Mixing It Up

I was over at Jennifer Edward's blog Drawn2Lifewhere she has started some mini lessons on drawing. Not the technicalities of line but on why or how to do it really. For the first lesson she asked us to draw up a chair and ... well, go to her blog and read it yourself. I can't see repeating it and you should get it straight from her rather than letting me paraphrase and mess up the message. Anyhow, the end result was a challenge to draw some chairs we use. So I drew three of the chairs I use a lot in my home. I just didn't have room for my dining table chair and now that I think of it, the stool I use when doing crosswords with my husband. I have more chairs in my home but these are the ones that don't sit and collect dust! Why don't you draw your chairs but first read what she has to say here. I used a page with a background treatment I really didn't like. I don't like to tear these out of my journal so I wait and hope something will come up to use it with. For the chairs it seemed to work okay. Drawn in pencil first, I moved on to a fine pen as I didn't think just watercolor would be enough on this background. Then I added the watercolor. I thought about doing colored pencil or gouache but I really love watercolor so used it. This was fun and just what I needed! Oh, the top of the picture got a tad cut off in the scanning. The top of the rocker is actually in my picture.

Getting Unstuck

Sorry I've seemed to disappear from blogland!  I got a bit down and wasn't doing much blog checking, art or anything at all really.  Oh, I wasted a lot of time playing silly internet games where you really don't win but you can keep playing without thinking much and figure it is passing for living but finally you realize with the help of some friends that you really aren't living at all and it's time to wake up and smell the coffee! 

So here is what I have done since my last post.  Yes, it was a while ago and this is a pretty poor showing of items.  I haven't even finished the Christmas page yet!  I used real Christmas scraps for the background and added the annual family pic in front of the Christmas tree but have not added any titles, lists or commentary.  Hopefully I'll feel like adding some soon.

A couple of weeks ago I got tired of chewing on my nails till they hurt so I went out and bought some new, fun polishes.  First I wore the green and now I am wearing the pink.  It really helps to keep me from chewing as the polish smooths the rough edges and feels silky and I don't want to chew the polish!  I did have fun making the page and started to feel the funk I was in lessen a bit.

Now, the next two pics are the making of my husband's birthday card.  I don't usually like the cards for sale and time is running out so I finally grabbed my paints and brushes and got busy.  He loves pie over cake any day so he will be getting a cherry pie on his birthday and I figured why not put one on his card too?  So I did.  Boy was I rusty.  I have blooms starting up because I didn't wait long enough for the "pie tin" to dry before doing the shadow and I had to hurry and blot the "cherries" as they were bleeding out into the crust.  I set it aside to dry and went over it all again with the final result in the last picture here.  Art requires constant practice if you want to keep your skills up, that's for sure!

Speaking of skills and practice, Laure Ferlita of Imaginary Trips fame is starting up this years schedule of classes with a visit to the beach.  It starts soon so if you want to join in hurry and sign up!

Yuck!

Okay, I've been told not to say bad things about my work at least not unless I am willing to say something good. I am trying a new way of working with colored pencils where you layer colors and then rub pretty hard with another pencil to even out all the colors. I didn't use the best paper for this. I used drawing paper and so I will try again on bristol or in my Moleskine (cream paper version). I was feeling like pink and red when I drew my 11th self portrait so I rather overdid them. And then I ended up plastering my hair to my head as if I'd been out in a driving rain! My granddaughter on the left in their picture actually looks somewhat like her but the one on the right does not. I have lots of practice ahead of me.

I almost didn't even post these. I waited several days but then gave in to my principle of showing you all my projects even if they aren't ones that make me happy. I said I would share my 30 portraits so I will! Let's hope the next one is better. Two steps forward, one step back. That's me. I guess that leaves me firmly in the human race - no demigod business for me!

Imaginary Trip to Italy

I have taken another Imaginary Trip with Laure Ferlita. We had a blast touring Italy. You could have fun too, taking these trips. I always learn something new. Sometimes I learn new things about the places we are "visiting" and I always learn more about painting with watercolor. There is an autumn trip coming up soon. Why don't you join me?

