Happy Birthday to Carol and Karen

carol-and-karen1My sister and I celebrated our birthday together Saturday and a good time was had by all.  We had dinner at Jillian’s and after we shot a little pool and the kids played in the arcade.  Rob and David gave Karen and I a gift certificate to the spa.  I have to admit that they did pretty good.  I have never been and I’ve wordered what the  hype was about.  And now I get to find out.   This morning when I woke up a couple of sleepy faces wished me a happy birthday, I got a card from David, Vicki sent me a birthday post card and I got this fudge ice cream cake that was tonight’s dessert.  Man, that thing was tastey!!!!    

         Below is a quick sketch of a cupcake that I did.

HAPPY         BIRTHDAY      KAREN!

cupcake2

This will be the last post until after the holidays.  I hope everyone has a Very Merry Christmas!

Catching Up with Christmas

christmas-cookies

   Alana and I put up the tree last night and wrapped what gifts we had so far.  I have to admit that I do feel a little better about the approaching holidays.   This evening we made a bunch of Christmas goodies.  We made Peanut Butter Fudge, Brownies, Muddy Buddies, chocolate dipped pretzels, Chocolate chip cookies and oatmeal raisin cookies for David.    My house smelled sooo good and I was enjoying the smell of chocolate and peanut butter in the air, but I had to ruin it by making burgers for supper.   

I don’t have much to add tonight, but I thought I would share my progress report.

Sweet Dreams…

edm-3-bed-22EDM #5 Draw your bed

Colored pencil on drawing paper

 Nope, my sheets and pillow case doesn’t match. (shhhhhhh don’t tell anyone)   I was dreading this challenge so I had been skipping around.  But this is finally done! Yippee!   It seems like I am dreading alot these days.  I don’t have  my Christmas tree up, I haven’t finished Christmas shopping, and I don’t have the presents that I actually have even wrapped.  I am usually done by now.  I am going to have to work double time to catch up.  Bah Humbug!   I better catch up over the weekend before I get visited by the Ghosts of Christmas past, present and future. 

My art Space. . .Free admission

An EDM member wanted to see our artspace, I really didn’t want to.  My artspace  isn’t as nice as alot I have seen but then I thought what the heck I need something to post anyway and she’s really nice. I like my space, I might as well admit to it.  So, welcome to the bat cave.   We bought this house a couple of years ago at a time when you didn’t get a bang for your buck or even a mild fizzle.  Yep, at the height of real estate prices and a seller’s market. I saw  a  turtle sell his shell for $200,000 in 3 days.    We had just sold a fairly large two-story house from back home and  it was way too much for the three of us.   Since I hate to clean, can’t afford a housekeeper, and my chick-a-dee will be going off to college in about 5 years I thought a smaller house was the only logical solution.  And it is, but I still hate to clean!!!!!   

     We have a guest room, but the blue couch  in my room folds out into another bed.  The bookshelves are GREAT and it makes everything easy to find (If I put it back where it is suppose to go.)  We will remodel this room, but it will be the last room we do.  However, we do plan on mounting the TV on the wall, put new doors up (closet and entry) and getting a smaller desk.  I am thinking about instead of getting a desk, getting a kitchen island on cassiters.   That way I can move wherever the light is good or wherever the mood stikes me to go.  We will have to put vinyl flooring  in to protect the wood floor from paint.  If we ever decide to sell the house I don’t want the floor to be ruined by paint splatters.

  

Click on images to make larger

Sorry, one of the labels are wrong on my picture 2nd row pic.1:  Watercolor is actually Drawing.

I have lots of ideas for this room, but I keep most of them under my hat.  I don’t want to scare hubby to death.   I don’t draw in here alot, but I do spend a lot of time in here.  .  . I am on the computer, I watch a little TV and I like to curl up with coffee and read in here when David’s not trying to use this as a storage room.  But when my family is home I like to hang out with them so then my artspace becomes the  bed, the living room or the kitchen.

The string you see hanging down is my ceiling fan cord and if you click on the bed picture and look in the bottom right you will see our dog with his head under the bed.   Sam (the dog) usually puts his head and front paws way under the bed and his pack paws under the chest of drawers.  Most times he gets stuck, and looks like a worm trying to get out.  I would help, I mean I should and could, but it’s just too darn funny to watch.  Well that’s the end of our tour.

