will join in and tell you:

1. I just had my 55th birthday on November 15th. My body feels it a bit, I see it when I look in the mirror (yeah, I need to draw what I see there sometime, I know) but I am doing more art now than ever before so being 55 is a good thing.


2. I don't like getting messy so I am finding I turn to colored pencils and watercolor pencils a lot. I love collage but it's so messy I tend to avoid it.


3. I'd love to learn to do watercolor with the real stuff versus my coloring with pencils. It's such a beautiful medium but I am afraid I won't do it well and that it will get too messy. Hmmm, maybe I have a teeny problem here to work on!


4. I read the blogs trying to keep up with all the interesting ones and those who just want "someone" to drop in. I enjoy this but it does keep me from getting my own artwork done. Being a procrastinator does not help here at all. It's easier to keep surfing than start a picture.


5. The only TV I watch is some news. I'd rather read or do art than watch TV. I only have one because my husband wants it.


6. I have tried lots of crafts and enjoy most such as: knitting, tatting, bobbin lace-making, card crafting, embroidery, crocheting, needlepoint and bookmaking. I've tried most things to come along usually because I need something or want something so I make it whatever it takes. I call myself a "necessary artist" as if I need something I tend to make it versus buy it mostly because at one time, I couldn't afford to do otherwise. Necessity really is the mother of invention!

Now I am to list the rules and pass on the tag to others who might want to play along.

The rules:1. Link to the person or persons who tagged you.
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Write six random things about yourself.
4. Tag six people at the end of your post and link to them.
5. Let each person know they’ve been tagged and leave a comment on their blog.
6. Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

I will tag:

1. Indigo of Desperately Seeking Perspective


2. Lisa of Lisa Reed....How I See It


3. Sema of Motivart


4. David of tactil blog


5. David of DAVID-WASTING-PAPER


6. Stephen of Stephen Hall Art Blog

I included some men in my list as they don't seem to get tagged too often - maybe because these web games might seem silly to me but the ones I tagged seem to have a sense of humor and friendliness so I'm giving it a try.

Red and Black

Maybe it was in the air on the eleventh but I just came over from Margaret Ann's blog where she did a great sketch on the eleventh on a Trader Joe's grocery sack. She made it in red and black.

On the eleventh, I finished a trio of pages in my journal about fairies. It started as a challenge from my granddaughter to "draw a fairy". It ended with this last page when my daughter sent me a photo of the two youngest being fairies for the day (this is breakfast and they wore their wings till bedtime even having to pick the right jammies to fit their fairy "personality"). I used red and black which is a very unusual color combo for me so when I saw Margaret Ann's drawing I thought I'd show my same color - same day drawing.

Creativity

I was over at another blog and saw this video. The video didn't work for me so I will just put the link here. It's funny and informative. I hope you'll check it out especially if you are a teacher. It's not a new one but it was to me so it might be to you also.

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html

Enjoy and learn what you already know!

Cars!

I was just over at Margaret Ann's blog where she sketched out her latest car trouble - an accident.

I just had car trouble too - so you aren't alone in this car troubles time Margaret but I'm glad ours was less dramatic (traumatic?). I didn't sketch our old Ford Escort but after the tow truck came we found only one of us would fit in his truck cab so I got to ride in our car while it was chained on top of the flatbed! What fun - and I have a phobia with moving vehicles which didn't help at all.

So what's a girl to do finding herself in what feels like a precarious situation worrying she'll flip out with her phobia? Draw the situation! At the risk of getting carsick (which is far better than a panic attack) I pulled out my pad and pen and drew this sketch. It's not good I know. How can it be when I was bouncing and shaking so much I could hardly keep the pen to the paper? (Besides my less than stellar drawing skills). Anyhow, this is the view from the driver's seat (yeah, I sat there just in case the car got loose and fell of the truck - well, it helped me feel a tad of control) of my car looking into the cab of the tow truck. It helped. I made it home with having a panic attack and only started getting car sick as we hit the dirt road leading to home.

I wish my husband would get rid of this 15 year old car but he likes it for the dirt roads to save our new one for trips to California. (Now, if John McCain would have brought some of the pork home to Arizona, maybe we wouldn't have so many lousy dirt roads! Other states were getting extra money for roads while he so righteously refused it for us but that's a whole different topic).

Hope you get your car fixed again real soon Margaret Ann.

