Chickens, Kit Fox, and Lorikeet

I have 3 more ATCs finished for the trade. These are all done in Watercolor, cp, pen & ink, and a touch of White Conte Pastel Pencil. The chickens were from a reference from Wetcanvas' RIL as was the kit Fox. Both were featured photos on the WDE for this week. The Lorikeet is from a reference by Nev Cross (Dors husband) and used with permission.

"Another One Bites The Dust"

As the song says "Another One Bites the Dust". I finished another Old Masters ATC. Only 2 more to go and one is already sketched. Just have to add the watercolor.

Almost Finished

I'm almost finished with my Old Masters Project. I finished 3 tonight and have two more sketched. After that only one more to do.

The three I have finished are: Portrait of George Washington by Rembrandt Peale, Sir Thomas More by Hans Holbein the younger, and Self Portrait by Diego Rivera.

All are ATC. One is done in watercolor, pen & ink, and a touch of Conte pastel pencil. The other two are graphite. All are on watercolor paper.

I will be glad to finish this project. Not because I am not enjoying it, but because I have several other things I want to do. And I still have over half of my cards to finish for the People, Places, and Things trade. Plus I will be hosting the March trade at Drawspace. That is still plenty to keep me busy.

Bunny Rabbitt

Everyone who knows me pretty well knows that I have boxes of drawing references. Not just photos but the actual things. Lots of stuffed animals, ceramic animals, a few assorted dishes, twigs, leaves, pine cones, and just about anything I might want to draw some day. I probably have more references than I do pencils and that is saying a mouthful.

Well this latest ATC card I just finished is from a ceramic rabbit I bought about a week ago. Sadly as I brought it into the house, the bag slipped a little and off came one of his ears. $2.99 and already broken. I tried to fix it with super glue but it wouldn't hold I need something that will bond faster. Maybe the super glue wasn't good for the ceramic material.

I will keep my rabbit. It is still "drawable" even if the ear is a separate piece. I don't want to spend another $3. But I have learned not to try to carry too many bags at once.

This one is another for the trade on Wetcanvas. I used watercolor, pen and ink, and a touch of Conte white pastel pencil for highlights on the eye. the white dot is white-out stick. (If it works, why not?)

I'm On A Roll

I finished two more ATCs today. I didn't have much to do to them as I started them and had the ink on. Just had to add the color. On watercolor paper. Watercolor, watercolor pencil, and pen & ink.

The cow is from my own reference. Another ceramic cow from my cow collection.(Which got so huge, I had to downsize it.) The bird is a Female Mountain Bluebird from a reference by Dave Slaughter on Wetcanvas. Thank you Dave.

The project list was sent out today so the 6 I have finished should be able to go in the mail on Tues (Monday is a holiday...President's Day)

Saucy Bird & Happy Puppy

I finished two more cards tonight. These whttp://www.blogger.com/ere done with watercolor, watercolor pencil, and pen and ink. The dog is from a photo I took of my Great Niece Kylie's Valentine Dog. The Bird is from a reference by Macdragon from Wetcanvas.

That's four finished and two more are sketched and have pen on them. They are another bird and a ceramic cow from my collection.

Elliott

This is Elliott. His photo was one that was provided by Valri for the Wetcanvas WDE this week. I believe that he has passed. This was done in watercolor with some micron pen. ATC size.

I have been playing around with pen and ink plus watercolor. I want to be able to use a medium that goes a little faster than cps. I still love doing cp but sometimes I just want to do something quickly. I have been known to put cps over watercolor. I like combining the two. But this time I wanted to try watercolor with pen.

I have done two others in the same way. One of my hand and one of my lab Penny asleep on my bed. These are also ATC size and will go to participants in my new Wetcanvas project.

Reading

Lately I have been reading a lot and no artwork. I did sign up for another Art House project. This one is a writing Moleskine project. I chose to use my name as my theme. I will be telling tidbits of my life and adding some artwork with it kind of like journaling. It's due May 1st so I don't have a lot of time and can't wait to get started.

The books I have been reading are by Lee Child (the last one was 84 chapters. The Jack Reacher series. There are 15 books in the series, and I have read all but 2. I'm half finished with one of those.

I love to read. I have loved to read since I was in 6th grade or before. I remember reading a book a day back then. Of course the books then were small. I loved mysteries. I still do. I also read police stories and spy stuff. Then there is my "fluff" reading. Lilian Jackson Braun and The Cat Who....series. I love those.

Since I have no artwork to show, I will show a photo of my husbands pride and joy tree. He was a truck driver and we lived in Oregon for 4 years. There he hauled logs from the woods to the mill. He loved the fir trees and missed them a lot after we moved back to Bakersfield.

One day we were in Petsmart and they were giving away these little 3-4 inch seedlings with a tiny root area. He brought two home and put them in pots. When they were big enough, he planted one in our front yard and put up a chicken wire fence around it to keep the dogs our. It's maybe 10 years old or so and now probably 10 feet or better high. It has lots of pinecones on it and each year they seem to get larger.

He made sure he came home every night and watered it even when he was tired. He took such good care of it. Well now I take care of it and it is a nice reminder of my husband. When I look out the front window or out the front door, there it is. I just hate to think what will happen if it gets as big as the ones in the woods. And I hope it has a good root system so it doesn't one day fall on my house.

So here is Bill's tree with Dizzy next to it and another photo of a closeup of a pinecone on it.

Amadeo Modigliani

Another of my Old Master representation ATCs. This one is "Lunia Czechovsla" by Amadeo Modigliani. I like his portraits even tho they are not realistic. It doesn't show in my ATC but his portrait subjects have really long necks. And they really don't have eyes. Their eyes are a little like zombie eyes. Blank and a little haunting.

Two More Old Master's

I have finished two more of my representations of artwork by Old Master Painters. I did graphite work of their studies. One is "The Study for the Raft of the Medusa" by Theodore Gericault. I picked it just because I liked the way the light was hitting his face.

The second was "Head Studies of 3 French Magistrates". I chose to do only one of the men, the center one, as I liked the look of his face and the expression.

These were both done with a mechanical pencil on Bristol smooth. They are both 2.5 x 3.5 size. They will hopefully be mailed tomorrow if I get them sprayed in time for the mail.

Happy Birthday Papa

Today would have been my hubby's 61st birthday. Papa was the name we used for him for the dogs. We miss him.

Bill and nephew Stephen. Bill and Jerry (friend who passed away about a week before Bill).

Bye Bye Tree

There has been a tree in our back yard since we moved here 18+ years ago. If you held a yardstick in front of it, it would span the whole yard stick or more. When we moved here it would have been about 12 inches across. There were branches sticking up that were almost the 12 inch size.

Well now the tree has had a major crop on top. It still has some really gnarley areas at the top of the trunk but hopefully in the near future it will be taken down to about table level.

The tree has been interfering with our plumbing pipes for years. The tree is a Mulberry and they are famous for causing plumbing damage. The roots grow right thru the pipes and cause a clog. We have been trying to get someone to take it down for years but the prices were always more than we could afford.

Well I finally asked the neighbor's gardener. He said yes and quoted a way low price for what had to be done. But I jumped on it. Now my back yard is full of branches and big post-sized branches plus a big huge gnarl. And now I have to find a bargain to get it hauled away. The young man did it all by hand...no chainsaw. And all in parts of two days. In fact he was working until way after dark.

I am very thankful to have the job done and I did give the man more money than he quoted. He worked very steady and hard and did a wonderful job and even stacked everything and raked.