Nobody chose my favorite rhinosnowman

Hi, hola, bonjour, etc etc. Obviously it has been awhile since my last blog post. In addition to not having a scanner, I was working on some paintings for gifts, so I couldn't post them here. I painted rhinocerpears and rhinosnowmen. Even though the rhinocerpears were much more difficult and time consuming, people seemed to like the rhinosnowmen the best. That's o.k.. While some people may think the rhinocerpears are just plain weird, I think they have a certain whimsy and quirkiness that I like. There was one rhinocerpear painting that I grew attached to and decided that it would be mine and I will post it here. I am also going to post my favorite rhinosnowman that nobody picked. I was almost relieved when nobody did as I wanted him for myself as well. I like the simplicity and the feel of the painting. It was maybe not as colorful as some of the others, but I think it captured a mood that I like. I specifically did not add anything that would be construed as a Christmas theme to these paintings as I didn't want to limit them to that two week or one month time frame. I almost painted a candy cane in one of their hands, but stopped myself.

Hope everyone is recovering from the Holidays. My vacation was cut a day or two short due to possible bad weather, so I am home today. It would normally be a work day. I actually have two more rhinosnowmen sketched out that I am going to paint as soon as I finish this blog post and then, since the precipitation seems to be just rain at this point, I am going out.

Elephants

I have two elephants works that I did this morning before work. I like the quick sketch better than the painting. Sometimes it works that way. You can spend 5 minutes on something and you like it better than something you spent an hour or more on.

More pears...

I decided to try another oil painting tonight. I want to play around more with the oils as I think they are more fun than acrylics. I like their creaminess. I don't think I can handle the regular oil paints because they are too messy and smelly, but the water soluble ones are good. I feel like I have blog rustiness. I usually just go "type type type" and I'm done. Tonight the typing isn't easy. I guess the only typing I'm used to these days is typing dialog for animated bears. As for the pears, it's a night time photograph with a flash and the colors are way off. In person they'r'e not so blue.

One of these days I'll post more drawings, but for now, here is another movie.

Another movie

Two sketches and some movies

Just as the title says, tonight I will provide you with two sketches and some movies. The first movie is my movie and the second is Joan's reply to my movie. One can go crazy with this these little movies. Every little mundane thing that happens now can be transferred into the bears lives and they make it seem not quite so mundane because talking bears with computer voices and English accents are just automatically funny. Thanks Joan for getting me into these bears.

Obviously I haven't been around much lately. Part of that is because I don't have a scanner at home and part is that my left click on my laptop mouse has been acting up and it has made computer stuff not as fun as it should be. This morning I fixed the problem by switching the "left click" to the right, so now I right click on the left and left click on the right. It's not even all that difficult with the laptop mouse. I think it might be more confusing with a regular mouse.





Edited to add thanks for giving me the rights to your movie, Joan.

A post without bears

I won't be using a British bear to deliver my blog entry tonight. I will just type it myself. I had done two cute little sketches this morning that I was going to scan while I was at work, but I forgot to scan them, so we will have to settle for this not so cute drawing that I did a week or so ago. This was a "copy" of a painting that was in one of my many books. I don't remember who the artist was but do know that he/she has been dead long enough that I won't get in trouble for not giving him/her credit. I do, however, remember the name of the painting as I found it quite amusing. You can also maybe see it, if you squint real hard, at the top of the scan. It is called "Woman with the Gambling Mania." Can't you just see that gambling mania in her eyes? I am going to be doing quite a few master copies in the months ahead as I signed up for an ATC (some of you may remember that ATCs are little 2 1/2" x 3 1/2" drawings or paintings) trade that will be focusing on copies of or works inspired by the old masters. I'm very much looking forward to this. I like creating ATCs and it's very fun to receive them in the mail from others as well.

Other than all of that, I don't have much to say, so I will stop before I just start typing for typing's sake.

In lieu of text, I will let bear me speak, so bear with me.

Edited to add some text because I didn't add it to the movie.
Socrates is a man. Socrates is bare. All men are bare.
Anne is a bear. Anne is clothed. All bears are clothed.

How horrible it would be to be a puppet's puppet or balloons that make everyone sad or angry...

