goodbye january, hello february

Remember my 30-Day Challenge? I mentioned it in this post and asked, “What would you do for 30 days?”

Well, here’s what I did for January.

I know. Two pages of thumbnails. Big deal.

This is the start of a book I’ve had in my head for a while. It took me 30 days of writing, re-writing, crossing out, doodling and sketching, etc. just to get this far!!

But I feel like I’ve accomplished tons! My next 30-day challenge will be to start working on refining the characters a bit.

Which leads quite nicely into the 29 Faces Challenge going on this month. Check it out!! I did it last year and it was fun…a little stressful to complete a face a day…but fun!

This time, we have 28 days to do 29 faces. No pressure there!

Join us!

things i can't live without

Micron pens…I’ve tried others but always come back to these.
Sceptre Gold brushes…I would love to own pure sable brushes, but I’ll settle for a nice sable mix.
Technical pencil and lead pointer…I’ve had these since I was in college. They are old friends.

birch trees

My inspiration for these two pieces comes from one of my favorite movies, "Doctor Zhivago." During the Overture and opening credits, we see birch trees on a field of yellow and blue. It segues into live birch trees and we see the funeral of Yuri’s mother. I love, love, love this movie and the music is sublime!

Anyway, I used pages from a paperback book I bought to be the birch trees. Normally, I can’t bring myself to tear up books…old or new. However, this one is in Chinese and to me, I only see texture…not words. So my crazy, mixed up, logic allows me to tear up this book because it is full of texture and not words! That makes sense, right?

a good day to paint

I know I’ve not been around much lately. I have been in the studio. I’ve just been a bit of a slacker about scanning or photographing what’s going on. I have good intentions for today though.

I plan to put this ipod shuffle to work today. I get so much accomplished when I turn the music on!

tea party

Happy Friday!!

These images I painted a week or so ago, but only just got around to scanning and posting them today.

It’s been a busy few weeks at work…lots of overtime.

I was so excited about taking off today and had planned to get out and about. Sadly, I had a HUGE pile of laundry and nothing to wear but yoga pants. So first on my list…laundry.

And tea.

more kitchen stuff

Happy Friday to you all!

Just more doodles of stuff in the kitchen.

My countertops are actually black so I try to decorate with bright colors to liven up the joint a bit.

Bright colors just make me happy.

bananas

I’ll get back to the bananas in a minute.

The bad thing about working from home is that it is easy to become reclusive. When the weather turns cold, I NEVER, ever want to go out. Not ever.

And where I live it’s not even that cold. Mid-40s…not like up north where things are measured in negative numbers!!

I am forced by lower back pain to go swimming two evenings a week. But if I didn’t have someone to guilt me into going, I would find an excuse to skip it.

I’m good at excuses.

My husband is the grocery shopper in our house. It’s nice having food brought to you! I don’t mind cooking it, I just don’t like shopping for it. I prefer eating in to going out. But it’s more of a germ thing. I’ll save that for another time… (I’m starting to sound like Howard Hughes a little!! Trust me…I’m normal. Really.)

So this brings me back to bananas. I’m in sort of a drawing slump lately. Winter blahs? Maybe. So I just doodled these bananas from the kitchen.

a few more days....

I’ve still got a few more days left of my vacation so I’m trying to pack in lots of last minute things.

Relaxing. Playing card games with my grandson…who leaves tomorrow. Some cleaning. Lots of cooking. And eating.

And of course, some painting.