Happy Holidays (Belated)

I had meant to finish this before yesterday...



I'm going to make this the last post I do this year. I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and that their New Year is colorful and happy!

Christmas Tree

Took me awhile to stop and take some pictures of the tree. There is always something to do or you want to do and the next thing you know it's three days later. Can't wait till things settle back down again.

Play Time?

After much quite hem-hawing and speculation, I finally broke down and got a set of water color pencils. It was so awesome because when I went to go get them, the store was having a 50% off sell on the Derwent sets! Then I thought, well you need the correct paper...and Canson was buy one get one free!! Was this meant to be? I think so! Huge sales are always a sign in the right direction to me. I might even go back today and see whats left to raid before the sale ends...

Ornament Finished

It's done! Now I just have to put it on the tree, grab the hubby to put the star on together and it will be done to!

Christmas is Coming...

This year I thought it would be nice to get a Black Labrador ornament for the Christmas Tree. I was exasperated when I found how difficult this quest was. What I kept finding over and over were Yellow Labs. Really? I can count on one hand how many Yellow Labs I have seen. Also, aren't black labs the most know face for Labradors?
Frustrated I kept looking, I even looked online but I wasn't happy with what I was finding. So I took matters into my own hands when I stumbled upon this ornament. (Which still isn't a black lab!)

Seen here having an identity crisis is a brown lab I'm painting black. (Didn't think to take a picture till after I started.) I might change the scarf color too, not sure yet.

I swear it was destiny I found this ornament. It had been sitting were the 'white' ornaments were, probably set down by someone who changed their mind. I tried looking to see if I could find more (in hopes for a black) but I couldn't find anything that it would have been with. No other dog ornaments, no cats, NOTHING. I guess it can go with the saying 'never look a gift horse in the mouth', now I have a Labrador ornament AND I'm painting. I forgot how fun it was to paint objects :)


Oh no!

Baked Goods and Pretty Vegtables

It has been a busy November for me and I can't believe it's already about to come to an end. Thanksgiving was chaos as usual but before, I did get some camera time...

Was trying to give everyone a sugar rush, but they stuffed themselves so well on dinner they didn't get to the dessert. So I made them take it home.

I found some awesome looking squash and Indian corn to accompany this pumpkin.

I took a number of pictures...

I figured they can be some inspiration for drawing..

Or just fun to look at!

I'm hoping to make pumpkin seeds before the pumpkin goes yuck. Never made pumpkin seeds before ^_^

Am I Blue?

I do so good during the summer it amazes me how much I hit bottom when autumn comes. I guess I get the winter blues easily and this year it isn't looking like an exception. So, no drawing, way less posts, and if I'm lucky I will cross-stitch and still take pictures until it gets warm again. I have learned that if I force myself to draw it makes it worse, gah. I feel a bit silly about it but at the same time it's like it has all been drained right out of me and I have to sit around and wait till the meter is full again before I can 'go'.
I did work on my cross-stitching today, to lazy to take a picture. Maybe next time :P

The Snow Has Come

Since I moved up here seven years ago, this is the earliest it has ever snowed. I'm not a huge fan of being in the snow, but it is pretty to look at.





I finally got to play with the video mode on my camera...I apologize I really didn't know what I was doing :D

Exploring New Avenues

Several months ago I noticed people drawing these crazy mash of patterns and thought they looked really neat. I let it go for awhile and then I was seeing it more and more. Then I stumbled on to this site; zentangles. (Click it!)
Once I saw the break down and that it was very easy, I had to make my own of course! So flipping through the patterns they have available, I made my first zentangle.


I made the mistake of using a mechanical pencil and the smudges are the horrible erase job. It was fun and just as relaxing as they promised it would be. I'm thinking maybe this can be something I do when I hit the "I don't want to do anything" block.

Wordless Wednesday

My Current Fustration

I know I said I wouldn't post anything till I finished it, but I miss posting things and I didn't want to do another photo post. I wanted to redraw something that I had done in the past. Guess I wanted to prove to myself that I had improved somewhere since it doesn't seem like it most of the time. I have the bad habit of when I have a way of doing something, I won't change even if I'm shown a better way. So I know my coloring suffers the worst for my stubbornness. This is what I have so far..


Knowing that I have a harder time with orange then any other color you think I would have avoided this but its what I had colored the original..


This was drawn nine years ago. At the time I thought this was the greatest thing ever, now I just flinch when I see it. Unfortunately I'm flinching at the one I'm working on now too. I just don't know what to do with my shading. I know where it goes, but when I put my layers down it never looks right, they are either too close in color or to far. Oh well, I will still get it done eventually and then I won't touch orange for awhile, lol.

Mushroom Mania

I have discovered that every once in a while, mushrooms will pop up in my yard. Since I don't have anything else to test my camera on, the mushrooms get a lot of attention. It has gotten to the point that I now get excited when I see them, especial if a new kind pops up. So here is a sort of spew of my mushroom models.









I have a fascination with the underside of the caps, the frills seem almost delicate.







Today I found this very interesting gray one, one of them even had a surprise on it.






I was so tickled by the slug stuck to it!


In other news, I am working on a drawing but it is very slow going as I'm not home as much :( . I'm not going to post anything about it till it's done as I don't want to string posts along like the others I have done and not finished. (Maybe then I won't jinx it into not being finished?)

