ffyrebird

Scary Lady

Eeek!  Maybe I should rethink using vintage photos to draw from.  They look so stern and harsh to begin with and my ink drawings only make these poor souls even scarier loking....

New Year, New Beginning

It seems like it has been forever since the last time I made a drawing or posted on here, I feel so rusty!!!  I have been itching to draw again and learned so much from my attempt to draw everyday, that I decided why not go for it and try for another go at drawing daily for a year.  Time for me right now is very limited as I spend most of every day with R2 at rehab working on his recovery from the wreck.  I decided to keep my drawings very simple for now- just a quick pen sketch from photos.  I grabbed a bunch of royalty free photos from the Library of Congress Flickr stream etc. and put them on my IPad so I wouldn't have to waste time trying to figure out what to draw.  I want to work on drawing people and straight to ink drawings really seam to be (for me) quick, honest and a great learning tool- so for a while that's what I'll be playing with.  Here is the first, a very dapper man in Noodler's Beaver on Stonehenge paper.  the ink sat on the surface a bit and I found I could smear it with my finger for a touch of tone....

A Return to Art

Well we returned home, but I didn't return to trying my hand at making art for what seems like ages.  Once I got out of the habit of daily drawings during the trip it was murder starting up again.  To be fair, life has been a little more insane than usual around here.  We returned from our vacation only to find our upstairs AC was dead, in the middle of a heat wave!  Cut to a string of folks coming out to give us estimates then us deciding to replace both units since we basically killed the downstairs unit running it alone in triple digit temps while they came over.  Finally, over a month since we left on vacation we got to sleep in our own beds again.  During this whole fiasco I couldn't find the time, energy, or even desire to make art.  I'm just rebooting now with assignments from Laure Ferlita's Imaginary Trip to Italy class........

Back from Vacation

Well, I'm back from our family vacation!!  Despite my best intentions to keep up with my daily drawings on the trip, that didn't happen.  Packing a family of six, stuffing the travel trailer and then driving straight through the night in a joucy, bouncy truck didn't exactly lend itself to making a drawing, so I missed my first drawing of the year on the first night of the trip, bummer....  That did make it a little easier to skip drawing a few nights later when my oldest asked if I'd play card games with them or was I going to go hang out by myself in the back of the trailer drawing.  R1 is eighteen and there won't be many more trips with him, so I put away my sketchbook for the trip and just enjoyed the time with the kiddos and DH.  I did take over a thousand pictures (really!!!), so I'll have plenty of future drawing material.

This moose is from our trip last year to Rocky Mountain National Park.  We climbed all the way up to Bierstadt Lake the hard way instead of coming down from Bear Lake on the trail.  We were tuckered out at the top but it was worth it when we saw this moose come up to the lake while we were having our lunch. 

Final shuttle Launch

The kiddos and I took time out today to watch the final shuttle launch.  It's sad to see the shuttle program ending.

Experimenting in a New Journal

I wanted to get a feel for my new journal from Useful Books on Etsy, so I did a little experimenting on the last page.  I love the way the journal is constructed, but I've never used the Magnani Velata paper that it is made of and I'll need to get used to it.  I've been using sized Fabriano Venezia books or Aquabee's for so long going back to unsized paper is odd.  It stood up well to watercolor without buckling and there was just the faintest ghosting on the reverse with the really heavy black marker.  Even though it felt like I was really roughing up the paper when I erased, it didn't seem to cause any problem when I went back in with watercolor in those spots. The mad scientist rates this experiment a success!!!

 

I had fun printing a drawing I'd made of our travel  trailer being pulled by our 'Shark' of a truck and putting it into the cutout in the journal's cover...

Celebrate!!

DH has coached the boys in baseball for years and this year he signed up to coach R4's team.  To his suprise he was asked to coach R3's softball team as well.  He said yes and had a blast!!!   The girls and their parents were great, positive and supporting.  They made this a really fun year, of course, it didn't hurt that the girls won first in our city division and first in the four-city league they played in.  To celebrate the end of the season the team dunked DH with the water cooler.  Ice water- brrrrr!!!!!

Softball Windup

I love the fancy footwork and hops that go into some of the girls'  windups!

ID4 for July 4th

Toady. we stayed inside to avoid all the smoke from the neighbor's fireworks since it aggravates half the family's asthma.  Usually we go park a long ways off from the city park and watch the display, but they did it Friday while we were busy so we missed it.  To celebrate the Fourth we broke out a DVD of ID4, our traditional movie for the holiday.

R3 at Bat

Well,  I posted a drawing of R4 paying baseball so it only seemed fair to make a drawing of R3 playing softball....

Trailer Repairs??!!??

We've had a bit of a challenging time preparing for vacations later this year.  The dealer who sold us our travel trailer and is, unfortunately, the only authorized repair center seemed determined to make life interesting for us.  Somehow between dropping our trailer off for AC and other minor repairs and towing to storage something in our hitch coupling got deformed or broken.  Our guess is they dropped it onto the wrong size ball to tow it into the shop.  Now we have to find someone after the holiday to go out to the lot and fix it since it can't be towed with the broken coupling....

Rooster

Found this guy while playing around in the WetCanvas Gallery...

R4 Baseball

R4 is having a great time with his baseball team, The Giants.  DH is coaching and R1 and R2 got to help out some when they weren't umpiring.  R4 is a really good sport and a clown, good thing too.  The first thing out of R2, the guru of baseball, when I showed them this drawing was, "Bud, you're throwing off the wrong leg."  With as many coaches and as much advice/teasing as he gets at home, I'm glad R4 just laughs it all off....

