More ink sketches to share

Today will be busy, with getting my 13 year old daughter to her quartet practice in the afternoon and the endless household projects to finish up before the start of the school year on Monday. I'm bringing along my knitting so I can keep the fingers busy while they rehearse their quartet music. I've got some baby weight yarn to make 2 small preemie blankets to bring to the Florida Hospital Neonatal unit--the unit where Caitlin stayed in 1991 when she decided to enter this world 2 months earlier than planned. A scary event at the time, but now I'm glad she hurried her entrance, because I got 2 extra months with her. She's the absolute dream child if I ever saw one. I'm a lucky Mom to have this delightful person as a daughter.

I just wanted to post some drawings for today. I really need to go ahead and replace my scanner (the last one finally took its last breath), because it's no fun using the digital camera to try and capture the sketches. Seems like the only thing that makes sense is to purchase one of those all-in-one machines now. It will take up less space on the work desk. Now, which one to buy? They sure make enough of them. :)

Yahoo troubles...

Our handdrawn and paint ATC Yahoo group experienced some major gremlin attack last night, so we had to move over to a new, disease-free playing field. All is well at last. I can see that most of the members have moved to the new group and trading is underway once again. I'm feeling a bit sleepy from getting up at 4:30 to check on members needing approval. I'll be out quickly tonight... zzzzzzzzzzzz.

I'm going to list some pen and ink sketches that I've doodled. Nothing earth shattering, just some simple line work.

Thistle pen and ink. 

The details: I love to embroider... so I did a simple little paint design on her dress and added a stem stitch around the outside. 

The finished little sewn creation. I used up some older quilting fabric and some felt that was hanging around the studio and used my paper patterns (see below) to make her. My daughter (nearing 14 years old) loved her and called her Wabi. Just what I need, another dollie hanging around the house. Ha! 

I loved the idea of simplified shapes as seen in many Japanese doll patterns. I ended up playing around with some paper patterns to see if I could create something from the inspiration I saw all over the internet. I used regular school lined paper, copy paper, and some tracing paper... it was sort of thrown together, but a lot of fun to try.  

The internet never ceases to amaze me. Any given morning I'm usually trying to stay focused in my studio, concentrating on drawing, painting, writing, and trying to be the queen of household management (you know, the grocery lists, the financial budgets, the endless supply of school papers, etc.) But there is always that window of opportunity to get completely immersed in some cyber space black hole where I go chasing a theme that piques my curiosity. So yesterday I ended up cruising some delightful blogs of soft sculptured doll and plush artists. It got me thinking about the dollmaking period I went through in 1999-2001. This led to a tremendous wash of guilt as I realized that a sizeable collection of body parts had been banished to the garage area... unfinished faces, arms, legs and torsos. Well, here is one bag of doll creations just waiting for my renewed interest. Needless to say, I was totally inspired by the work I saw on these new blogs, so I've brought these softies back into the art studio and hope that I will be inspired to give them the finishing touches they need. :)  

The Pits...a watermelon atc done in oil pastels. Okay, I'm a bit fruit-obsessed (see the following fruit art entries). Sorry, I just couldn't bring myself to draw a new fruit for the Everyday Matters challenge, for I've done so many this year, but then again, I may just have to add a new one to my collection. I think it's the juicy color of fruit that gets me itching to play with the paints and crayons. 

Citrus splash... an orange abstract atc. 

vineyard grapes... another atc. :) 

suspended pear... 

More fruit... an atc design. 

my fruit picinic series... atc's. 

Apple Dreams... fruit atc. :) 

Have you ever wanted to gaze into a reflection ball and see where you were headed? Even for just one second? I guess it would take a lot of the fun and anticipation out of the discovery and adventure that God has planned for us. Some days though, I get weak and yearn for just a peek-----but then I remember that although I may feel like a tiny grain of sand--one of many billions and trillions, I am balanced and guided by the strength of His hand. It always amazes me that each day is full of new possibilities. Caitlin and I just love the quote "Live Your Life"... as embraced by the American Eagle clothing chain. So, I'm going to Live My Life... the best I know how! (I challenged myself to draw whatever was in my mind last night, and this is what came out. I drew it in bed with a Pilot V-5 pen and added some water with my Niji brush to get some gray tones). 

When Caitlin was a baby I sold some of my digital illustrations to an educational company here in Florida. I was working in Illustrator at the time--those were my Mac days. I never did pursue much with illustration after that. I ended up selling the watercolors and acrylics, mostly concentrating in florals. I'm currently trying to challenge myself to do more illustration, both abstract/concept type illustrations as well as artwork for the children's markets. I'd like to develop some work to use as a portfolio and see where the journey takes me. I may just take this sketch and try to add some color in Photoshop or some other graphic paint program. It's fun to play. 

One of my latest journal spreads in my composition notebook. 

A colored pencil illustration that I did on 100% cotton paper and black pen. 

a detailed shot of the poppy painting for the nursing home. Nana loved poppies, and every year on Memorial Day I make sure to get a poppy from the American Vets for my car visor. ;) 

Linda had asked to see other photos of the nursing home painting, so here are a couple. Thanks to everyone for their kind words on this project. 

All of us at the nursing home... see post below for the story. ;) 

Here is the painting I created and donated to the Heritage Nursing Home in Dade City, Florida. My Nana spent about two months here before she died in February of this year, so we wanted to thank the nursing staff for all their help and support. My mother and aunt had a nice plaque engraved in memory of Nana and my Dad attached it to the bottom of the frame. 

On Saturday we decided to run up to St. Augustine to see my sister and her family. Apparently the entire county had summer plans, because we called two kennels for a spot for Bentley (our Golden Retriever), but they were all full. My brother-in-law insisted that we bring the dog and keep him in the laundry room (they have cats...eeek). Well, it worked out fairly well. The dog behaved, but I still couldn't fully relax, so I'm hoping next time we can get the dog a spot in the boarding facility. We ended up eating a seafood dinner and then walking around the shops. Jeff and Michael treated us to a ride in the horse and buggy tour. We ended up staying the night and driving back home after breakfast. It was a fun time. The writing doesn't show up very well on this spread, for I used a green metallic gel pen.
 

On Friday evening we were at the Harry Potter festivities, along with all the other fans in the world. We ended up #131, so we were home at a reasonable hour. Caitlin started reading it as soon as she got home. I'm not sure what time she ended up going to bed. I know it was near 2:00 am before I finally felt tired enough to drift off to sleep myself. 

Here is another composition notebook spread... just a daily journal page about general stuff. :) 

I managed to get a couple of spreads finished and photographed today. We spent the weekend waiting for all the rain we were supposed to see from Dennis, but thankfully we didn't experience much of anything. It's not too comforting to see a hurricane this early in the season, but after getting through 3 of them last year, I suppose we'd just go into "hurricane" mode and do what was needed. I've been pricing some graphics software (specifically Painter) and the Wacom graphics tablet. I'd like to spend my free time this fall learning some new skills. There are so many things to try--it always seems like I don't have enough time for all my interests. Surely I'll die before I run out of things to explore in this lifetime. :) Oh, I think my daughter's on her way out to the pool-----so I'm off to join her. It is steaming hot here in Florida today.