Jan31Art

Spent the afternoon looking at 'toy haulers', day dreaming about traveling the country after retirement.  The local Camping World store only had 2, one we liked, one no so much.  We climbed into a lot of trailers today, some of them amazingly roomy, with cool outdoor kitchens. Large closets and double sink bathrooms.  

Jan30Art

Fun day today, tasted lots of chili, and really happy to report that Ron's chili won second place.  The winner from Anderson SC, had some good chili too, that we liked when we tasted it.  

Did a few sketches in my tiny 3x5 pocket sketchbook, while eating chili and recording our thoughts as we tasted each one ourselves.

Jan29Art

What a difference today, sunny warm, not a cloud in the sky.  Tonight I was the Sou Chef helping chop tomatoes, onions and peppers and adding beans to the chili my husband is making for the Chili Cook off tomorrow.  Should have drawn the tomatoes... but too late now.  It tastes great, we'll find out tomorrow if the judges agree.

Jan28Art

I do not like being COLD, I do not like it being dark at 5pm.  I do not like wearing so many layers of clothes that people think I've gained 30 pounds.  I do not like to breath cold air, it makes my nose and my lungs hurt, I do not like my feet being cold...  Sorry for the rant... did I mention I HATE winter?

Jan27Art

Can you find the fish with no eyes?  I thought I'd given everyone a dot for an eye and then after the scan I noticed I missed one of my fishes.  I put some Liquitex Matte Gel Medium on the page so that I could use watercolor dots for my fishes.  This paper really isn't very watercolor friendly.

Jan26Art

The recent cold snap has brought a halt to my hibiscus and my azaleas, but the roses, at least the yellow and peach ones are still producing buds and flowers.

Jan25Art

Had to skip my flute lesson tonight, my teacher has small children and I didn't want her, or her boys to catch my cold. Haven't had a good month of practice due to my oral surgery, so it is for the best to wait until next time.

Jan24Art

Glad to see the Denver Broncos win this afternoon, and so far the Carolina Panthers are doing well in their game tonight.  We tried out some new craft beer, mostly because the bottle had a Bernese Mountain Dog on it, I love that dogs and owned two in the past Ch. Ouija v. Buttonwillow UD (WeeGee) and Ch. Honeyhill's Hurricane (Hugo). It was actually quite good, and the bottle cap was unique too,  I had a try at drawing it.

Jan23Art

I used Tombow markers for the pine trees, and the background.  I drew the trees first, probably should have done the background first, then the trees.  Lesson learned.  Go see 13 Hours... even if you think you know what happened, you don't.

Jan22Art

Working out value charts as Alphonso Dunn's  'Pen & Ink drawing' book suggests.  While doing that I thought I'd compare my brown ink,  the rich dark brown is Pilot Yama Guri, it is so rich and flows so nicely in my Pilot Namaki Falcon pen, but, it is not waterproof.  So I don't use it as often as the others with watercolor.  I do love that pen, and that ink is very nice just don't add water unless you're prepared for it to run.

Jan21Art

General J.E.B. Stuart (Jebbie) son of Beauregard, is now an old dog himself at 13 years old.  Jebbie is a sweet dog but tough as nails, I do love Jack Russell Terriers.  Independent, intelligent and persistent... my kind of dog.

Jan20Art

Today I got Alphonso Dunn's new book 'Pen & Ink Drawing' a simple guide.  I love his you tube videos and as I read the book I can hear his voice in my head.  This quote is from chapter 3.

Jan19Art

I've been wanting to try a bent nib fountain pen for quite a while, finally broke down and ordered a Sailor pen.  It arrived today, I love the bold lines I can get with it, not sure I really know how to use if to it's fullest potential.

Jan18Art

More Sketchbook Skool homework, this exercise was to choose a quote and letter it creatively... I hope the teacher likes it, I had fun doing it.

Jan17Art

Sketchbook Skool started on Friday,  the date here is my 'san-serif' font lettering for assignment #1, and the 'hoot' is my serif font.  Used some oragami papers to collage the owl and cloud, fun but very messy.

Jan16Art

I helped out at the Charleston Hog  Chapter's membership drive today.  We signed up 96 members, and quite a few new folks joined so everyone was pleased about that. Tonight we had a hockey game against the Alaska team, ended in a tie 4 to 4 and they won in sudden death overtime.  A full day today.

Jan15Art

We attended the GOP debate last night, you might have seen me at around 7:30 pm on the tv.. I was the gray haired old lady in a red jacket smiling walking thru the crowd.  I've made up my mind who I'm voting for, hope you've decided too... let's get this done folks. While there I worked on my Dr. Who scarf, the secret service had no issue with my pointed wooden sticks.

Jan14Art

I was born in Atlanta Georgia, just down the street from the drug store where Coca-cola was invented.  I was raised drinking coke with  my dinner, and coke and soda crackers if I was sick.  When I was a kid everyone called them CO Cola's nobody called them Cokes back then.  I had an aunt that was very rich, she worked for Coke for 40 years and retired with lots of Coke stock.  My grand mother used to tell the story of the man coming to the door during the depression selling Coke stock for $.25 a share.. she didn't have a quarter so she didn't buy any... she always lamented not being able to buy that stock saying she'd be a rich woman if she had.  Before moving to South Carolina I worked at Coca-Cola for 5 years, it is a GREAT place to work.  Today I drew the top of my Coke Zero can... I LOVE #Coca-Cola always have, always will.

