Family and Friends

Tags

altered art, art journal, coffee, family, friends, gratitude journal, sketch, tulips

Friday I met some new friends of mine at a local coffee shop and we walked from there to the house of one of them. It has been so lovely getting to know them. Spring is coming and it is wonderful to be able to get outside and walk. The air was still a bit nippy, but the company and coffee kept me warm. My nephew and his wife and son came over for dinner on Saturday. My mom joined us. It was a lovely day with simple food and flowers and good company. My son was so great playing with the little guy so the grown-ups could talk. Here is a sketch I did from a photo of the little guy. He was playing piano but here it looks like he is smelling the flowers.

“Spring” is a sketch I did for a card I made for one of my new friends. She is in my yoga class and we have taken to going out for coffee after class. This was an award for her for cleaning up after her 3 dogs now that all the winter snow has exposed an entire winter’s worth of poo. If you look closely you can see that the letter R has a foot stepping in something. This amused my son and I for hours.

 

You may have noticed that I am really grateful for coffee. It is more that I am grateful for the social aspect and the sense of community. However, I really do enjoy a good cup of coffee. My husband is also ubiquitous in my journal. I am so fortunate to have him in my life.

My robin is a little off, but overall I feel pretty good with my increasing sketching. I am also feeling more comfortable with using the Inktense pencils. I’m not entirely happy with the orange of his breast, but I feel like I’m getting better at undertones. I guess I will need to keep practicing! Yeah!

Birds Returning

Tags

altered art, art journal, gratitude journal, Horicon Marsh, lettering, sandhill crane, sketch, zentangle

This week I have really been focusing (when possible) on expanding my lettering styles and drawing in general. I am specifically working on drawing birds. I had been looking for a stamp of a robin and not finding quite what I was looking for. I thought – I should just dedicate this same amount of time to drawing birds and I won’t need a stamp AND I will have drawn a lot of different birds, too. I love spring. The poem, the birds, the fresh air and pasty white legs. The fonts that I copied for these pages were Gigi and Harrington.

Friday was a day without focus. I had my eyes dilated for an eye exam (that went really well) so I had a very restful day. I drew this picture of my dilated eye at a later date. The Zentangled flower on the facing page is from my traveling tangle kit. It was completed in waiting rooms, specifically at the orthodontist while waiting to see if the young man could get his braces off. Not quite yet.

I bought this beautiful bird tissue paper at the Horicon Marsh visitors’ center. This is one of my favorite places in Wisconsin. If you love birds like my family and I do this is such a treasure. My mom and I stopped by to see what we could see. Unfortunately the birds and I needed our down coats. It was too cold for exploration, but I had a nice time with my mom. Then I used one of the birds from the tissue paper for my model for the bird on the next page.

http://dnr.wi.gov/topic/lands/wildlifeareas/horicon/