Wordless Wednesday

Art Book!

About a month ago I got a new art book off of amazon.com (Another one of my $7 for a $23 book, deals). It is called Fantasy Genesis and looks like this:



It was one of those "Oh my gosh I have to have it!" deals because it's definitely unique compared to other art books. The author took role play and drawing and combined it. So basically you have some different sided dice; 4, 6, 8, 12, and 20 if you want or need. Going off of the charts provided for you in the book, you roll the die or dice it tells you and can either make a creature, humanoid, weapon, or a weird mix of those. Pretty much whatever your looking for as it is set up for a lot of possibilities.
Being a non-human drawer, I stuck with the creatures list. For fun I had played with it several times to see what kind of animal mixes I would get and got crazy things like a squid/scarab with palm leaves (I was including the flora chart for giggles). But in the end for my drawing I sort of cheated and drew this instead:



It's just a Zorse with horns. Didn't feel like doing a serious drawing so it's just a quick sketchiness thing, maybe someday I'll go back and do a nice colored one.

It will be a while before I post anymore art. We have overtime starting at work which means I will probably be working six tens a week for who knows how long. Also I got back into playing Black and White 2 which is like crack to me and I can play for hours at a time. I had been spinning Halloween drawing ideas in my head so maybe if the overtime lets up I can do something like that. Only time can tell :)

Pumpkins!

I actually enjoyed this one, makes me want to draw more veggies or maybe some fruit. The hubby says I should do a bigger one. Maybe when the pumpkins come out for Halloween I'll grab some and take pictures for models. I used photos I found and combined them in Photoshop so the lighting wasn't right in them or the positioning.

Hopefully next I will show off my new book I got a few weeks ago with something I've done out of it.

New Awning, Full Flowers

After waiting three months we finally got our new awning for the front porch. Now the outside of the house is complete!



It looks sooo much better now then when we got it...


(I didn't take this picture, it is from the rel-estate.)

That rhododendron is killing me, I can't stand looking at it.
I don't know why but I was really surprised to see the Clematis still going at it. I guess it's because I didn't remember seeing them this time last year when we were viewing the house. Even when we had to repaint the base and window trim it wasn't there, just odd. Regardless, they are so beautiful now!




They will make a good piece for a flower drawing if I ever get the urge to do one.

Finished Horse With Pumpkins On it's Tail

I'm mad at it and I don't want to look at it anymore, so it's done. I think the biggest mistake I made with this was that I didn't really map out the colors, I just started throwing them down. The next horse I do is suppose to be yellow, so I will definitely plan first since I have a harder time with the lighter colors.
But that might be fore a while yet, I'm taking a break from the horses to pursue some holiday related drawings! Yay! The first thing I have started is a lovely bunch of...pumpkins! (Yes I'm very excited about them) This is another ACEO.


I'm toying with the idea of doing abnormal colored pumpkins, but I'm not sure. Should I do normal orange pumpkins or crazy, blue, purple, red, and green pumpkins? I don't think I've ever really drawn vegetables before...

Orange Horse Head In the Works

When a bottle of Gorilla Glue says "Don't get glue on fingers" please listen to these very wise words. I just found out what getting gorilla glue on your fingers is like and it's not pleasant. I had to file the glue off because I don't have acetone to break it down. So on that happy note, here is an orange horse.



I'm not happy with the way it is turning out, but I really don't know how else to work the orange. At least it is looking better then my first orange horse attempt I made six years ago..


I think o.O

If I do decide to finish this before the end of my weekend, maybe I'll draw some pumpkins. Been thinking about them a lot lately and I don't even care for anything pumpkin flavored, just think they are a cute looking vegetable.

Past Marker Madness

As I wait for my wrist to stop aching from strain at work, thought I would share some past drawings I've done due to mood or weather.

This one is my favorite. It's the first one I did due to it raining so much here. I had started wondering if it could drown the sun, it was so bad.


Another stunt on the sun was the first time I saw six inches of snow. We also had these big, gorgeous icicles hanging outside our kitchen window where we lived at the time and I had to try my hand at them.


I tend to have a lot of urges to make rainbows...



Hopefully tomorrow will be a new art day. I have so many ideas trying to burst their ways out all at once, I can't wait to get them down.

Wordless Wednesday(I'll post art sometime, I swear!)

Wordless Wednesday

Rainbow's Storm Finished

Sometimes it's just too much effort to come up with a good title so Rainbow's Storm this is. Even as I make this post it is thunder storming. I really hope it lets up in a few hours, I want to go play!
Still don't know if I like doing colored pencil over the marker, it is a lot brighter though.

50th Post and a New Camera!

I am very excited I have made it this far with this blog, even if most of it wasn't posts that it was intended for. Which on that note, I am also very excited that today I got a new camera! I got the Canon PowerShot A3300 IS. It's 16 megapixels, 5x zoom, 3in. LCD screen, and has about a gazillion other totally awesome features that I'm not going to list here. I already played with it a little bit, and took some pics with both cameras to see the difference.

This is from my Fujifilm finepix A 400



This is from the Canon



It seems to take a wider view picture and looks more crisper. (Can click on the pics for larger view.) Then again go from 4.0 to 16.0 mp and I would hope there is a difference.
May be tomorrow I can go to the park...just hope it doesn't rain.