I managed to scan a few drawings at work tonight, so at least I have something to post. One is just a little sketch of my monsters and the other was something I did for the weekend drawing event. Except it's not even the weekend anymore, so I don't even know if I will post it on the site.

I haven't been drawing all that much and I haven't done any painting at all lately. I have been trying to catch up on my nanowrimo writing. I have 18,000 words now, so I feel much better than I did a few days ago when I only had 9000, but I should be at about 25,000 at this point. I think I can still do it, but I have a bit of writing ahead of me.

The monsters are here...

I got my finger puppet monsters last night and today I did a little sketch of some of them. The real monsters moved a bit when I set them on the floor to photograph them, so they are no longer at the same angle as their sketched counterparts. I like to think these monsters wouldn't stay stationary for very long anyway. As I've mentioned, I do want to do some paintings, but I'll have to wait until tonight or tomorrow to get started. I rounded up some old batteries and I was able to find a combo that worked long enough for me to snap a few photos. I really do hate not having a scanner. It takes away all of my blogging inspiration and spontaneity. I like to draw something, scan it immediately and then do my blog post. If I draw something and then wait a few days to scan it at work, it's just not the same. When you get used to having a certain technology, it's hard to live without it. I would imagine that most people find it perfectly fine to not have a scanner, but they aren't into working with images on the Internet. To me, a scanner is almost a necessity. On the other hand, I've lived several months without t.v. and I'm perfectly fine with that, but a lot of people would find that unfathomable. And in their defense, I do have to say that I've still been watching t.v., but I've been watching on my computer.

As for the monsters, I know their speech isn't readable. The one is saying "George, I hears youse got scabies" and the other replies "yo mama got scabies." The nice monster, who is not so smart, is just saying "lalala."

I also snapped a photo of my pears. It was taken with a flash which is never good for paintings, but the light isn't good enough in here for me to do photography sans flash. I do want to paint a line of my monsters, just like these pears. I'll get to that one of these days.

Two versions of digital Blurgle Monster

OK, since I still don't have a working scanner and who knows when I will ever again, I decided to do something digital this afternoon. This is, as the title says two versions of the Blurgle Monster. I am rather attached to this guy and have plans to do an actual painting of him along with some other finger puppet monsters. I can't wait to get started. I don't have much to say today, so I will just leave you with the Blurgle Monsters and let them speak for themselves. They don't say anything other than "blurgle," but it can mean so many different things. You just have to listen to the tone.

Monsters!

I sketched this guy a couple of days ago. I call him the Blurgle Monster as I think that's what he looks like. A few years ago I bought a set of fingerpuppet monsters from Archie McPhee and I gave most of them away. Now I wish I had a few more as I would like to paint them (a line of them, like the line of pears in my last post). I think I have two left, although I can only find the one above. But, the one below should be around somewhere as well as I drew him last year and don't think I've given any away since then.



In other news, I have decided that I'm going to participate in this year's NaNoWriMo. I have 2719 words, so far. Only 47,000 and some to go!

Edited to add, why does everyone have the need to tell everyone that they voted? Even though I'm going to go vote, I will not wear the "I voted" sticker and I will not click the "I voted" button on Facebook. What? Why do people need a pat on the back for doing something we all should do? Where are the "I brushed my teeth" stickers or the "I ate fruits and vegetables" stickers? Are they coming next? Sorry if you like the "I voted" stickers (I don't mean to attack you). I'm just a cynic about stuff like this.

Line of Pears

This morning I painted a line of pears. As I've mentioned in my last two posts, I don't have a working scanner. In addition to that, I don't have batteries for my digital camera, so my only manner of presenting my painting is by snapping a photo with my phone. And I don't have an iPhone or one of those fancy phones that have great cameras, so the photo is what it is. The colors are quite a bit off. The painting itself is way overworked, but it is practice. Any new painting that I do produce is practice as I really don't know much about painting, so it's all a trial and error learning process. I did love painting on the 6x12 paper. I think it's a fun size and I look forward to doing more paintings this size.

Long time no post...

