drawing again

three stages of the drawing

Drawing is a bit therapeutic for me. I always tell myself I'm too tired to do it, but it is energizing when I go ahead and do it anyway. I've been working on this little piece for my little sister at her request. But doing it reminded me how much I love the design aspect of drawing. It's not just about replicating what you see, it's about making it better-designing each shape and making the whole work together. Especially because graphite simply doesn't have the value range of nature. You can't get a really dark black, and most paper isn't super white-so it's fun to work within those limits and make it a bit your own. I think I'm going to start doing some more drawing!

etsy here I come . . .

So I've been wrestling with opening an etsy shop ever since I found out about it, over a year ago. I have many excuses for not starting one: It would take too much time, I would spend my time thinking about that instead of my little boy, I don't have anything to sell. But the real culprit is simply that I don't think I could sell anything. I'm afraid nobody else would want my stuff and I would put all that work into it for nothing. So I suppose I have put it off for a year for fear of failure. But, thanks to Candace's nudges over at Sparkle Power, I have finally decided to get creative and just do it. The more I think about it the more ideas I have, and yes, today my poor little boy was neglected. But he got to watch lots of great movies. We'll try not to do it again. It may still be a week or two before it opens, but here is a preview of one of the things I would like to put in the shop as a print (I'm still looking for a printer):

calligraphy

this is for you Alicia: my Carolingian calligraphy assignment with the decorated versal. It's the only one I have hanging up at the moment so it's the only one that got photographed. You should go and finish yours now!

painting again

So while we were on vacation visiting family, I was able to go to my dad's painting class twice. I miss painting every week, that's for sure. I picked up a vase from Ikea and painted some flowers in it the first time around. (above) The second one I did was also a white vase but with purple and light green flowers. It was still wet so I left it at my parents, alas I didn't take pictures of it first. But since I don't have that one, I thought I would include one of my very favorite paintings: three tulips and a sugar jar. I LOVE tulips, and I loved the expensive canvas this little 11x11 painting uses. It was heavenly to paint on. Plus I love the bright happy colors.