Sambo and another Portrait

Still keeping busy with artstuff. I had put the background to Sambo in ahead of time. It's acrylic so watercolor wouldn't work well and I didn't feel like using gouache or collage so I used the Tombow pen to draw my little black poodle-chihuahua mix. I like how he turned out. I guess I could have drawn him larger but it's okay this way. At least I got him down before he moved! Getting faster with my sketching and that's a good thing when you try to get an animal down without using a photo.

The other is portrait number 9. I'm really slow at doing these. The challenge was to do one every day during the month of August but I've changed it to doing 30 no matter how long it takes! I'm pretty happy with this one although once again, it doesn't look like me or the other portraits! My eyes are too big but at least I got the head shape better. And the nose is better too! Wish it looked like me though!

Everyone ready for fall to come? I've had enough of this summer between snakes and the heat. I think everyone has had lots of heat this year and many of you got Irened too. I hope all of you did okay through her rage up the East Coast.

Mojave Green and Some More Self-Portraits

Oh, we had some excitement around our house this morning. Not good excitement either. I looked out about 15 minutes after I'd let two of our remaining dogs outside and this is what I saw. At first I couldn't believe I was seeing what I was so I called my husband over and he confirmed it. Another snake! This is a Mojave Green rattler which has two kinds of toxins, one for the muscles and one for the nervous system so the vaccines and antivenoms don't work well if a dog gets bit. Very, very dangerous. This one had 7 rattle buds so it was quite mature. At least we got this one before it got another of our dogs!

The other pictures are part of my ongoing self-portrait series with Violette
. I am not happy with my monkey face at all. My face needed to be out as far as the hair edges and then hair added beyond that. It would have made a lot of difference. Also, I think I have to watch the angle at which I hold a handheld mirror as it changed perspective on me and not for the better! Ah well, it's a learning process.

The second, blue and orange picture was done in ball point pen with watercolor added. I was trying to stay cool yesterday which I can as long as I stay indoors with the air-conditioning but it was 108 degrees outside. The official temp is never as high as we seem to get but we have three thermometers outside that all say the same thing. They are two different brands and in three areas of the yard so can they all be wrong? I think not. These were portraits nos. 7 and 8. I am quite a bit behind but that's okay with me. It's the journey, not the speed that counts here.

Hope you have happy events in your day!

Portrait Number 4 and a Journal Page

Portrait number four was done without looking at a reference. I just felt bad and drew that. I think it comes across! Hope you all felt better today than I did.

The birdbath is my sister's. She's moving to Japan to live with her son since she just can't make it in California on Social Security and a part-time job. She's only taking small items with her and although she loved this birdbath, it's too heavy to ship so I drew it. I wish I'd left the writing off so I could make a print for her. When I get refreshed on PSElements I might erase the lettering and print it out.

More Self-Portraits

I've been visiting my sister who is leaving to live in Japan and went to my son's pot party (we all took clay pots to welcome him into his new home) so I got a bit behind but I'll keep working at these. Here are nos. 2 and 3 with neither being good and both worse than day 1. I guess you could call me a glutton for punishment but I really am hoping to learn something from doing these.

Now off to catch up a bit with my newest Imaginary Trip with Laure Ferlita which is a trip to Italy! Ciao!

30 Self Portraits

Violette
is having a challenge over on her blog for 30 days of self-portraits. She's asking us to let everyone know in case they'd like to practice drawing, drawing faces or whatever. So now you know why I did the picture here. I haven't done many faces so I figure 30 of them will help my drawing them. We'll see won't we? Want to join me? They don't have to be lengthy sessions or realistically done. Want to scratch one out with a pencil in 5 minutes or paint one or do a cartoon? It's all okay. So come on! Join in with me.

All Done!

Here it is in all the glory it's going to get! This is my pear. Thanks so much Ann for the tutorial and thanks to everyone who has been keeping an eye on the project.

I left the border and the extra bit of paper on the bottom because I am wondering if I want to add "Pear" in calligraphy (Ann, was this a Bartlet?) or maybe something more in that space. I also am wondering about a background. What would any of you do? Leave it white, add some colored pencil - and what color would you use? I'm rather stumped at this point so thinking it'll probably remain white. All opinions welcome!

So once again, check out Blue Bird Hill as she can inspire you too!