Yes, it has been awhile since my last post. I think my posts are going to be fewer and farther between now that I don't have a working scanner. I will scan things now and again at work, but not having a scanner at home will put a damper on postings. Who knows--maybe I'll be able to fix the scanner if I sit down and concentrate on it. I've played with it a bit, but haven't really put 100% (or even 60%)into it yet. I can also photograph my drawings, but I need batteries for my camera and batteries are expensive. Despite my scanner woes, I still have been working on a drawing or two and I bought some art supplies yesterday, so the inspiration is still there.

That being said, I had planned on painting tonight but then I was too tired and too uninspired to drag out my paints. And because I was so tired earlier, I went to bed, but then realized that I didn't want to be in bed, so I got back up. So, here I am now, bogging past midnight. Actually, any of you who know me, know that blogging after midnight is fairly common for me. I just had to write the words because I liked the just like the sound of them. Think of them to the tune of Patsy Cline's Walking after Midnight. I go out blogging after midnight blah blah blah blah blah (I don't feel like coming up with my own lyrics at the moment). Anyway, here are some elephants I have been working on that I scanned at work today. Nothing extraordinary, but just evidence that I am still drawing, even though I haven't been blogging.

As promised, here is a pumpkin painting...

Yes, I know I promised a pumpkin painting several days ago, but I didn't get to it until yesterday. I was too busy making pumpkin soup and pumpkin bread, so I procrastinated on the pumpkin painting. And then my printer (including the scanner part) stopped working, so I had to scan my pumpkin painting at work today. I used my new bargain priced paints to paint my pumpkin and I have to say that I'm not impressed. I'm not a big fan of these paints. I'll still use them, but I don't think I'll buy them again. Too bad--they were nice and cheap.

And speaking of pumpkins, I am not eating anything that contains pumpkin tonight. I reached pumpkin overload today at work. How does that happen, you may wonder? I will explain. First I ate a half of piece of my pumpkin bread along with apples with pumpkin dip on morning break, then I had the rest of my pumpkin soup for lunch and finally I topped all of that off with a pumpkin dessert on my afternoon break. I love pumpkin and I'm sure I'll be happy to eat more bread tomorrow, but for tonight, I'm staying away from all things pumpkin. In fact, if I indulge in one more bite of pumpkin tonight, I may puke.

Edited to add that in keeping with all the alliteration of the day, I am having petite pineapple pizzas tonight.

Sketches and pumpkin soup

As many of you know, Wednesdays are my day off. I love having Wed. off. Usually I will go over to my friend's house during the day and catch up on t.v. shows that she has recorded to her DVR. For instance, today we were supposed to watch the season finale of Mad Men. Unfortunately, she isn't feeling well, so I will have to wait a day or two for the finale. I just have to be careful not to venture onto a corner of the Internet where someone is discussing the episode. I could watch it on my computer, but I will be good and wait until my friend and I can watch it together. Oh, how tough it is to wait... In the meantime, I went out and bought a few colors of paints. I used my Michaels 40% off coupon for one tube and bought two of a cheap brand (a poor person's brand called Artist's Loft that comes in a much larger tube--double the size-than my usual Windsor and Newtons)that were on sale for $2.99 per tube. We will see if they're any good. If so, their regular price is $3.99 for 4.06 ounces, so that's a good deal.

As you can see, I have posted some sketches. These are from a week or so ago, but I haven't produced anything today, so they'll have to do for now. I do plan on painting this evening--possibly a pumpkin. And speaking of pumpkins (perfect segue there, Anne), I made this pumpkin soup today. And you'll be happy to know that I didn't burn it. I really like this soup, especially with the homemade croutons (yes, just call me Martha Stewart). It was a good way to use the French bread that I made on Sunday that was starting to get too tough to eat. I did add a couple of extra spices, including cayenne pepper and curry. My only issue with it (and if you look at the comments below the recipe you will see other's had this issue as well) was that it was a bit too salty. As I read the comments before making the soup, I decided to cut the salt in half, but I think if I make it again, I won't use any salt. The two cans of chicken broth provide enough salt.

Edited to add, I should also mention that it is fine without heavy cream. I used a mixture of half and half and skim milk and it was still very creamy.

