Labor Day, Journal Pages, Pen & Ink Sketch

So it is Labor Day - for many the day that separates summer vacation from the school year. My little girls are looking forward to the start of a new year. The New Miss 8 has already been in school for a week. Miss 8 1/2 (I need some way to distinguish them) begins tomorrow and has informed me that she has a boy teacher. Miss 3 (soon to be 4) starts her preschool experience next Monday.


As for me, I love this 50+ degree weather in the morning. I am hoping for highs in the 70s for awhile and would not be disappointed if we could have a hard frost one night and then have warmer temps for awhile without mosquitoes.

This weekend was a busy one. We celebrated a birthday and I got a few sketches done. I am pleased so far to be making progress in my new journal. I saw the whole family at the party and it was a lot of fun even though it was hotter than blazes. There was a breeze, but when it is 92º with high  humidity, a breeze is just teasing. I sketched a picture of the birthday girl when I got home. The picture itself is not too bad, but I haven't caught her likeness at all.

The sketch is pretty light, but if you click on it you will get a better look.

This is the reference photo.

The hubster is dealing with an Achilles problem and is scheduled for surgery in early October and we were talking about it and discussing the options that came up at the second opinion appointment so I was compelled to sketch about it.

And I've been looking through the old booklets that I acquired at an estate sale in August to find interesting things to sketch. I really love sketching buildings, especially barns so couldn't resist this one.

I really enjoyed this one. It seems a little tipped toward the upper left, but not too bad overall.

After much back and forth with the support people at Fat Cow, one of their techs was able to pinpoint my problem - I was using Firefox 6.0.1 and they were having issues with it. So I downloaded the older version, 3.6.21 and all is well. You can see the updated page here or you can click on the "Buy A Journal" business card icon on the right above.

What a weekend sports wise. The US Open tennis coverage has been wonderful and there have been many good matches to watch. I only wish I was there. And what about those Tigers - they swept the White Sox with three really big games, especially the Saturday game in which they came from an 8 - 1 deficit to win with a walk off homerun in the bottom of the ninth. Today they begin a 3-game series at Cleveland, the team who is chasing them for first place. Each game will probably be a nail biter.

Tomorrow I am going to visit my sister and am planning to stay until Saturday. I will try to get photos and sketches to share and this time I will remember to bring my card reader so I can actually get the photos onto the computer.

I hope you are having a lovely day/weekend and that the weather is getting cooler and the beauty of the Fall will soon show itself in all its glorious color.

xoxo

Sketching

I didn't spend a lot of time in my art room yesterday even though I thought I would. My sister had spent the night again Sunday and I had a chiropractor appointment in the morning. Her daughter arrived to pick her up just as I was getting ready to go so it worked out very well.

When I got home I put the guest room back together, stripped the bed and washed the linens and ran the vaccuum. The hubster and I then went to the mall where he has a space and rearranged, added new things and took a couple of things back home. We had to stop on the way back to get some groceries and when we got home I made chicken noodle soup. We'd bought a rotisserie chicken while Mom was here and I saved the carcass especially for this purpose. The soup was fantastic (if I do say so myself ).

The Australian Open has started and I blame it for my lack of interest in the art room - I really like watching tennis and have several favorites.

I did make a couple of quick sketches last evening (with "quick" being the operative word). One is of a girl I tried to do in the manner of Milliande in her journaling video I watched yesterday where she starts with a circle and goes from there. You can watch it here:



Milliande has been doing a video each day this month with a different art journaling technique. She is fantastic!

Here is my quick attempt. I did erase the lines:

I also drew a quick chickadee. This is the most common endearment my Mom uses. I am not totally pleased with either of these, but for quick sketches, they are a start.

For today, the first thing I need to do is clean up my art room - it is a very big mess!

This afternoon I have to make the call to the dermatologist to find out if they have the results of Mom's biopsies yet. When I called yesterday, as instructed, the results had not come back yet.

I intend to begin the next two pages in the collaborated book swap I am doing, but won't be able to share them until the intended recipient receives them. I am still waiting to hear from the first ones that I sent out more than a week ago.

If I am going to get moving on this art room mess, I'd better get a move on.

I hope to see you tomorrow!

xoxo