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

New Repurposed Book, Sketches, Bluebirds, and More

I was really productive yesterday - I walked the treadmill, made a new repurposed book, got outdoors and took lots of photos, and managed to do two quick sketches using images from Google Maps.


Here are "in process" pix of the repurposed book:

Outside Cover with Text Block removed.

Inside Cover - I used a bit of sandpaper to remove the edges left from the endpapers.

I used Mi Teintes paper in black, tan, and gray. Here they are folded, pressed, and hole punched.

Sewn together using the French Link stitch.

This is the new endpaper. I love using wallpaper as it glues so nicely.

Here is the finished journal.

It was a beautiful day yesterday so I got outdoors and took some photos around the yard. The bluebird pix were taken through the screen in my art room, but I think they turned out pretty well even with the screen between.

One of my favorites in the front garden is the thistle. I never tire of taking photos of it.

This might be fun to draw on Mi Teintes brown paper with colored pencil.

And I also love the ferns especially when there is a lovely winged one visiting.

And finally, I spent a bit of time using Google maps to find sites of interest to do quick sketches. These are by no means finished art work, but they are excellent practice for me, especially if I make sure I don't spend a lot of time on them. I used my Noodler's Flex pen (which by the way I don't know how to make flex.) with Saguaro Wine ink. It is messy, but I need the practice. If anyone has experience with this pen and can tell me how to make it flex, I'd appreciate it.

Once again the treadmill is calling out to me and I must obey. I've had a couple of mugs of coffee and will grab a banana on the way to workout. I had a 20% off coupon for everything including sale items at JoAnn's that is good through tomorrow and think I should use it - maybe I will use it at Michael's if they will honor it.

I hope you are having a great Friday and that the weekend is a pleasant and productive one.

xoxo