Spike & Sushi.

Dear Mike,

Thanks for letting me draw your doggies. Sorry it took so long.

They need a little more work before I send them to you, but I think I've almost got all the fuzz in.

Chickadee

Thought the chickadee should get some face time since I've been blabbing about him so much.

Here's what I have learned about birds: they have too many feathers.

Japanese Maple

I'm very tired of drawing plants.

Today has a strange, discombobulated feel to it. We ended up home at loose ends, and the sky has gone from bright to cloudy. I love Autumn and the special energy that happens in the air at this time of year.

This afternoon, despite the plant-weariness, I decided to try the maple leaves. They weren't very fun, but strangely fulfilling. It reminded me of an early art class where the instructor was trying to get us to draw what we saw rather than what we thought we saw. We were disallowed from looking at the paper and told to let our eye travel along the edge of what we were drawing - slowly - so that our pencil could reflect every change, and keep up.

This only happened a little bit here. It's easy to let our minds make patterns. They really want to. It did come somewhere close to what I imagine meditation might feel like though. There's a point where the chatter stops and it feels nice.

Then the chickadee came down and announced that it wanted sunflower seeds so I gave him some. He and his little friend popped right over and ate them.

My husband came out and I told him what happened with the birds, saying, "I didn't realize they could think things through like that. Their little brains seem too small."

And my husband said, "They are. They can only do simple math."

Geranium

Shoes.

Keeper.

Thanks for letting me draw your dog. It was fun.

Blacktip Pup.

Second pass at this picture. That hand is at a weird angle so it ends up looking like a mannequin/robot. A hint of a hand seems to be O.K. The shark was better last time though.

C'est la vie.

Blacktip Shark

The Blacktip Shark is pretty. I'll definitely do a few more of these.

Shark.

Having a tough time finding subject matter again. Also finding it strangely difficult to keep the image confined in the space.

I think I'm going to do sharks for a while. Then maybe octopus, then jellyfish, then eels or crabs.

No promises, but it sounds fun right now.

Tote bag & chair.

I don't hate it. I don't love it either though.

You've missed a few. Part of being in the habit of doing this every day (or pretty close to) is that mistakes are made. Sometimes fatal mistakes.

That's good.

When this blog started, I was going to post everything - whether it sucked or not. But then I thought that taking pride in the output is a good thing. Nobody wants to look at pictures that blow (I know, make up my mind, which is it?), just like nobody wants to read a dull story or watch a terrible movie.

And so standards are set further. This doesn't meet them, but it will do. I guess this is the line.

feet.

So. When I named this thing I really didn't anticipate the focus on feet. I always liked drawing them, but didn't think about it much. Plus, have you looked up what "foot cookie" is a term for? Pretty gross. I didn't know that either.

Last night, I was tucked up on the couch and saw my feet criss-crossed and it looked kind of neat, so we replicated today. That's right. I said I looked at my own feet, then used the word "neat" and then referred to myself in the plural. You can leave now and there won't be any hard feelings. I understand.

But if you're a foot person, hey - today's your lucky day.

Mine too. I really, really like this one.

There's a signature here because Lance said there should be.

Birch leaves.

I was not enthusiastic about the Birch leaves. I originally tried drawing an abandoned bucket of sidewalk chalk...but come on. It went like this: cylinder, cylinder, cylinder, cylinder...you get the picture.

So, because this is becoming a habit, when four-o-clock rolls around I'm out, examining little pieces of this or that on the ground. Scanning what I usually overlook to find something interesting in the mundane.

I came back to this little twig that fell from the Birch out back and decided to give it a go. The second time around, I fell in love with its delicate leaf edges and little-bitty stalks. An unexpected bit of fun. Everything was so tiny I had to get even more fussy and OCD than usual with keeping the pencil sharp and such.

Just the way I like it.

leg.

We're seriously hurting for subject matter around here.

Seriously.

lady.

Today I went to the Art Museum for this sketch thing they were doing there. This is from a photograph that was hanging in the gallery.

It was fun to break the routine of flipping through books or looking for cats or plants.

cat.

This is dammy. She's not so smart, but she has the cutest eyes I ever saw. Too bad they're closed here.

We fell apart in the ear department. I need to learn how to capture the fuzz.

Mouse.

Keys.

Oh my god, the keys were actually fun.

Color me shocked.

Fuschia.

These never get old.


Yes they do.



P.S. Thanks to the chickens for rejuvenating my interest in this thing. Even though the fuschias are feeling tired, it was fun and nice to draw today.

Fence.

This is part of our fence. It was originally installed in 1966 or so and has a cool basket-weave structure. It seems about as sturdy as it is private, but it must be sturdier because it's still here.

Bathead.

A day of meh.

Three of the seven sketches I did today.

feet.

Hello and welcome to my feet.

Houseplant.

Five-minute sketch. A step in the right direction. I need to let go a bit in general and stop being so fussy. When it flows, it's the best feeling in the world. When I get all clenched up, it stops being fun and starts being stressful. Kind of counterproductive.

Broken Feather

Hello. I am a trend-whore.



Drawing feathers is fun though. I can see why everybody's doing it.

Flower

I forget what these are called, but they're my favorites. Right now we have a few plants blooming. This one's red and dark purple, but the one in front is pink and white. It looks good enough to eat.