Illustration Friday "Pioneer"

My sister and I loved building snow forts when we were kids. Dad and the snowplow always made giant piles at the end of the driveway for us to dig into. In our little "igloos" we'd build shelves and benches out of snow, and make up imaginary scenarios for hours. Our woolen mittens would be wet and caked with mini frozen snowballs, and our feet would be numb before we would head back into the house to warm up.

Merry Christmas to all!

Too many hours in the sun,

Mr. Snowman's come undone.

I've been experimenting with the "easy cut" block prints. This image was done in two stages with a lighter layer of blue printed first. Then I cut away a few more details and printed a darker blue blend over the top of the first print. The material is easier to cut than linoleum but it doesn't print well with a printing press because it is so soft and squashy. I used a baren to hand print this edition.

Illustration Friday---"Crunchy"

I must go through a jar of crunchy peanut butter every other week. No one else in the house eats it, but somehow the jar is always empty on a regular basis.

Happy Anniversary to my Mom and Dad! Still dancing in harmony after 52 years!

Illustration Friday---Entangle

Thanksgiving is over, so I guess it's time to think about the Christmas decorations. Not quite ready for the tree yet, hopefully next weekend we can make the trek to the Christmas tree farm and cut down the perfect (or near perfect) one.

This week's Illustration Friday is "music," so for today I'm putting up an illustration of a card I created a few years ago based on my friend's cats.

Visited the Rose Gallery at Brandeis U. on Sat. where some of the best pieces from their permanent collection are on display. Some big names from the world of contemporary art such as Picasso, Cezanne, Chagall, Magritte, Lichtenstein, Warhol, Nevelson, DeWitt, Chicago, Motherwell, and de Kooning, as well as others. It's a small museum and free to the public. There had been several articles in the Globe recently about their financial woes and the threat to sell off some of the works to raise funds. It is worth visiting---this show goes through May.

Illustration Friday---Unbalanced

When baking, there is nothing more frustrating than finding a part of the cake still stuck to the pan. Then having to try to reassemble the pieces and hide them under the frosting.

Studies of kids for my art room story.

Illustration Friday---"Blur"

Getting some work done on my "A is for Art Room" picture book idea. I set up the text for each page of a storyboard and am trying to create a cast of characters to inhabit the art room. Feel like there should be other ongoing stories happening to various kids throughout the pages, as well as the alphabet vocabulary and descriptions.

Illustration Friday----"Skinny"   Thanks to my daughter Emily, as she gave me the idea. I couldn't think of anything original for this theme.

Happy Halloween!

Started this image last week for the Illustration Friday prompt "Frozen". Missing those carefree days of late summer, I guess. Just yesterday I realized Christmas was exactly two months away. I love the season but hate the hustle and bustle of the commercial end of the holiday. As soon as Halloween is over, it's going to be relentless!

It is only October 17th and the sky is spitting some snow flakes. Just a prelude to what we have to look forward to.

Need to get back to my ABC's in the art room story! Hope to have a few new sketches posted soon.

Lots of germs floating around my school. Fortunately, I am always washing my hands because of messy art materials. Today it was charcoal. 

This is the final stage of the glue print. I added a layer of black block printing ink to the watercolored print.

This is the print that I made from the watercolored plate

I created a glue print from a contour drawing of  some flowers in my garden. In this picture I  am adding watercolor to the plate before I will print it on damp paper.

Since it has been such a hectic week for me, I thought I would post the charcoal drawing that I have been working on at school. My drawing class has been learning how to do a charcoal reduction still life of white objects. This is my example of how to use the vine charcoal and the kneaded eraser to bring out light and dark values on a piece of white paper covered with a layer of charcoal. Still kind of loose and rough---a  work in progress.

Illustration Friday "pattern"

Finally finished the 7 day challenge in about 12 days! 

This is the Day 6 image of the 7 day challenge. I'm a little behind schedule but hope to finish it up this weekend. The teacher in this illustration reminds me a little of my elementary school art teacher, Mrs. Cilley. She was my idol in grade school! She'd come to our room with her cart of supplies every week. I remember we had to mix powdered tempera paint in little cups. It was always so clumpy, never smooth. I loved when we drew and colored with craypas. She would often read us a fairy tale and we would have to illustrate a scene. One story was about a nightingale and an emperor. Another was Jack in the Beanstalk. I still remember the drawings. I wish I could find a picture of Mrs. Cilley to bring back more memories.

I used to spend a lot of time doodling and daydreaming too.

It's nice to see the sun today after all of the rain on Saturday. Hate to miss even one day of late summer sunshine. Hard to look out the window on work days and see the beautiful day I'm missing. I still am seeing at least one hummingbird hanging around the yard. They should be heading south soon. There were 6 male cardinals in the shrubs around the bird feeder yesterday. Quite the show of color on a dreary day. Also saw a large flock of about a dozen turkeys on a neighbor's lawn last week as I was heading to work.