Weekly Journal Spread

I was able to work my way through a second week of Nina's idea of doing one spread gradually throughout the week. This works well for me as I am a veeerrry slow worker and can't get a whole drawing done at once usually. This spread really took a lot of my time this week but I love how it turned out. I made one super error in it but don't think it will show much on a casual perusal. Any artist worth their salt would eventually see it after studying it but I think I'll leave it at that. If you are a person who loves puzzles you'll enjoy my little unofficial challenge.

My aim this week was to try out Andrea's medium of just plain, cheap blue ink from any standard ink pen that people use all the time in their ordinary writing. I started with the pencil and although it didn't come out as nice as her work, I still liked it well enough to continue on to the ink bottle. This led me to the idea of making a page around the idea of writing a letter so I added the paper. (Because I am not typically a single color person but one who wants to see all colors at once, I made the paper in the complementary color and then heaved a sigh of relief!) Well, you can't use ink with a pencil so I had to add a pen and I admit to cheating a bit here-- the pen fit perfectly into my scheme so I traced it rather than drew it. I know, I'm trying to learn to draw but it was just too perfect to pass up. Blue Ink came next and then I was stumped. Folk art being one of my loves, I decided to add some to the big empty corner. I got the values off some from what I wanted but its okay; I figure I gained a little more experience.

At this point I figured I was done with the major parts of the page but wasn't satisfied and then I did something I almost never do -- I started to play! I added the figures sitting on the pencil and the spider and that led to the other figures. These represent my grandkids and they will love seeing themselves on the page. Then I added my little muse Beady Guy who is telling all of you to give this technique a try whether it's using the blue ink or building a page one piece at a time. Come on and have some fun!

I apologize for the long run-on paragraph. Blogger isn't accepting my double enters for space between paragraphs so I am resorting to different colors. Hopefull that makes it easy enough for you to read.

Nina's Challenge

Nina Johansson decided to fill a two page spread of her journal with drawings she does daily for each week. She asked if anyone wanted to join her in doing this. I thought it might be a good way to get myself to do a bit more drawing. As you can see I did a "bit" more but didn't quite get an object drawn each day. Still, I did better than I have been doing.

The word "pear" and the flowers were done in ink and watercolor pencils while the other pictures were drawn in pencil and then colored in with Prismacolor pencils. I used fluorescent colors for my canary as he really is that color but the colors didn't come out at all with a scan and even with this photo look washed out.

These are probably the most realistic drawings I have ever done. It was challenging to say the least and I am not sure I will do the same kind of colorwork every week but we'll see how it all goes. Maybe I'll even learn to do better on my layout so my kitty won't get speared through her head with a branch again!!

Thank you Nina for a great idea.

EDM #192

When I saw the challenge for this week I just had to hurry up and do this picture. My brother could not float for anything but my little sister could not sink. Her rear end would always keep her afloat as if it were a bobber!

This is my version (I am seriously an amateur but couldn't let that stop me) of "something that floats". This is our old family pool where we spent our summers - only one travelling vacation in all my years at home. This challenge was a good trip down memory lane. I hope to learn to draw better but I think the idea gets across.

I used pencil to sketch this in, then inked what I needed to and finally used watercolor pencils and a waterbrush to paint it.

Hope you enjoyed the fun of this as I did. I am not trying to make fun of my sister; what is - is.

Inchy for the Week

The theme for this week's inchy is rain or water. I chose to use dewdrops on a flower. The flower is drawn with Prismacolor pencils on a dark gray/blue background. If you'd like to try one just use a 1 inch format and in any medium depict something about water or rain. Then post a link at the Inchybyinch blog so everyone can see what you've done. It's easy, fits every style of art and it's fun. C'mon and try one!

An Autumn Inchy

I have left this blog with just EDM challenges so far but I am pretty happy with my newest inchy. I am part of a group who makes one most weeks from the Inchybyinch blog.

This week's inchy's theme was autumn. I figure I wait all year for this season to come so I can have my candycorn. That makes it the perfect subject for me then to try to convey on that 1 inch square. I used prismacolor pencils on Strathmore art paper. I probably goofed up on the shadows but overall, I am happy with this tiny piece. Have you got candycorn??

EDM#52 - Draw a Dog

I've drawn my cat and I've drawn one of my dogs. Sarah is a german shorthair pointer. A beautiful, very fit dog as she runs around on 40 acres chasing rabbits and lizards. We live in the desert so sometimes she gets into a bit of cactus. She has made some trails around the property so she gets less than at first but cactus nor a 4 1/2 foot fence stops her from going after the animals. She even went after a coyote once which scared me as coyotes are not out there to play with but it ran away from her so I breathe a bit easier now.

