Month: March 2011

My family is the best!!  When I get  stumped for a drawing model they all pitch in with ideas.  R2 brought this toy down for me to draw tonight.  They are all super patient with me and put up with my delaying dinner or the DVD for the night because– ‘I’ll be finished drawing in a minute’ or ‘ Just let me post this real quick’.  How lucky can you be?

I think Mini Coopers are the cutest little cars ever!  I would love to have one, but there is no way a family of six would ever fit in one so I’m stuck with a minivan as my ride.  DH has promised when the kiddos start leaving the nest we can trade our current camping rig of an F250 Supercab and Trailmanor for a big motorcoach and a Mini Cooper as a tow vehicle, cool!!!  In the meantime, I’m trying to convince R1 or R2 that a Mini Cooper woud be a neat first car (so Mom can ‘borrow’ it).

In case you’re counting, this is day 48 in my insane 75 Day Direct Ink Drawing Challenge (all are blogged under the category Inky Fingers).  The idea is from here–Brenda Swenson’s 75 Day sketch Challenge.  I’m not really sure if all my drawings count since I got really bored, really fast with plain ink line drawings on white paper and decided to use background watercolor washes.  I also went with a lot of watersoluble pen and ink washes in the drawings themselves.  This way I get double the practice- drawing in ink only then playing with dissolving the ink into tones.  Ah, phooey, who am I kidding!!  The drawings were BORING in line only, putting in some tone by doing ink washes was the only way to keep going with this challenge.  On a positive note, this is a great  experience and a wonderful skill to learn for fast sketching.

There must be some unwritten rule that states that the weather must always be nasty for a graveside service.  It was really windy and chill out, but thankfully most of the snow missed us and what had fallen was melted by today.  It was a good thing that I always have earmuffs and Arctic 180s in my coat pockets and the glove box of every vehicle we own.  I could probably outfit a small army with earmuffs, but at least I always have them around when I need them, LOL!!

I’m going to go veg out with a movie, so this is a realllllly quick ink sketch playing with the brush end of a Tombow pen.

Did it ever occur to you just how much art is involved in putting on make-up?  We use brushes and powders, pencil eye and lip liners or mini felt tip liquid eye liners.  We take tiny paintbrushes and paint our nails.  Sounds a lot like the tools and talents used in making ‘real’ art. 

The kiddos had tons of wooden toys- blocks, cars, trains, even play swords.  Eventually we caved into the plastic commercial stuff, but I think the simple, classic toys fed their imaginations the most.

I’m discovering that drawing directly in ink is great for fast, fun work.  It’s hard to get uptight and fussy with this-  once a line is down, it’s down.  No redoing or fiddling just accept the good and bad and move on.  That is really freeing and fun, great for silly subjects!!!

Both R3 and I have really long hair, but it couldn’t be more different.  Mine is straight to wavy and feels pretty soft.  Hers is soooo thick and curly and coarse.  She wants straight hair. I would love curly hair.  I wish my red hair wasn’t getting darker, she hates her red highlights.  I can’t stand using a brush, she just rips through her hair with hers, OWWW!!!