Merry Menagerie One

As we all gator around the Christmas tree this year, let's remember our friends on the Gulf Coast who are still struggling to rebuild from the storms they suffered this last hurricane season.

And if you've ever wondered what a southern-Louisiana cajun style Christmas parade is all about, be sure to go see Annie's pics and great commentary from her hometown parade this year. It's sure to make you smile!

Merry Christmas to Ms. Annie Oddflower and all her buds in Louisiana -- this one's for you guys!

Done Shopping

I decided that during the month of December, at least until Christmas, that is, all my blog posts would have a holiday theme of some type or another.

In the spirit of the season, therefore, here is a litle ditty just for you, dear readers.

(to the tune of Jingle Bells)

A day or two ago,
This idea sounded fun,
I'd leave work at noon,
And get my shopping done. (all done!)

I'd be home by dinnertime
To eat, then wrap them all,
But now it's nearly nine p.m.
And I'm still at the mall.

Oh! Jingle hell! Jingle hell!
Shopping all night long!
It's no fun to be someone
In this obnoxious throng!

Jingle hell! Jingle hell!
Who knew it'd be this hard?
That's it! I quit! The rest will get
A Target gift card!

So there. Now, let's all go eat some chocolate.

You Better Watch Out

...You better not cry,
You better not pout,
I'm tellin' you why,
Santa Claus is comin' to town!

This is for a friend of mine who (in a moment of desperation) told her rather energetic son that certain Santa figures have radio transmitters in them which send a signal to the North Pole letting Santa know if he's been bad or good.
Now the kid apologizes to the decorations on a regular basis.

Yep, you'd better watch out folks! There are Santa Cams EVERYWHERE!

China - EDMWC

See -- I was good and went and did the EDM challenge. And see -- this is why I don't do still lifes! Cups and such are all so symmetrical; flowers and sticks are leaves aren't, so you can't tell if its the drawing or the subject that's lopsided. We can just pretend that this drawing is perfect and the cup ITSELF is wonky...

Stuff

Julie asked about my new dagger brush. Here is a picture of it -- it is a nice flat brush that is shaped like a dagger rather than squared off. Loaded with pigment, you can use the tip to do long thin lines; adding a bit of pressure, the line widens, and turning to the side you can get the wide stroke of a typical flat brush. The past couple of weeks I've done a couple of sketches with bare tree branches using it, and the little bit of line variety is much more interesting than with a liner or other small brush.

And here is a picture of my favorite pen. I use these to sketch and to write with -- they don't run when wet so they're good for checks and other "important" documents. Do you see the note that goes with the pen? I got into the watercolor class that I've been on the waiting list for!!!! Woo hoo!!! It starts the first weekend of January, and I'm totally jazzed!

At the art supply store today, picking up some extra supplies needed for the aforementioned watercolor class (did I mention that I got in???!!!) I saw a pad of Sennellier pastel card, and had to pick it up, too. (Hey, December IS the month for shopping, isn't it?) Anyway, this paper looks like it is going to be great for pastel, which I'm going to play with this afternoon. Gotta get caught up on those Everyday Matters challenges ...

That Old House

The Everyday Matters challenge this week was to draw a local landmark. This old house on Middlebrook Pike probably isn't a landmark to many people, but I drive past it every day on the way home from work. My guess is that it was built sometime shortly after the Civil War, and the road has crept up to its front door as the years have gone by. In the evenings, the sun sets through the trees in the back, and the house is just a burned out blur -- I especially love it in the autumn. There are other landmarks that I have in mind to draw, but this one came first!

By the way -- The other day I picked up a dagger brush that turned out to be great for tree branches and foliage. It may be my new favorite!

EDMWC - Folds

Graphite drawing of a dinner napkin for the Everyday Matters Weekly Challenge. It is so relaxing to work in pencil; studying watercolor has become a lot of work...

The Day After Halloween

And what are we supposed to do with all this leftover candy???

Palette

I finally found a watercolor teacher that I want to study with. Sadly, her classes are full, so I'm on a waiting list. She gave me her list of materials, including her recommended palette, and I've been trying to work with it, along with my additions of WN cadmium orange and MaimeriBlu sap green. However, the other day when I was talking with her on the phone, she was adamant that sap green should NEVER be used, as it is a fugitive color. If this is true, my sketchbooks will be faded messes in just a few years. I just can't figure out how to mix good greens without it, though!