I sketched Sarah while she lay sleeping on the living room floor while we were watching the Sunday news shows. She's a wonderful dog but a little too energetic and strong for us. Thank goodness she is a timid dog.

EDM #185

I wasn't going to go out of order but I guess if I'm going to just enjoy myself it's going to happen. Pandora was just sitting there when I decided once again I just needed to draw something. I still need to figure out getting the whole of what I am drawing on the page. It's okay to run off the edge if you mean to but I didn't and usually don't. It just happens and that's something I need to learn to control.

After I drew her I checked the EDM messages and found out it was a current challenge. Hey, I'm up that! It may not be the best drawing in the world but it is my Pandora and I'm pretty happy with her.

EDM #158

I didn't originally do this popcorn as an EDM challenge but just to make myself draw something before I went to bed that night. I get tired of not finding time to draw. I drew it with a regular pencil and went to bed. (It seems silly but I was too tired to even draw the third piece of popcorn I'd tossed on my table). In the morning I decided to add some color so I just went over the pencil with yellow and blue colored pencils.

I wasn't going to go out of order on the challenges but in this case and perhaps in a few others I will. No sense in being hog tied to a non-rule!

EDM Challenge #5

No fancy headboard. No fancy spread or sheets. I have a pretty basic bed - can't have my art supplies and fancy furniture so now you know which I chose!

Challenge number five is to draw your bed. I started out with a partial pencil sketch and then switched to watercolor pencil. My idea was to then move on to some ink and wetting the watercolor. I could still do that - what do you think?

One of my dogs jumped up with her toy and changed the whole bed too much for me to finish but I think it's okay this way - except, do I add the pen and water?

An Award!

I don't know as I deserve this award but I will try to earn it! This was given to me today by Starr. Do stop by her blog as she is doing some very nice work. You'll enjoy your visit.

The rules of acceptance are:

1. Put the logo on your blog.
2. Add a link to the person who awarded you.
3. Nominate 7 other blogs.
4. Add links to those blogs on yours.
5. Leave a message for your nominees on their blogs.


My Nominees!!

Fannie of Artistic Expressions.

Viane of Baby Steps to Creativity.

Carolyn of Infinite Visions.

Mia of Mia's Sketchbook.

Purple Paint of Pencil-Paper-Paint.

Barbara of One Happy Fool.

Sue of From the Magpie's Nest.

Starr says "I know it seems like a lot of work and participation is optional. But I think it's a great way to network for creative inspiration." I agree. Hope you will join in.

Challenges #3 and #4

I have done my next two challenges trying to keep them from being overworked.

My purse is really a black one. I haven't figured out how to make it look like that in a sketch and I'm not sure that it really matters. If I wanted, I guess I could make a note of the colors on my page in case I ever wanted to do a color work of it but in this case I think it was more important to make note of the day on which it was drawn.

Happy 4th of July to all you Americans out there.

The next challenge was my parent's Corelleware coffee cup of which I have the last two. I drink my coffee from one of them every day (I have a small touch of sentimentality in me).

After asking for and getting all your opinions as to whether I should use both sides of my pages for my sketches, I went for it and am using both sides. So far I haven't run into a problem but will watch if I use watercolor or different ink pens.

Challenge #2

I have completed challenge #2: draw a lamp. This time I sketched it in pencil first (and a good thing as I had to change me sizing several times), then inked it. Finally, I colored it in with watercolor pencils and went over the color with a water brush.

I painted this cheap $5 lamp to go with the chairs and table I painted for my studio area. I surprised myself with doing this lamp plus adding my stuffed poodle from my grandchildren and part of my craft supply table.

I didn't do realistic shading but I still like the effect. I actually enjoyed drawing this. I figured if I messed it up totally I could always redo it. That took a lot of worry off the project.

I am sorry. I couldn't get blogger to put spaces between paragraphs. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. I haven't figured our why.

First Post

This is my first post on this blog. I am trying to set up a blog here where I can share drawings and perhaps later, some paintings. It is going to be my "fine arts" blog. I have another one at Freebirdsings.blogspot.com which I use for my beadwork, paperarts, a few personal posts and other fun stuff. I hope you enjoy my journey into drawing and will leave me a comment sometimes. I'll be fixing this blog up a bit but I wanted to jump in and post my first challenge drawing from Every Day Matters , a yahoo group for people who like to draw.

The first challenge was to draw a shoe and this is the one I did. It is in a new sketchbook which will be used only for the challenges. There are currently 177 of them so I have a ways to go to catch up. By then I am hoping to be drawing much more confidently and better!