Autumn Rhino Number 2

I painted another autumn rhino. I kind of gravitate towards painting with oranges and reds anyway, so I guess he doesn't have to really even be an autumn rhino, just an Anne rhino. Reds and oranges can intermingle with the green foliage any time of the year (well, not in winter, I suppose). I'm enjoying doing one of these little paintings every day, but I'm starting to run out of certain colors. I've been out of orange for awhile. Obviously, I can make my own orange, but it is good to have a tube of a color that I use a lot. But now my yellows are running low and I can't make orange without yellow. I'm also running out of Paynes grey (dark grey) and I don't have a good tube of black (mine is all thick and goopy) and my blues are running low. I wish the paint fairy would drop some paint at my window just like the fan fairy left me a fan. It's much cheaper to draw with graphite. But thank goodness for Michaels coupons.

Hope everyone has a good day. So, it looks like today is Jane's actual birthday, so I will say "happy birthday" here on my blog. Happy Birthday, Jane! Hope there is another celebration in the mix. I unfortunately don't have a new rhino, but here is your birthday rhino from last year. I'm sure you won't mind if I dust him off and post him again. Just like the groundhog on February 2nd, he is eager to make his Oct. 17th appearance. He's a rhino, so he obviously saw his shadow. I would be worried if he didn't.




Anne

It appears that I've painted some pears

I don't draw or paint fruit very often, but I had so much fun painting these pears last night, that I already painted another trio of pears (unfortunately, I haven't painted any pairs of pears, but even groups of things don't work as well compositionally as odd groups) this morning. The second pear painting was done with oils, so I probably won't be able to scan it for a week or two. I'm thinking that I may paint a pumpkin next.

I'm siting here waiting for my bread to bake. Come on bread--hurry up and bake! I bought ingredients for chili two weeks ago, but it's been so warm and sunny that I haven't been in the mood for it until today. When I noticed it was cloudy today, I immediately thought "chili." Unfortunately, I must have had the heat on too high when it was simmering as it ended up burning. I've never made burned chili before. How did I manage such a thing? I don't know why this pot was so temperamental. Of course I wish it wouldn't have burned, but it is still fairly good, just not great. I had a small bowl earlier, but I am waiting for my bread to finish baking, so I can have a bit more with the bread. And speaking of chili, I have my window open and I'm feeling a bit chilly. It really does feel more like fall today than it has this month. That's good as I would like a bit of fall before winter comes along.

Autumn Rhino

Can you tell I have autumn on my mind? Tonight we have an autumn rhino. I'm hoping to fill up my 6x6 pad of acrylic paper up with paintings in the next couple of weeks. They're just so squarely cute when they're done.

Autumn Elephant

This is a painting that actually looks quite a bit better in person. It is not so white and bright and I was unable to make adjustments to make it look better. I hate that. I tried to keep this loose, just sort of globbed on the paint. I thought I needed an autumn elephant. He looks good amongst the golds and reds and yellows. They suit him. He, like me, wishes that it was autumn all the time (or at least for 6 months out of the year).

I would like autumn back

I know, I know, I suppose I shouldn't complain. Soon we'll be blanketed in a foot of snow, but we had so much hot weather this summer that I did not want to see temps. higher than the 70s for quite some time. I like cool, wet (but not too wet) days in October with gray skies and clouds that make the leaves even brighter. I'm sure everyone is going on about "what a nice day it is today." I'm glad I wasn't at work today to hear it. As if it's been ages since we've had "nice" days. It's not like it's April when warmer temps. are a novelty. It's been warm all summer.

Anyway, on another note, I'm going out this evening, but I'm hoping to to do some painting when I get home. If not, I'll get to that tomorrow. For now, here's a painting that I did last week on a page of my new little tablet of paper for acrylics. I should have made the rhino a bit smaller or cropped some of her rear half, so her head wouldn't be so close to the edge of the paper. Not the best composition in the world, but I like the painting itself.