Jan13Art

My Uni-ball Signo white gel pen wasn't writing very well, I tried blowing on the ink tube, didn't help.  My next bright idea was to heat it up with hot water from the faucet, that worked.  So next time you have a clogged gel pen give it the hot water treatment.

Jan12Art

My FLRT came home from the repair shop today.... just in time for the weekend :-)  Ron Jr came thru town on his way to Atlanta, it was good to see him.  Actually got up to 60 degrees today, NICE.

Jan11Art

Monday back to work day, new year's first work week begins.  Went to the Executive Committee meeting tonight, packed house, so perhaps people made new year's resolution to attend meetings. The Debate will be  here in Charleston this Thursday (Ron and I have tickets) and there was discussion about how that would work.  With Clemson playing Alabama in the National Championship, the meeting was short and sweet so everyone could get home to see the game.

Jan10Art

Picked up a little tin box at Barnes and Noble, it was supposed to be to hold a gift card.  Pulled the insert out, painted the inside with white enamel paint, the added some half pans and a couple of travel brushes.

Jan09Art

Watched a Shoo Raynor video this morning on drawing circles free hand, so I drew several pages of circles today... thus the circles here.  I should probably do several pages of ellipses as I find them even harder than circles.  Managed to draw my favorite pencil.  Attended the final 'party' of the holiday season tonight it was a lot of fun.  

Jan08Art

Spent the morning getting another dental implant, and the afternoon in bed enjoying the miracle of pain killing drugs.  I'm up now because the anti-biotic I'm on requires me to sit up for at least 10 minutes after taking it.  Supposed to make me sick to my stomach, so far that hasn't happened but I've only taken 2 of them.  I hope this one stays put.

Jan07Art

The down side of living in an early primary state and working at home, is the phone ringing constantly with pollsters wanting to know who I'm going to vote for, or politicians wanting me to give them money.  I'll be glad when the primary is over and the crowd moves on to other places for a while anyway.

Jan06Art

I spent way more time looking for a quote tonight, and when I found this one, I had to give drawing Winston Churchill a try.  He was quite the artist himself,  as well as a great leader during WWII.  We could use a man like him today as the world spirals into chaos again.

Jan05Art

Added blobs of watercolor, added some eyes, beaks, legs, a wing and a few tail feathers and voila birds.  Got a call from the service department, they've ordered parts for my trike, but probably won't have it fixed until Thursday or Friday... too cold to ride right now anyway.  I've got cold weather gear, but I have my limits and under 40 is one of them.  Supposed to be in the 70s this weekend, YEAH.

Jan04Art

When I finally had a few minutes to draw in my journal, 'Eat, Pray, Love' was on the TV, during her Italy portion of the movie and the trees caught my eye... so Cypress trees.  I used my Inktense pencils for most of the color, but I wasn't happy with what the trees looked like so I picked at them with watercolors for a bit, but the paper wouldn't take much more so here they are, along side my to do list today.

Jan03Art

Disappointing hockey game today, faced the same team as yesterday, except today we lost 4 to 2.  I used micron pen and colored pencils to draw and color in the rainbow row houses.  The colors are based on the pencils I have, and while the actual houses have trees and flowers and what not on their balconies I didn't feel up to drawing them the houses and all those windows challenged me enough for today.

Jan02Art

Last Summer at the Urban Sketchers Chicago workshop, in the goodie bag was a General's Sketch and Wash pencil, in the spirit of trying new things (and using less water)  I used that pencil to do the negative space around my hockey player.  I think I like it; nice too that once it was dry there was no smudging onto fingers or the facing page, that's one of the reasons I don't like using pencil in sketch books.

Jan01Art

Recently I was inspired by the work of artist Ros Jenke on Flickr, and found her blog https://rosjenke.wordpress.com/ inspiring as well.  She keeps a small square journal and I liked the format of her pages, so I shamelessly copied her, and plan to continue at least until this journal is finished.  

On Facebook the other day I went to a list of the worst cars to buy, and there #15 on the list was our beloved Smart Car and well as my Jeep Compass.  Well folks I disagree with whoever did up this list, we LOVE our smart car, and I LOVE my Jeep, oh our Jeep Wrangler was on the list too...  we've had more fun in that Jeep than should be allowed.  So don't believe everything you read on Facebook folks.

Rainy and chilly here today, so I did a chart of my watercolor pencils, I got some new ones, that I'd never used before and wanted to see what they looked like.  Not sure why I have so many red pencils, and most of them are so close in color as to be redundant and therefore NOT carried out and about with me.

Book 36 Title Page

I started keeping a daily journal in 2008 after reading Danny Gregory's book 'Creative License' and surviving cancer surgery.  I started in a small 5 x 5 square global arts Hand*book journal.  So for something NEW to start the year a new/old journal format, and thin paper not suited to watercolor or markers,  I have gesso and matte medium these days so that thin paper doesn't scare me... it will be an adventure.