Quick Sketches

Another frosty morning here in southern Michigan, and the baseball fans are relieved and happy today. The Tigers had to go 5 games with the Athletics to take the ALCS, and the fifth game was a rout with Verlander pitching a shut-out. It was a fun game to watch, but I am still waiting for the big guys' bats to begin to do some pounding.


Before the game, I took a bit of time to do some quick sketches of the still life candidates that I purchased at the Salvation Army store in Howell. These are just contour sketches. Perhaps I will try to add shading later.

This morning I am busy getting a package ready to send to Maine. On the way home from the post office, I will stop at Pregitzer's to pick up my biweekly produce as part of the Community Supported Agriculture program. I think there will only be one more pick up this season. I am hoping to get some winter squash that will work well with a pitcher or two for a still life set up and then I'll try a watercolor.  Later this afternoon, I have a chiropractor appointment and my personal training workout. I didn't make it to my Wednesday session and I'm anxious to do the balancing and weight training again.

The Town Hall Players of Stockbridge are performing The Wizard of Oz this weekend and I will be going with my friend Carol tomorrow. I've not been to local theater at all and am looking forward to the experience. One of these evenings before it becomes way too cold, I want to go to the Haehnle Sanctuary to see if I can get pix of the thousands of sandhill cranes that are reported to gather there.

Yesterday I spent a bit of time picking up the little girls' room, but am not altogether happy with the result. There is way too much stuff in there. What I really need to do is begin a decluttering of the spaces in my house and that room would be a great place to start. I know that the closets need to be winnowed as well.

And I would like to carve more stamps. For those of you who've asked for a tutorial on stamp carving, I can lead you to a couple of great resources - Julie Fei-Fan Balzer's Stamping 101 class, which is available online. This was my introduction to this art and I was very happy with the instruction; there is also a site through the letterboxing community with a step by step tutorial for beginners. You can find it at atlas quest. And there is also a very good tutorial at Ishtar Olivera, which is presented both in English and Spanish. I am sure there are many others out there, as well as YouTube videos. I hope my links are good for you to get started.

So what are you doing this weekend? Does it include outdoor activity? Are you finding time for your art? Are you willing to share - if not here, perhaps at Creative Everyday or in a Yahoo! group like Everyday Matters? Or do you have a blog or another venue where you post? Do share...

xoxo