And weather fairies, I would like temps. in the 60s and 70s again. Thank you.

jiggle jiggle

I sketched this little rhino this morning and then wanted to stay home from work to draw or paint her in color, but alas, I could not. Now the inspiration is gone. It can be difficult to anthropomorphize rhinos, especially when they are belly dancers and they're supposed to be wearing sexy clothes. I made mine a bit more modest than the woman in the photo that I used as a reference. Her bra top was skimpier. It's just not right to put rhinos in skimpy bra tops with cleavage.

In other news, I am sitting here wondering what I'm going to have for dinner. It all seems like too much work. I think I might just have some cereal. Capn' Crunch, to be specific. I don't usually buy cereal, but this small $1.00 box of cereal was calling to me when I was at Walgreens the other evening.

Elephant Booty

It turns out that the $5.00 booty that I got at Penco the other day was a great asset. It enabled me to draw this elephant booty just like that *snaps fingers*. "What?" you may be asking. Why did whatever you purchased contribute to the quickness of the sketch? Well, it was 2B refills for my 0.7 mechanical pencils! I have never been able to find 2B refills for these pencils and have always had to stick with Bs. I have found 2Bs for my 0.5 pencils, but they're so fine (as in barely there) that I don't use them very often. So, now I can use a mechanical pencil with B graphite to get started and continue with the 2Bs and I can get darks much quicker. I know I could do all of this with drawing pencils. I actually have 8B (the higher the number, the softer the graphite) drawing pencils, but I'm attached to my mechanical pencils. The tip always stays sharp and you never have to use a sharpener. If you couldn't tell, I'm very excited about this find! And no, I'm not going to say that I'm such a mechanical pencil nerd as I'm sick of people feeling special because they are nerds. Nerd cool is so over, in my book. I just happen to love my mechanical pencils and that's all.

Yes, I'm up early. Sometimes I just get an itch to get up early so I have ample time to do things (in this case, draw) before going to work. Now I'm going to continue watching "The Wire." In case you don't know, The Wire was an HBO cop show. I had tried watching season one before and just wasn't in the mood. I'm not a huge fan of cop shows, but this one is often touted as the best show of the previous decade, so I decided to give it another chance. I'm liking it better this time (I'm on episode 5 of season one), but I'm still not blown away. We'll see if I make it through the whole first season and move onto season 2... Yay for free t.v. box sets from the library, even if you have to wait months to get them.

In other news, I bought this lovely red pepper at the farmer's market last week, so I decided to make stuffed peppers yesterday. This is the recipe I used and I was fairly impressed with how they turned out. As Rachel Ray would say yummo (I can't remember how her "yummo" is spelled and I'm certainly not going to look it up.

ugly brown shadow

Hi all. I wasn't going to post this digital drawing that I did this morning before work, but I suppose I will, just so I can document my progress as I learn how to draw with this darn laptop mouse. In my partial defense, I did distort the shape of her face on purpose, so I don't mind that part, but I do mind the ugly brown shadow. Ugly brown shadows are just not good. They invade drawings in an ugly, brown, unruly, uninvited way and then just stick around and stick out their tongues and say "na na na na na na, we ruined your drawing." Not nice at all. Had I worked in layers (as I can with Corel Painter), I could have just stuck my own tongue out, thrown the shadow in the trash and hurried along my way, but I didn't have the foresight to do so. I think I'll try the layers next time.

I'm just realizing now that banned books week is over and I never did my banned books week post nor did I even read a frequently challenged book, but I did download this nifty little poster that I will post to let everyone know that I was thinking of banned books and intellectual freedom this week.

some digital elephants

I was just sitting here tonight thinking "why don't I install my Corel Painter on my laptop?" So, I did. I don't know why I didn't do it much sooner. Yes, I'm stuck using the laptop mouse, but I could, if I do find my software for it, hook up my tablet to this computer. Maybe I will do that eventually. For now, here is something I did with the laptop mouse. Again, my wrist doesn't feel great, so I'll have to stop, for now. Only one digital drawing per day...

My friend dragged me along to Penco (the best art supply store in the city--sorry Dick Blick) today and I thought it was rather cruel as I don't have any money. I did buy a little 5x5 tablet for acrylics and some mechanical pencil refills and managed to only spend $5.00. I was proud of myself for finding something for almost nothing.