Other things going on --
-- Still re-doing part of the living room to make a painting corner, rather than sitting at the breakfast nook table. I LIKE the breakfast nook best, but the mess is, well, messy.

-- I was at the used book store the other day and found a couple of Nick Bantock books in very good shape for only $3.00 apiece. I've heard about this Griffin and Sabine stuff for a couple of years, but never read the books, so I decided what the heck. Darn it, I gotta admit that they are intriguing ...

-- I'm so behind in the Everyday Matters Challenges that I fear I will never get caught up! Monday night, while sitting by the door waiting for Trick-or-Treaters, I plan on drawing the Halloween candy. That will get one done, at least ...

Now -- off to work on putting together a Halloween costume for myself for tomorrow. Our work group is going as the Gilligan's Island bunch, and I have one of the easiest costumes of all -- Mary Ann. Just gotta figure out how to get a poof in the top and back of my hair while still doing pigtails... life is sometimes kind of weird, isn't it!

EDM Leaves?

Yes - I've been able to do a little bit of painting and drawing in the past couple of weeks, but not much. Last weekend, DH's parents and family came in, and were here until mid-week. This weekend, MY parents came in to visit. All in all a wonderful two weekends in a row, and as I very much love all parties involved, I've been more than happy to put artwork aside for a bit.

However, I did find time to begin this full size (!) watercolor of autumn leaves, inspired by the Everyday Matters weekly challenge a few weeks back, and based on a photograph I found on Morguefile. This is just the upper left hand corner. I left the largest leaves unpainted, because they will need to be really detailed and I was afraid that even an initial wash would mess me up -- I don't know yet if that was a good decision or not! This has really been fun to work on, as I've only drawn a few of the leaves at a time, then worked on them, then drawn the next few. Rather than being anything close to a precise copy of the photo, this painting has evolved as I work on it. Hopefully it will continue to feel this good!

I should be back on a more regular schedule by Wednesday and hope to begin then to catch up a bit on challenges.

EDMWC - Eye

Everyday Matters weekly challenge from a couple of weeks ago -- draw your eye. Being a bit short on time tonight, I only did the one, and just like in a lot of photos of me, it looks a bit drunk or something! Oh well. It feels good to get a pencil in my hand again this week!

October Sunday on the Lake

To the lake on Sunday with Sis and our friend, while DH stayed home to watch football. We rode around in the boat, beaching it a few times to explore the shore and trying to gather enough wild persimmons to make pudding. Summer seems to be a bit prolonged this year -- and that suits me just fine!

I did this quickie watercolor sketch last time we were out, taking only about 5 minutes so she wouldn't know I was drawing her. Yep, I'm just another step closer to sketching total strangers in coffee houses and burger joints ...

Sad Pear

Our friends lost their 18 year old daughter in an automobile accident early this morning. Tonight I tried to sit and draw this pear (which found its way from a box lunch into my pocket at a business meeting this last week) but just couldn't get excited about it. I hurried through and sat with a deck of cards playing game after game of solitaire instead.

I just want to say, love your children well, folks. You never know what tomorrow may bring.

Brown Blues

Now that September is here, and things are beginning to turn brown AND now that I've banished browns from my watercolor palette, I find I have a problem ... HOW DO YOU MAKE BROWN???

Really, I'd like to know.

Blackberry Lily

Blackberry lily, from my sister's yard. NOW I know how it got it's name!

This is in a new sketchbook -- it is 11" high by 13" wide, and is 140# watercolor paper. Much fancier than I'm used to, and I'm having a blast with it!

EDMWC - Collection

This week's challenge for the Everyday Matters group is to draw a collection.

I have a silly collection of cheese spreaders (with the RULE that they have to have a goofy, tacky figure on the handle) that I keep hidden away ... it was fun to do a silly drawing to match!

Windfall

Magnolia seed pod -- blown down by the recent winds, from the tree in the front yard. Inspired by Laura, although I could never do as well as she does! The details of the thing are driving me crazy. ANY ideas to "fix it up" would be very welcome!

Spider

This is not the most successful of paintings, but it IS a very important one to me. I'm getting over my fear of drawing in front of people, or of even being SEEN drawing ... I actually pulled a seat up to these flowers in the front yard, right at the end of the driveway, right where everyone could see me it they wanted... and drew.