More Pear

Second stage of my pear! So far so good but I'm worrying I've added too much color now for the next stage. I might have filled the tooth of the paper. We'll see. Stay tuned!

As always, check out Ann's Bluebird Hill blog for the tutorial and some wonderful art!

Working on My Pear

This is my pear with the first layer of light yellow all over except in the highlights and then the second layer of adding some other yellows and green. On to some more colors. Actually I had to go over this a few times as it was too light to see when I turned off the Ott light!

Remember this is being done with the tutorial found at Bluebird Hill blog. If you want to try it, just hop over and check out all the lessons. There is even a downloadable PDF.

Fun in the Garden

I had another fun trip with Laure Ferlita. This is another of the stay-at-home variety. It was called An Imaginary Trip to the Garden
and we all had a delightful time sharing critters and flowers and such. These are the pictures I painted. Laure gives lots of leeway for you to personalize your "trip". Why don't you try a trip of your own?

Color Pencil Drawing

Hi everyone.  Ann Nemcosky of Blue Bird Hill blog is offering a tutorial on colored pencil drawing.  I've told her I want to follow along.  She's asked to see where we'll be posting our work as we go along so I am going to post the steps as I do them here.  The picture she's chosen and already prepared for us is this pear. 

Do you want to try out some colored pencil drawing.  Grab your pencils and join in.  Go to her blog I've linked for you above and let her know.  Ready?  Let's go!

Happy Mother's Day - Mitzi's view

Happy Mother's Day to all you mothers out there!  Hope you have a wonderful day. 

We celebrated yesterday as everyone but my mistress are going to Disneyland today.  Mistress says that's fine with her as she'd rather spend the day with just us dogs for a change.  No people unless she decides to go out somewhere to eat. 

The girls picked such lovely flowers it was a shame not to try drawing them.  The scanner lightened the picture quite a bit but we can only do a basic scan with no adjustments since it's not our scanner (don't have the software to do all the adjusting).  The vase was on a brownish table so I painted what I was seeing and should have painted that part to how I was going to have the background on my paper which is good to learn if I want to make pictures that aren't journal entries.  No pencil was used here; it was straight penwork and then painting. 

We are having a good visit even if it was due to Skoshi (one of Mistress' other dogs, a shih-tzu) having a stomach blockage from swallowing a rawhide chip.  She was rehydrated, given barium and lots of xrays but not the surgery we thought she might have to have.  We are all relieved but now we don't get to chew on the rawhide strips anymore.  I hope Mistress finds something else yummy for us to chew on. 

Note by Timaree:  I know Roz's International Fake Journal Month is over but Mitzi hasn't filled her small journal so we will continue till it is filled.  Besides, it's fun!

Easter

Boy, have we been busy!  Easter came and went and it was great except for Tena's migraine.  I wonder why dogs don't get them although I am very glad we don't because it looked like she was really hurting.  Anyhow, I took a spare moment when everyone was still asleep to draw some eggs and a chocolate bunny on the kids' whiteboard which is sitting in the kitchen.  It's rather hard to draw well with markers that erase so easily but I gave it a shot.  Good thing too as that's all I had to show for Easter.  I took a photo of it knowing I'd want something for my journal.  After putting it in PSElements where I added the Happy Easter bubble I printed it out and layered it over a photo print of Mistress's easter candy.  Now I have a memory in my journal.  I wish I could have a memory of one of the eggs the kids dropped as they dyed the eggs but they grabbed it up so quick I couldn't get to it.  If I'd been one of the smaller dogs I'd have been able to I'm sure.

I hope you all had a great Easter.  I'll bet no one thought you were dyed special for Easter as someone thought I was when we went for a walk on Easter Day.  Hmmph, like I'd go through this coloring business just for one day!

Taking a Break

Hi once again everyone. I'm sorry about the skewed picture. I had to ask Mistress to take a photo as we are at her sister's house in Fallbrook now and we can't get hooked up to her scanner right now.