I don't have much to say tonight, so I'll keep this short. Tomorrow is a work day although I'm sure I won't be in bed anytime soon. Maybe I should go to bed. It would be nice to go to work on a full night's sleep, wouldn't it?

my wrist hurts

Here is another digital drawing, but now my wrist hurts, so I will not be doing anymore today. I wasn't feeling well, so I've been home today, being lazy, doing digital drawings. I will post the gorillas, first in their natural state, then with the "clothify" filter, which I seem to like. I still have a difficult time drawing lines with the laptop mouse, especially when my wrist hurts from trying to draw lines.

Digital Rhino

Here is my GIMP effort for the day. I just can't draw a straight line with the laptop mouse. It's like I've been drinking coffee all day. Since I don't have my scanner or my PC connected at the moment, I'm just going to concentrate on digital drawings for now.

a digital image created with GIMP and a rant about political correctness...

So, as all of my furniture (excluding my bed)has been moved out of my bedroom so my carpet can dry, I don't have access to my PC (so no photoshop)and my scanner. Therefore, I thought I would try to create a digital image with GIMP. GIMP is a freeware program that is a lot like Photoshop and recently it has been added to the computers at the library where I work. Even though I've known about GIMP for quite some time, I never felt compelled to download it since I do have Photoshop. But when they added it to the public computers, I wanted to try it as I like to know a thing or two about the software that is available at work. I had a photo editing software on my laptop already (PhotoImpact), but I've never liked it all that much, so it is nice to have GIMP (as mentioned, it is a lot like Photoshop)on my laptop.

Anyway, on to my rant about political correctness. I think most political correctness is about peoples' fear of looking bad, not about actually caring about the matter or people at hand. For instance, when GIMP was added to the work computers, there were all these posts on the public blog about how we should change the name because the word GIMP has negative implications. Blah. How silly is that? This is a software that has existed for years and it is an acronym name (I'm too lazy to look up what it actually stands for). You can't just go and change it. But these people are just oh so caring and they want to put themselves out there as empathetic, elevated human beings who are so worried that someone might be offended. The fact that they had to write about it on the public blog just showed me that they wanted everyone to know that they thought about this first and they needed to educate everyone else on the matter. It all boils down to ego. Blah again. Blah blah blah... I just tend to get myself worked up about these things because I can spot pretentiousness and insincerity from miles away. And oh, the burden of that;)

Anyway, enough of my ranting. I will now just talk about my elephant. As I've stated before, I don't think a laptop mouse is an ideal drawing tool, but it's fun to play with and I kind of like my little elephant.

A pachyderm paintings picture...

I just arranged my recent pachyderm paintings on the floor and took a picture. I thought they looked cute all together there, on the floor. As you can probably see, it is mostly elephants. I haven't given up on rhinos--I just wanted to give elephants their turn. Today I used a liquid medium with my acrylic paints. It makes them dry slower, so you can blend a bit more (the red elephant in the middle was the result). I look forward to experimenting with this in my future paintings. I also used a varnish on the painting after it was done and I didn't like the result. I have only used varnish once before on some teeny tiny paintings to be made into magnets that I gave to Julia. The effect was fine on the teeny tiny paintings, but I don't like it on this elephant. It's not all that visible on this teeny tiny photo. I just hit publish post for some reason, so this is posted right now, incomplete. Why did I do that? I am going to finish it now and repost it. For anyone that subscribes to my posts via e-mail, you never see the final post in the e-mail. I almost always edit after first posting.

It's kind of a nice day to be sitting inside, but I've accomplished quite a bit. I cleaned my kitchen, (and that includes scrubbing the floor--I rarely do that), did laundry (including the sheets), picked up a bit, vacuumed and made bread. I also painted the red elephant and started reading a 1474 page book by an Indian author, Vikram Seth called A Suitable boy (yes, I have started this book before, but this time I plan on finishing it). I only got to page 25 the last time I started it, but I was busy at the time. I love books that are set in India, and this one has glowing reviews, so I'm sure I'll like it once I get into it. I'm only on page 22 now, so I have a long way to go. This is one of those books that would be easier to read with a Kindle. It's kind of awkward to hold. But then there are other books that I would never want only in digital form. For instance, I was looking for a version of Alice In Wonderland with Arthur Rackham's illustrations, and Amazon had all of these Kindle versions. If I'm getting a book for the illustrations, as I would be in this case, I want a print copy. I don't have a Kindle, or any reader for that matter, anyway.