Changing gears a bit with my character. The Day 2 girl seemed a little too old looking for the character that I was envisioning. I spent several hours on a drawing today that I'm not going to even post because the character again turned out to be older than I wanted. I am happier with this illustration. This little girl is more in line with the style and age of the first post of the challenge.

Trying to play around with different perspectives for my character. She seems to know who she wants to be, so I guess I'll just go along for the ride.

Starting the 7 day challenge initiated by Ann Marie. The challenge is to draw the same character for a week in different poses, environments, and situations. Should be fun!

Harvesting the last of the tomatoes in my garden. We've been eating tomatoes with every meal if possible. Seems kind of sad that the window of opportunity to eat fresh ripe tomatoes is so short, and the rest of the year one has to rely on the grocery store facsimiles. Also taking advantage of the local corn; it's been so delicious! What a fabulous Labor Day Weekend! You couldn't ask for nicer weather to enjoy some end-of-the summer activities.

Looking forward to the weekend! Hope to get outside and enjoy these beautiful September days. It's been a busy week trying to get back into the swing of things with work. Hard to make the adjustment from an open schedule to an extremely structured one. But I do love my job, and it's always exciting to see the creativity of my students! 

It's my last day of summer vacation! Time to get focused on a new school year, and also time to get focused on new goals for my own art work.

Seems like summer just flew by! I can't believe I'll be back to work next week. My 180 day challenge will be to work full time and blog on a regular basis. Took my oldest daughter back to college yesterday, and then headed for the beach with her sister to spend a few afternoon hours enjoying the sun and surf. Today I visited the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Garden with a friend from work. It was great weather to wander around the grounds viewing the various sculptures. The inside exhibit was Weird Folk Art and it was mostly weird. Not my favorite exhibition, but it was interesting to read about the artists' motivations behind their work.

I really appreciate the comments on my posts---it keeps me motivated, especially now that my schedule is going to get busier!

This illustration was inspired by the IF word of the week: caution---watch out for those burning rays! I was fortunate to be able to go to the beach one day last week and had my first real swim of the year---a dive into the waves, wet my hair plunge!

Mouse landed on the soft ground outside of the pool area. He scrambled to his feet and ran toward his home as fast as his tired body could go. Later, as he lay back in his cozy nest, listening wistfully to the sounds of the children in the distance, he thought, "I bet, with a little more practice, I could do a double flip.

Mouse peeked through half closed lids at the blue sky. He felt like he was floating on a cloud, a cloud that bounced a little up and down. Then in an instant his view changed, and he found himself falling onto the ground.

Suddenly Mouse was startled awake as he found himself being lifted from the water. He was moving through the air but he didn't dare to even wiggle a whisker.

Even as Mouse shivered in the watery little hole on the side of the pool, he found himself getting very sleepy. As the sun rose over the trees, mouse dozed off and floated out of the hole and into the deep end of the pool.

Mouse swam into the nearest hole and made himself very tiny. He shivered from fear and the coolness of the water and the night air.

Mouse's heart pounded as he paddled to keep afloat in the water. He saw the owl circle around and land on the roof of the bathhouse; a perfect spot to watch for a little mouse climbing out of the pool.

Happy Birthday Dad!

Mouse threw himself off the diving board and plummeted into the water.

Mouse looked up to see the owl almost upon him!

Just finished up a painting of a friend's birdhouse in his front yard. He has beautiful gardens!

Went to the League of NH Craftsmen Fair yesterday in Sunapee with one of my art teacher colleagues. We thought it was excellent overall, with the quality of work extremely high. It's always a great event and the lovely weather was a bonus! I'm mainly a "window shopper" and idea gatherer, but I did find the perfect mug for my tea.

Seeing Rose Breasted Grosbeaks at the feeder again, as well as the usual mix of cardinals, house and carolina wrens, blue jays, gold finches, house finches, nuthatches, woodpeckers, mourning doves, crows, and grackles. It's a perfect morning when I can have my tea and read the newspaper on the porch and enjoy the birds and plants.

Mouse practices his dives.

Mouse climbs upon the diving board and prepares for his first dive.

Mouse watches the children swimming at the town pool.

Illustration Friday "Idle" Finally feels like summer today!

Finished this small painting today of my daughter and my cousins' dog, Gage. I found out that he had to be put to sleep recently due to old age. I'm sending it off to them in memory of their dog who lived a long and happy life.

Revisited my idea of a story about a mouse that wants to practise his diving at the local swimming pool. Need to work on the story itself to see if it has possibilities!

The hummingbirds are aggressively chasing each other other around the yard today. I saw one bird "muscle in" on a butterfly to get him off a bee balm flower this morning. They do not tolerate any competition! Also had a great blue heron fly low through the yard today, and then land in our neighbor's yard. That's unusual---I've never had one so close to the house, usually they are at the nearby lake or flying way up high over the house. Maybe it was a young one that got confused.

Week one of the 3 week challenge is completed. It's been a good motivator so far! Also got me looking back at projects and concepts that might be worth a second look.