What's the Story, Morning-glory?

Just a quick update... I was out of town last week.  My kids sent me to Oregon for my birthday to spend some time with our son and his wife that live there.  That was wonderful!  Maybe I'll get to upload some more photos... later, but maybe not, because....

I'm getting ready to fly to CA to care for my mom as she recovers from hip replacement surgery.  I'll have limited internet access, and no access to my photos...sooo, not sure when I'll be able to get a post up here in the short term.  But I wanted to let you all know I'm just busy, haven't given up!  I'll be back soon.  :)

That's the word, mocking-bird.  (anyone know where the title and this last line are from?)  ;)

31, 32

29 & 30

26, 27, 28...

Back to the 75 Day Sketch Challenge... 

 Day 26, done late at night again as nothing had inspired me to draw all day.  I flipped open a book on the masters and van Gogh's self portrait with it's beautiful paint technique in my favorite hues (yellow and blue) was enjoyable to see.  So I did a very rough, very quick sketch... following the lines of his brushwork.  

27. Another evening sketch (noticing a pattern here!)  This time of a 9 inch high wood carved squirrel who resides on our hearth with a couple of other squirrel friends.  I used golden brown ink and tried to follow the grain lines of the carving, which you can see behind my sketchbook.  

Day 28, if you could see the original photo this was drawn from, you'd see my proportions were WAY off.  Maybe that 'sketching at night' thing is to blame?  Heh heh. 

This next piece has nothing to do with the sketch challenge... it's a page in my little nature journal I happened to paint last night (the date on the journal page is when I took the photo of the dragonfly) The daily sketches are a good exercise, but I don't want to stall in my desire to practice watercolor. 

Happy and blessed Sunday to you all!  May the coming week be filled with natural wonders and beauty. 

God bless!

Student's Before and Afters!

 Interrupting my somewhat boring string of daily sketches... I thought I'd post some of my students drawings from last years class.  The first photo in each set is the self portrait that student drew on their first day in my class, the next is their self portrait drawn again, on the last day of class.  The photos are of poor quality, unfortunately!  I scanned the students original drawings, then took a photo of the scanned pages to upload... not the best way to show their drawings, but you can at least see how their understanding of form, shading, proportion etc. had grown over the class terms (classes are twice a month for the school year calendar)  A few of these students are returning for a second year, where we'll work in C O L O R... should be fun!  I absolutely love teaching art and am so thankful God has blessed me with the opportunity.

(Tip: clicking on each picture will let you view at a larger size with better resolution)

Catching up...

So I've fallen behind in posting my sketches from the 75 Day Sketch Challenge.  So here you go!  Some are downright terrible... but this is practice, discipline and so, that's okay. 

Day 18: Noodlers flex pen with golden brown ink...

Day 19: Black Tombow marker... a terrible choice for my subject

Day 20:  Black 05 micron

Day 21: Black 05 micron

Day 22 was not the micron, maybe a Zig millenium, first just the ink sketch, later I added a bit of color with watercolor washes.

Days 23 (stabilo markers) and 24 black ink (as you see I really only did my sketch out of duty that day)

Now we're up to date with today's sketch, day 25, I drew some Mesquite seed pods I picked up outside of Fresh and Easy market.  Some day I want to gather a LOT of mesquite pods, dry them and grind some mesquite flour to make tortillas and pancakes.  ;)  I only added detail and shadow to the pods on the left... just to show the process.  As usual...Click on the photo to see a larger, sharper image. 

17

15 & 16 etc.

(click on the photos to see a better / larger image)

Here's a page from a different journal, I finished last night.  Not part of the challenge, just felt like painting birds.  ;)

Not much else going on... slowly recovering from what is believed to be Valley Fever.  Ron and I were given a pair of tickets by our children to see Cirque du Soleil's KOOZA on Saturday...it was absolutely amazing.  What a treat, we were in the front row too!