Midnight elephant

I painted again tonight. I was thinking about painting while I was at work and when I got home, I was still thinking about painting a bit, so I thought "why not?" This elephant is nothing to write home about and if I did write home I would only be writing to myself or one (or both( of my cats, so what's the difference anyway? It is one of those paintings that does look better in person, I just thought I would let you know. It's strange that some pictures look better scanned and some are better in person. I feel like I haven't had an interesting blog post in awhile, but then again, I did just get back into blogging regularly recently, so I'm rusty. As for being rusty, my writing, in general is rusty. I'm thinking seriously about doing NaNoWriMo again in November and I'm trying to come up with an idea before I start this time. Last year, I just started at the last minute and I winged it. It's still September, right? So, I still have a month and a half to think about what I'm going to write about. I won't do all those annoying word counts again this year, I promise. I can hear my neighbors sitting outside my window. I can't wait until it's too cold for them to do that. Am I bit antisocial? I certainly am when it comes to And by the way, this elephant will have to do as face #11. How many days has it been now? Will I make it to 5o in 50?

Piggies on a fence

Like ants on a log? I would hope that people wouldn't call a food item piggies on a fence. What would it be? Sausage on a waffle? Anyway, as I'm getting a bit sick of doing pen sketches of human faces (yes, the face project may be petering out), I did say I could include animals, so I will. I suppose the rhinos could count as well, but I won't cheat in that way. These piggies are 9 & 10, I guess. I did re-do my #7, but it is in my sketchbook and I will post it later.

Tomorrow is a work day, so I'm in for the night. My neighbors seem quiet tonight. Let's hope it stays that way. No partying tonight, please. I forgot to buy coffee today. I hope the tiny bit I have left in the can mixed with the grounds from today will be enough to get me started tomorrow. Getting a good night's sleep would help.

The Three Amigos manipulated

I decided to revisit the three amigos tonight. Unfortunately, they weren't very cooperative and didn't let me paint them very well, so I manipulated them a bit with one of my many photo editing programs. If you're familiar with the three amigos, you will see that I did something different with them. It wasn't planned, but when I was drawing them on the canvas, I did not have enough room for the amigo on the right. So, what I did was flip him. In other words, he is facing the opposite direction. I think the next time I revisit the three amigos, it should be with a different medium.

The scanned version of the oily elephant

Here is the scanned version of the oily elephant. I was really surprised that it was already dry in just these few days. The 2 or 3 times that I used the water soluble oil paints, it took them a couple of weeks to dry. You would think that a paint that contains water would dry quicker than one that doesn't. Hmmm... I really wish that oil paints weren't so messy and smelly. I think they're more fun and more user friendly than acrylics. Aside from that, I don't have much to say tonight other than to mention the fact that we've been having rain and sporadic thunderstorms today and this evening and I have loved every minute of it. I heart fall!

I'll skip #7, for now...

I scanned face #7 along with #8, and as suspected, it was too crappy to post, even as a sketch. She had kind of an alien head. Doing quick sketches with no erasing sometimes means major failure. I will do a new number 7 next. For now, here is number 8. It is a sketch based on one of Hans Holbein's paintings. I did it with Inktense and water. He looks a bit less harsh in this one than he does in the original. He has kind of a scary face actually and is wearing quite a bit of bling. I had assumed from his attire, that he had quite a bit of power and I just looked it up and discovered that it is a portrait of Thomas More, so yes, he did.

Right now, I'm thinking of going back to bed for awhile. Loud crashes of thunder woke me up and then I felt like getting up and drawing, so that's what I did. Now that I've done the drawing, I think I need more sleep. In fact, I'm feeling too sleepy to type more text, so this is all, for now...