My Sweetie Pie…

Graphite on Bristol Board

portrait-of-alana3From December 2 Post

(When I wasn’t cooking or visiting I was drawing a picture of my daughter. I wasn’t expecting much, since it was my second portrait, although it  was going slow it was going really well.  I had spent about 18-20 hours total.  It’s a pretty large drawing at 14 x 17 and when I was doing the finishing touches, my eraser left 2 drag marks across her cheek.  The marks weren’t noticeable until I put down a layer graphite and there it is!  It looks almost like a grease spot with pencil marks on top.  Needless to say, I was heartbroken and I must confess I was close to tears.  I mean that was a lot of work that is completely unsalvageable.  At first I thought it was the paper, but using the same eraser on a different paper the same thing happened.  So another lesson I have learned is to NEVER use a white eraser no matter what the drawing books say, just use a kneaded eraser and pat . )  I decided to post the picture anyway.   portrait-2-alana3Below is the same picture with the spots circled so you could see what I was talking about.  I have tried many times to get the likeness right in other drawings.  But for some reason I can’t capture her as well as I did in this portrait.   So…… this is my beautiful little girl Alana spots and all.  There is alot of pressure in drawing portraits rather than other subjects.  I mean if the smallest thing is off, it looks nothing like the person.  My favorite part of drawing this portrait is the hair.  I could have drawn each individual strand.  I guess drawing all that fur on animals paid off. 

David was very helpful and would tell me when I needed to change something.   I think he is going to be next on my hit list. 

Polymer Earrings

vickis-earrings-11 We had a great Thanksgiving!  We ate way too much on Thursday and had plenty of leftovers.  On Friday we went to see David’s mom, aunt, sister and one of his brothers.  We haven’t seen them in quite a while, and it was great catching up.  Then, we carted my daughter off to a sleep over.  When I wasn’t cooking or visiting I was drawing a picture of my daughter. I wasn’t expecting much, since it was my second portrait, although it  was going slow it was going really well.  I had spent about 18-20 hours total.  It’s a pretty large drawing at 14 x 17 and when I was doing the finishing touches, my eraser left 2 drag marks across her cheek.  The marks weren’t noticeable until I put down a layer graphite and there it is!  It looks almost like a grease spot with pencil marks on top.  Needless to say, I was heartbroken and I must confess I was close to tears.  I mean that was a lot of work that is completely unsalvageable.  At first I thought it was the paper, but using the same eraser on a different paper the same thing happened.  So another lesson I have learned is to NEVER use a white eraser no matter what the drawing books say, just use a kneaded eraser and pat .  SO now I am back to the drawing board (literally).  Hey, that’s a good name for my blog isn’t it!  Well, I guess all is not wasted!

The earrings above are a thank you gift for Aunt Vicki that I made out of polymer clay.  A while back she sent my daughter a box full of long sleeved tye-dyed shirts that she made.  They are beautiful, and she gets so many complements at school.  I noticed on Vicki’s blog that she dyed some turtle necks for herself, so I thought I’d  twist some polymer in the same colors to match her shirts.  I opted not to sand the blemishes and bits out, and left them in free form.  They were a really fun project.  I didn’t realize how much I missed beading and my polymer.   Check out Vicki’s blog “Fieldtrips in Fiber”  in my blogroll.   She’s always doing something good.

The Tazmanian Devil….

EDM #98 Free Choice.  Draw anything you like.

Graphite on sketch

e-j-drawing    Well, I haven’t posted anything in a while, but I have been really busy trying to get ready for Christmas before the season actually gets here.  I will have lots to post after the hoildays.  I don’t want to spoil any surprises. 

     Well, this good lookin’ little fellow is my nephew.  He is the baby of the family, and we all have spoiled him rotten.  I got to keep him for a whole week over the summer.  It was his first time away from home for that long. We also live about six hours away, so he was a real trooper.   I wonder how many time-outs we caused him to get when he got home.  I hope he will get to visit next year. 

     This is my first completed portrait that’s not balled up in the trash.  I would love to give this picture to my brother, but I drew this with a grid and you can see squares all over it.  I was too pleased how it was coming along to throw it away.  I tried transfer it, but it didn’t work.  It definitely looks like him, well, atleast enough to resemble him.

Ink pens….

EDM#31 Draw something you collect

Ball point on copy paper

pens

When I was little I absolutely loved getting school supplies.  I would hid packs of paper under the bed and roll up every pen and pencil I could find in a rubberband.  I would get in so much trouble, because I lifted my brother and sisters’ stuff as well.   To this day I still can’t deny my love for a cool pen.  So, many moons ago, you can’t imagine my happiness working as a Patient Care Coordinator in a doctor’s office.  There were alot of perks that I miss:  free treatment with medication for colds and such,  the drug reps would bring us free lunch and cookies, then we would work half day Fridays.  But what I really enjoyed were the weird and crazy ink pens we would get.  Man, I loved those pens.  Patients would try to take them all the time, but I never let one slip by me.  I still have a lot of them even though they no longer write.  I guess I should throw them away…but…I probably won’t