Great Creatures of the Sea

They read a passage this morning in church from Psalms 148.  One verse in particular caught my attention, verse 7. "Praise the Lord from the earth you great sea creatures and all ocean depths, " and I began to think that all of nature does praise the Lord. Humans, who were given free choice, are the only one of God's creations that don't as a rule. 

Guess I had sea creatures on the brain this afternoon.  This was meant to be a moon jellyfish.  As I was drawing it I kept thinking it looked like a lampshade and old curtains and then I began to think of my hometown where we are venturing to this week. I thought of all the powdery old ladies from from childhood and I began to think of this old girl here in the same way. I don't know what color jellyfish are. Doesn't matter. This one wears lime-colored chiffon and white cotton gloves. She smells of lemon verbena and rosewater and she makes THE BEST pecan pie you've ever tasted. Also she will pinch your head off if she is close enough and you are talking during church. I think I'll call her the church lady. And I mean that in the best possible way.

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This is drawn in my watercolor moleskine, (I also added a little watercolor wash and a quick swipe with colored pencils) which you can see is somewhat oddly shaped and difficult to deal with, especially to scan. But there was another old grand dame in that book so I decided they would be great companions. These are definitely not girls to be trifled with. A couple of sea creatures have made appearance in this sketchbook as a matter of fact.

No work for me this week! Yippe! I'd like to do a couple more drawings before we head out of town on Wednesday but I have given myself an absolute "no schedule" rule for this week, so maybe I'll get something else posted and then again maybe I'll see you in a couple of weeks.

Have a blessed, wonderful week. I am overflowing with gratitude today. And that is a GOOD THING!

(I love those little fish. I draw them all the time. Poor things are always being put in harm's way.)

A Little Green...

Green ballpoint and colored pencils. Happy St. Pat's Day!

Taking Inventory

I have now equalled the number of canvases I painted last year. One. Just finished. You can even see where there are still patches of wet paint, on an otherwise poor quality photo. Sorry for the shine. But let's be honest here, I barely know what I'm doing. I certainly don't know how to photograph paintings. Call it Taking Inventory, you know like the next time I loose my marbles I can remember what they looked like. I can also remember a feeling of peace. FYI - the very last marble is Peace. Very important marble to have in your bag of marbles. Also love is represented, and anger, and fear, and hope, etc. 

How do you like those...marbles?

Ok, so this is what I've done for most of my weekend. Several of the nights during the week as well. It's amazing how calm and peaceful you can feel sitting hunched over a paintbrush for hours on end. I've thought many, many grand thoughts and I've thought nothing at all. I've listened to music and prayed and thought about every person in my life. Lucky thing about this hobby. You don't get great legs like you do when you play tennis but you can get reacquainted with yourself and that is a GOOD thing.

So, no new sketches. Just this old thing. Mind you, it's not finished (two marbles haven't even been started) and I've had A LOT of frustrating moments. But I just walk away and go watch an episode of Deadliest Warrior or something with Carsen and eventually I wander back into my room and go about trying to fix whatever looks so wrong. Funny thing, I've started to think of each of these marbles as different character traits. Did I mention I've spent a lot of time alone locked up in my room?

Shout out to Pop for helping me hang a shelf (feel free to read that as doing all the work while I stood beside him him holding out the screws). That alone inspired me to start organizing the "studio" again and I managed to clear out enough room for Carsen to sit at the counter and work on his screenplay while I painted tonight and we listened to his new Reliant K cd. Spending time with your kid gathering your marbles = nice evening. Really nice. I highly recommend it.

Here's hoping this peaceful feeling lasts all week. And for you as well.

Trying to Gather my Marbles...

I have marbles on the mind. And pirates. And frogs and turtles. And birds. And not much time or energy to put any of these mental pictures onto paper. Truth is I've been in the doldrums for most of the last two months. I need to draw. Need to remember how nice it feels to make silly pictures.

Here is a quick watercolor of marbles. I am trying to teach myself transparency and man, am I having trouble. Please don't look too carefully. I'm no good with watercolors, the paper warped horribly and I don't even think the marbles are round anymore. But that's the only new piece I have to post other than this silly drawing from my desk calendar at work:

That's Rigoberto the Squid-Armed Pirate. I hesitate to publish it because my sister said it looked like the tentacles were coming out of his pants. Well! They're not, ok?! Just a rough sketch, ok? Sheesh! If Rigoberto lives on, he will be posed in a more appropriate fashion in the future. Promise.

I am also being pulled back toward a former fixation, birds. Don't ask why. I can't stand the little buggers in real life but I am fascinated with their feathers and form. As soon as I finish the big marble painting I started a couple of weeks ago (and then abandoned), I'm headed for the birds (and turtles, I think). Here are some old studies from sketchbooks.

Have a fabulous, lovely weekend!

Good Things

Good things are churning in my head this morning. I think that's why I have a monster of a headache. I woke at 5 this morning, an idea for a painting and a fun children's book character firmly locked into my mind. The character, already named Rigoberto (shout out Todd) I can sketch this afternoon, and I can began preliminary sketches for the painting as well. I hesitate to do too much advance work on the painting, I've been known to get bored quickly with a subject and been satisfied with small painted studies or even quick sketches. Problem is, I need a big square canvas and I live in the sticks. I wish inspiration had struck yesterday while I was in town birthday shopping with my son, but that's how it goes.

So what does that have to do with the picture, Michelle? Nothing. I just like this drawing. It's more than three years old and I think my skills have advanced a bit since then. Sometimes I want to clean it up, but maybe I like it because it's loose and messy. This is from a Eudora Welty book of photographs of Mississippi. I recently watched Oh Brother Where Art Thou and this same scene appeared. I've been thinking about it since.  I didn't have anything new to share this week (yet) so I decided to hit the archives. 

Have a blessed week.

Dry Spells

Sometimes all it takes to wreck a creative streak is one bad drawing. Like this, for example:

     This one, a rather blurry rendering of a Harris's Hawk, set me back weeks. I was quite happy with it at first and then I began to wish I'd never seen a ballpoint pen.
      Finally today, while watching season 4 of the IT Crowd and season 2 of 24 on an unexpected snow day, I picked up a sketchbook lying by the bed and began to draw what was between me and the TV. This:

This was drawn in a sketchbook with a bit of a theme; clothes, closets and accessories. (What? You don't have sketchbooks with themes?) I decided to include a couple of other entries to make up for the long dry spell. First the flyleaf, a drawing of clothing tags I had set aside to include on a scrapbook page one day. (between you and me, I don't really think that will ever happen). The second is of a pair of Thai watered silk ballet flats. In reality they are more olive colored but I didn't have the correct color in a ballpoint pen. 

(pardon the post-it note covering my address...)

Happy Snow Day everyone!