Face #6 and an uncomfortable attempt at oils

Hello everyone. I'm back with face #6 and an elephant that I painted with oils. I decided to try real oils (I've had a set for ages) and not the water based oils that I've used a few times before. All I did was make a huge, oily mess (and not a very successful painting that I photographed with my phone in not the greatest light, so it looks even worse)and I managed to make myself feel ill. I don't think my place is ventilated well enough for turpentine fumes. Blah, my tummy is in a bit of turmoil. I am someone that tends to like a bit of chemical fumes, but I was breathing them in for too long. I hope my cats are feeling o.k.. I think I'll have to stick with acrylics and the water based oils that I use on occasion. You should have seen my hands when I was washing up. They were coated with slimy brown oil. Yuck. And who knows if the brushes that I used will ever be the same. I do have to say, they're fun to play with, but more trouble than they're worth.

In other news, I went to my friend's house today and we watched 6 hours of television. I haven't been to her house in the past 2 or three weeks and our tivoed (I don't know how you spell the plural of "tivo") shows were building up. To me, that's too much time to sit and watch t.v. when you're not doing anything else along with the watching. I felt a bit antsy by the time we were done and we're still behind. We will have to do another marathon watching to catch up.

I think I'm starting to feel a bit better now. I didn't use any cadmium yellow, so I probably won't go crazy like Van Gogh, but I may have killed a few brain cells.

Cow and Face #5

Just as the title says, I have a face and a cow. I know the cow should technically count as a face, but she was painted before I started my faces project, so she is just a cow. Could a cow by any other name be a face? Yes. But, what else would we call a cow? Mooey? Machinski? I think I prefer "cow." I don't want to change the name. And I still will not count this cow face as one of my faces.

The man is bearded. I'm not a big fan of beards(or curly haired men, for that matter--waves are nice though), but I tend to like to draw beards. This guy was fun to draw and I'm thinking I may actually like to do a proper drawing of him, not just a sketch. Maybe sometime. For now, he'll have to just settle for being a sketch. I should mention that all of my sketches have come from photos from the wetcanvas reference image library. I love the reference image library. I even have a few of my photos there.

In other news, what would I do without a library card? Really? It's such a great thing for a person with not much money to have. Tonight I started watching a cable t.v. series on dvd called "Damages" that I got from the library and I'm really enjoying it and there are always books and c.d.s and they all make me very happy. I feel so bad for library patrons that come in with fines of $80.00 that they accrued years ago (maybe even back when their parents should have been ensuring that their items were returned on time)and, therefore, can't use their cards. I can tell that many of them are poor and that they'll probably never be able to pay off the fines, thus, they will never be able to enjoy the many wonderful resources the library can provide. Life is just not fair. If it were up to me, especially with kids, I would love to establish a read down your fines program. I developed one of these programs for a library school project. Too bad that library school projects seem to be too idealistic for a certain library system. There are library systems that do use these programs, but alas, not ours.

A not so great little elephant with characteristically scrawny legs...

So, I did squeeze out a small painting tonight. Unfortunately, I'm not overly thrilled with it, but I will post it anyway. The one thing that stands out for me, after painting or drawing several elephants, is that they have incredibly scrawny legs. I wonder how they hold up all of that weight on such scrawny legs? They don't seem wobbly or weakly, so the legs must work fine. But, I would think that they would benefit from legs with a bit more heft.

boy and girl faces

Here are two more face sketches. I did the two of them together in about 20 minutes. I'm trying to not spend much time on them. The boy I developed a bit more with shading, but I wanted to keep the lines on the girl sketch to a minimum (that's actually more difficult). It's so hard when you can't erase. You just have to work with the mistakes and keep on going. I think at the rate that I'm going, I dare to say, unless my enthusiasm peters out, the project should be 50 faces in 50 days. That's what I'll shoot for. I may be back later with a painting, but then again, maybe not. I've already taken my car for an oil change, done the dishes and vacuumed. I think I deserve a bit more play time.

Hope everyone is enjoying the nice weather. I went into work yesterday and said to the people in the break room that it was such a nice day. It was about 58 and cloudy. Most agreed that it was nice, but we there should be a bit of sun too. Yesterday I got my clouds (it has been sunny so much this summer--let a cloud lover have a day or two of shade) and today they got their sun. I do have to say I do even like this sun. Balance is always good.