We've been so busy it's taken a few days to get this done and posted. We went to see a cheapo property for sale with a small mobile home on it in Hemet. The realtor didn't show up the first day and it's an hour's drive so Mistress was a bit upset but she got to talk about it with her sisters and we got to see two dogs who live at the home next door. They were pretty large dogs but I am bigger and a bit more refined (at least I hope). They seemed friendly enough and after saying hello a few times, they settled down. They were behind a fence so we couldn't properly get to know each other. (Mistress deemed the property unfixable which is sort of what she expected as it was only $36,000.00 in California. Yes, that's really unreal isn't it?

Anyhow, back to the subject here. We went out to sit on the patio here at Cherrie's and it feels like a nice room. It's really pleasant except that two of the chairs just aren't my style. Mistress finds them comfortable enough and was kind enough to leave the 3 seater swing for me. I didn't swing but it felt so good to be able to stretch out for a bit. It's lovely here in Fallbrook. It's still a bit cool except midday but it's so green! I love it.

Hope you all have a great day. I'm going back outside to sniff the pretty flowers and maybe, just maybe, the neighbors cat will try to go through the yard while I am out there. Oh, won't he get a surprise?

This is Food?

Mistress and I drove from Simi Valley to Oceanside, California and saw some very pretty bits (tiny bits) of ocean and pretty hillsides which I need to figure out how to paint but right now, it was what was in front of me (or not) that I want to concentrate on. James is a vegan. I am a poodle and never the twain shall meet so to say! His table had a nice pretty bowl on it and the colors were wonderful but let's face it, a poodle does not want an orange or a Minneola (such fancy terms these humans have for something not really edible as far as I am concerned). He won't even allow meat in the house like pepperoni on a pizza - boy, isn't that sounding good to me now! So anyhow, I drew what was available wishing it were something else but life is what it is and I'm grateful for the fenced yard with grass in it and that he lets me up on the couch. The sun was shining too so overall it was great but, oh well, I'll be home soon enough where I'll get eggs and bacon, cheese and hamburger, pork chops and steak.... excuse the drool okay?

Out Walking

Ah, today was a gloriously sunny, warm day. Just a tad of breeze, enough to carry so many wonderful scents (and a few less wonderful) to my nose. Mistress took me for a nice long walk. She tired out long before I was ready to quit but I have to cut her some slack as she only has two legs to my four!

We walked to a park where just a couple of kids were playing and through a housing area where we saw rabbits. No, I did not chase them. I am more dignified than that - at least while in the city! We saw a lady walking towards us and Mistress got excited. She said it was someone whose blog she reads and from whom she'd love to take a class on making books. Her name is Roz Stendahl I found out. She seems to like dogs well enough but I'm not sure she liked my pink hair coloring. (I'm not always sure I do either as I don't see any others this color although Mistress says there are a few). It was wonderful and when we got home we sat out back and I watched Mistress try to take photos (first she had to find some new batteries and then play with the focus thing a lot). Anyhow, I thought I would paint the lady we met in my journal since Mistress seemed to think it was a big deal. Hope you all have as wonderful a day as I did.

Having Fun - Mitzi

Hi everyone. Mitzi here. We are having a good time so far. As I mentioned before, the weeds surprised me. We get them in Arizona in the spring but never so big and tall! Tena has been weeding pathways through them for her kids but we dogs sure appreciate it too since we have to make several trips out there everyday. I drew a few of the weeds that are growing but I don't really know what the names are for them. One is just some kind of grass. I know because that's what it tasted like when I tried it.

A German Chocolate cake was waiting for Mistress when we arrived. I got a chewy bone of some sort. I get lots of doggy treats here but not as much of table food as I get at home. Change is good I keep telling myself.

Everyone has gone off to Disneyland now so Mistress and I are taking good care of my new friends Buddy and Lolli, the rabbits (they are fun to watch and so much fatter than the bunnies running around my yard at home), the cats and the birds. This house holds more animals than at home. It even has 4 children but like I said, they've gone to Disneyland. I'm trying hard to do a good job. I bark if anyone comes to the door. You never know who could be there so I want to make sure Mistress is warned. She'd rather I barked just once but I like to give a bit of warning so she just has to get over that nonsense and let me protect her the best I can.

I wonder what else we'll be doing while we are here. I hear she'll take me for a walk to see more than just this neighborhood. Stay tuned.