Z is for Zebra

Zebra in technicolor!!!

Depressed Zebra

Value study for Laure's class.....

 

 

Zebra

Doodling around with a soft Shorty pencil from Jerry's.....

Manicure night

A little me time tonight....

Mini Golf

We had a fun time tonight joking around and playing mini golf...

Spunky Monkey

I think the little blank figures that you are supposed to draw on are soo cute!  I don't draw on mine, they just decorate my computer desk and pose for drawings. 

 

Headache

A quick sketch and post and then bedtime.......

Bamboo pen/brush combo

One of these days I'll get around to using this nifty little tool, but for now all it's just serving as the drawing prop de jour...

What's for Dinner?

Ahh, it's the kiddos summer ball season and the neverending diet of fast food that goes along with it.  Uggg!!  Thank goodness we are running all over the place or we would put on a ton of weight.

AJE Lesson 2

A fun little buny for the second lesson in Art Journaling Explorations.

Graphite Bunny

I had intended to just do a thumbnail to test my version of this AJE lesson, but I got a bit carried away.  I like this little guy and figured he could be my daily drawing instead of just a test thumbnail........

Experiment gone awry

It is storming and the lightening flashes had me breaking out my crayons to try experimenting with wax resist.  From the sorry state of my experiments, I think I need to do more experimenting, LOL!!

R1 net surfing

Just a quick sketch of R1...

Artful Journaling Explorations Class Lesson 1

We  are off to a fun start in Laure Ferlita's class, Artful Journaling Explorations.  This is from a photo R2 took at the zoo...

 

Venting

I was soooooo angry with R2's baseball coach tonight!!  Thankfully, I had my sketchbook and gear in my bag and vented with a little cathartic cartoon violence...  Grrrr!!!!

TV Doodling

Can you tell what show we were watching??

 

Snoopy

Peanuts has always been a favorite of DH's family and he's passed the tradition onto the kiddos...

Gnomeo and Juliet

Another late night, early morning---Uggg!! Can you tell tonight's movie was Gnomeo and Juliet?  The best part of the movie was the Red Gnomes and Blue Bunnies.  Hi-larious!!

Bridges as Cogburn

I was feeling sick and puny so I spent the day as a couch potatoe and ended up watching the remake of True Grit with the kiddos.  It was OK and Jeff Bridges did a good job as Rooster Cogburn, but I still prefer John Wayne.  It's hard to top the best. Like I said, I'm feeling puny so I just inked up a quick scribble for tonight...

Demented Dino

R2 requested this drawing of a scheming dinosaur...

Chillin' Bear

I was playing around posing Da Bear, aka ffred ted, aka Yoga Beara ( he just can't settle on a name!) and he insisted on being in my journal today.  He's great for posing since I took him apart and inserted a pop-bead adjustable skeleton into him.  He's nice and squishy cuddly like all Beany bears, but he can be molded into all sorts of positions a normal Beany can't hold.

AJF Finale

I had sooo much fun in theis class, Artful Journaling Foundations by Laure Ferlita!! It was amazing!!

Playing around

R4 was playing around with his video games and I wanted to play with my shiny new Noodler's Flex pen, so we made a deal.  He says I can sketch him anytime for as long as I like as long as he gets to play video games, LOL!!!  Not a bad deal for him, since we've been cracking down on how much time he spends gaming. 

This was just a quick and dirty sketch, but I really like the Noodler's Flex pen.  It would be wonderful to take into the field instead of my pricey vintage flex pens.  At only $15 dollars I wouldn't be heartbroken if I lost it somewhere...

Monkeying Around

One of the stuffed animals hanging around my desk...

Dewdrops Lesson

From Laure Ferlita's Imaginary Virtual Trip to the Garden...

Dewdrop Practice

Practice for Laure Ferlita's class, Imaginary Virtual Trip to the Garden...

Venus Flytrap

A hungry little plant, LOL!!

AJF 11

Another late night, early morning, uggg!!  Catching up in Laure's class..

Art Journaling Foundations #10

Every Day in May is obviously over, so now I'm back to doing my homework from Laure Ferlita's Art Journaling Foundations class...  I didn't get the 'puter back from R1 till late so I'm posting early in the morning on the 2nd, but since I'm still up it is officially still the first, LOL!!

Spray Bottle

Every Day in May-- EDM131, draw a spray bottle.

School Supplies

Every Day in May-- EDM 130, Draw school supplies.

R3

Every Day in May-- EDM129, draw a person doing something.

View Thru a Doorway

Every Day in May-- EDM128, draw a view thru a doorway from one interior room to another.  I didn't really like this topic and put it off until late at night.  I halfheartedly scribbled the view thru the walkway seperating our sunroom and breakfast/ hearthroom.  This is my little corner for drawing with windows everywhere and bookshelves and rolling supply carts for all my art junk.

Skyscape

Every Day in May-- EDM 127, draw a skyscape.  There have been way too many bad tornadoes this year.  Luckily they have all missed our area and our friends that live in Joplin where a monster one hit are ok.

 

Sponge

Every Day in May-- EDM 126, draw a sponge.

Bluejay

Every Day in May-- EDM125, draw a bird.

Tweety

Every Day in May--EDM 124, draw something yellow.