Next thing you know I'll be sitting at coffee shops, drawing total strangers! :-)

Ontario 3: Leftovers

A couple more scraps from my sketchbook, and I'm finished talking about this vacation! I ended up filling nearly half a book, which is amazing to me because it used to take months to get halfway through a sketchbook!


Birch trees against the dark pines. I just can't figure out how to do the detail of the birches without losing the look of how they stood out, so it will just have to remain as is.


The fishing lure was painted before the trip. The WC of the point was started our first morning in Canada, but I didn't finish the last wash of darks until after we got back. I like this "sloppy" watercolor business!

On our last day in camp we had some dark storm clouds pass through. As they blew out, the sun was beginning to set, and that SPECIAL light (you know the kind I mean - all gold against the dark) hit the tops of the trees. I snapped a couple of photos, thinking it would make a good pastel landscape (which I haven't done in years, by the way.)


Now I'm having difficulty seeing how it should be cropped for the best composition. Anyone with any ideas?

Ontario 2: Northern Wildflowers

More from the Canada trip:
Anybody who's read this blog knows I can't resist a good garden, and the wildflowers in the north woods in late August was gardening at its finest. In the evenings when everyone else in our group read around the big table, I tended to sit with my sketchbook, squinting in the gaslight at some bit of a plant that I'd picked up that day.


Bunchberries in full bloom lined all the paths and grew in patches throughout the woods ... at least the part of the woods that were "walkable." I was so taken with these little guys, and wonder how well they would grow in a southern garden. They'd be a nice addition to my shady wildflower border!



One day, on a little sandy spot where we'd beached the boat for a bit, we found this little shrub. I could not figure out what it was! It was covered with what looked like tiny green pine cones, but wasn't any kind of conifer that I'd ever seen. I took my sketchbook and a leaf (that was stuck onto a piece of strapping tape and then covered with saran wrap ... I need to come up with a better way for samples!)... to the Voyageurs National Park office when we got back to Minnesota. The ranger there was REALLY helpful in identifying it as an alder bush. Of course, she knew immediately what it was ... and she said she grew up calling them "Barbie Doll Pine Cones." She also helped me identify some other wildflowers that I didn't know, even coming outside with me to track down a plant or two to look at, digging through bookshelves, and calling co-workers over for further consultation. Big smiles to the Voyageurs staff last Sunday!!! :-)



Wildflowers were also abundant in International Falls. This spotted jewel weed, or spotted touch-me-not grew along the driveway of the house there. Mom said she always called it "wild snapdragon" because the mature seed heads explode when you squeeze them. They were graceful and delicate and their coloring was exquisite ... of course, by the end of the week I was just too tired to do a good job with the details in the painting!

S-P-A-M

I'm sick and tired of this nasty pesky spam, so I've turned on the word verification feature for comments. I know, it is a pain in the neck, but probably less so than reading about exercises to enlarge certain body parts that I don't even possess.

Sheesh. And do they ever leave you a way to spam them back, or call them at 4 in the morning, or tie up their secretarial staff with annoying questions that just waste THEIR time??? NO. They do NOT. (Otherwise I would DO those things and several others that I could think of real quick like.)

Hmmmph.

...now, back to our regularly scheduled programming...

Fishing Trip - We're Back!

We're back from our fishing trip in the woods of north - eastern Ontario. This has been an amazing and wonderful week! After flying to International Falls, Minnesota on Thursday, we spent Friday driving to Woman River Fly In Camp in Ear Falls, Ontario. Saturday morning we were flown into the wilderness in a little plane that landed on the lake and dropped us off at a cabin, leaving us with no electricity, phone, TV, radio, or other such annoyances until we were picked up a week later.



The days were spent fishing, and I figured out pretty quickly that you just can't manage a fishing rod, a rocking boat, gusty winds, and a sketchbook all at the same time. Well, at least not successfully. I tried to take a little bit of time every day, though, to draw something from the cabin. The little rocky point (above) was one of my favorite morning views, as were the boats by the docks. . .


We had propane for lights at night and for hot water, and a solar powered pump that brought water into the cabin from the lake. The one thing we did not have was indoor plumbing. . .

The OTHER little house in the big woods. (The outhouse, also known as The Waldorf...) Can I let this count as the EDM weekly challenge for "architecture"?