Wow... a month since I last posted

Boy, I really got behind in September. I had a couple of encampments and then was out of town. When I got back, I got one of the many creeping crud things that's going around. I finally have the energy to get back to some sketching.

Here are 3 EDM sketches.....

#243 is a picture of a pillow (or 2).

#244 is the oldest thing in my refrigerator. I'm not even sure where this jar of chutney came from probably my daughter since it is mango). Who knows how long it's been in there!

Finally, #245 is something "October". Hopefully you recognize a piece of pumpkin pie. My husband's birthday was yesterday and after two attempts, I finally got his birthday pie made. Did you know that a pumpkin pie won't thicken if you forget the eggs? 25 years I've been making them for him... wouldn't you think I would know that by now?

Now it's time to get serious about my other art work. Not only am I doing a showing at the local library in the month of May, but a nearby town's library also contacted me about showing there in July. Definitely time to focus!

EDM 240 Draw a Pencil

I didn't draw a whole pencil... just the tip of my new drawing pencil.... which I drew with my old one, of course.

This drawing and five birthday cards are the most creative I have been in a couple of weeks. I have been trying to get the house cleaned up... especially my craft room and studio (aka the back room). I am one of those people that just can not work in a messy environment. When my daughter and her husband moved out of the basement in May, the basement kind of exploded. Junk everywhere. I finally got her over here to finish cleaning up her stuff only to discover that there was a lot more of it that was mine than hers. Mostly supplies from all those scout encampments I've been teaching at. At least I don't have to supply materials for the encampments this weekend and the following. This weekend is reverse tie dyeing (bleach on color) and the following is regular tie dyeing. Maybe things will stay a little cleaner for a while....

So now that things are cleaned up, what excuse do I have for not getting some artwork done?

Finally... Another Post

I have fallen a little behind on everything. The weekend after the scout conference, I went to northern Wisconsin to my Dad's cabin. The annual scholarship golf tournament in my cousin's name was being held. Normally it was in September on one of my encampment weekends. I had to take advantage of the fact that they moved it up and go up to help out. Unfortunately, by the time the weekend was done, I had a major attack of my allergies and was approaching a sinus infection. As a result... nothing has gotten done around my house. 

Thank goodness for the upcoming long weekend. Now that I am feeling better, I am hoping that I can get the house cleaned up a little and then get back downstairs to my artwork.

As a start, these are the last two drawing posts for Every Matters. #237 is the view under my bed and #238 is something from a first aid kit.

Scout Camp

I survived another weekend at Girl Scout camp. As I said previously, this was a leader enrichment weekend. Since I am volunteer, but no longer a leader I took a couple of classes and taught a couple. Friday afternoon I started a wrapper bag. It's basically made like the gum wrapper chains I made back in junior high and high school, but using strips from potato chip bags and such instead. This is a picture of the sample because I have a long way to go on mine!

Saturday morning I taught a class for Daisy and Brownie leaders who needed some basic craft ideas. We made a frog puppet out of folded paper, a bat out of pine cones, a lightening bug out a of used water bottle and a glow-in-the-dark bracelet, tie dyed coffee filters, printed with bubbles, made daisies out of hand prints and paper plates, and made several different bracelets (pony beads, paper beads,and plastic tube beads). That was all in an hour and a half.

In the afternoon I took a one-stroke painting class. It's not my style. I'm not a real girly-girl. I prefer more abstract and bright colors, but I wanted to see what it was all about. I had a tray that was on it's way to Goodwill that I decided to paint. Turned out ok, but again, not my style...

Saturday night was an early evening... a short concert by a local singer, Ann Reed and then off to the tent in the pouring rain. I may have been wet when I got to the tent, but despite torrential downpours off and on all night, the tent stayed dry.

Sunday morning I taught a simple bookmaking class. Unfortunately, the books were simple, but trying to keep 10 people on track, I was too busy to take pictures. When I clean out my supplies and find the samples I will post so me pictures of them. Most of them were actually variations of the ones found at www.makingbooks.com.

Now I can finally get back to stuff for my show in May.... and my drawings for Everyday Matter.

EDM 236 The Palm of my Left Hand

Drawing hands has never been my strong suit, but I told myself I was going to try to stick to getting at least the current week's drawing done and then if I have time, do one of the past ones. We'll see how this works. I didn't take as much time on it as I could have as I have been getting ready to go to Girls Scout camp tomorrow. 

250 adults gathering for an enrichment weekend. Fun classes, training, and relaxation time with lots of great women who spend a lot of time help girls become strong women. I get to take a class making a bag out of old chip bags and another one is a painting class. I'm leading a class on simple craft ideas for younger scouts and a simple bookmaking class. I'm going to try and take pictures of the different projects I'm teaching during class and then post them. The bookmaking is using a lot of the patterns on this blog http://www.makingbooks.com. She has some great ideas.

Keep your fingers crossed for great weather!

EDM 235 Flutterby

When I told my husband the theme of the drawing for this week, he said he wished I had said something BEFORE he washed his truck. Evidently he had a fairly intact butterfly smushed on his windshield. I guess I really wasn't in the mood to sit on the hood of his truck or inside the cab to draw anyway.

I really struggled with this drawing. I tried a Monarch (Minnesota's state butterfly) in two different wing positions. Both of those attempts are in the recycling bin. The wing markings were much too intense for me. I also had trouble with the idea of doing one in black and white... except for some very gorgeous black and white ones that I did find on the internet. I liked the blue on this one (I think it's actually called a Karner Blue

Butterfly that used to be common in Ohio). I have some new colored pencils that I thought I would try for this one. I used a Micron pen for the initial drawing and then did the colored pencil. 

It actually looks a little better on the screen than it does in my sketchbook. 

EDM #234 - Something that Belongs to Someone Else

I looked and looked.... trying to figure out what to draw that was someone else's. There it was right in front of my nose - or rather my chair in the TV room. This is one of my husband's leather slippers.

This was done with pencil. I want to get comfortable with drawing again before I try charcoal or ink.

Again, still working on proportion, but still not unhappy with the results.