3-25-16 ~ Just Some Doodling

"We used to play a lot outdoors, not in leagues,

but just in our spare time.

~Steve Yzerman

...Now, at 77,  I take pictures, doodle, and draw in my art journal.

Easter on My Mind 

Art Journal ~ Colored Pencil and Pen and Ink

Practicing Faces, a Dog, and a Cat

Art Journal ~ Watercolors and Pen and Ink

3-24-16 ~ Two by Two

Just another page from my art journal.

3-23-16 ~ A Blue Fish Sending You an Easter Kiss

"A photographer is like a cod, 

which produces a million eggs in order that one may reach maturity."

~George Bernard Shaw

 My fish I completed in my art journal today. She's sending you all a kiss.

I used watercolors and watercolor pencils.

3-22-16 ~ When Eloise Was Only Six

"Perhaps the two greatest moments of my life were standing on the moon and being outside of the room when my granddaughter was born! We tend not to remember the worst."
~ Eugene Cernan

Enjoy Today ~ Time Flies

(mixed media from my art journal)

Precious Eloise at Age Six on a Hike in Rockbridge County

My only granddaughter will be 11 in just a few weeks.

I must enjoy today because time does fly by way too quickly.

3-18-16 ~ Painting on Gesso

Weezie, Genie and John as Youngsters 

On this picture, I used watercolors, Gesso, Galatos, and pen and ink.
My first attempt at using Gesso and painting over it.

3-14-15 ~ Tom's Barn Collective

"Nobody really cares if you're miserable, so you might as well be happy."

~Cynthia Nelms

 1/2 Red Barn ~ Rockbridge County, VA

Red Barn ~ Rockbridge County, VA

A barn sketch of mine that I did on the way to NC last week from an old barn book I had. I did add sone bit and pieces of my own like the pathetic fencing, the doors, and the hinges and handles on them. I did it with first with a hard sketching pencil and then with pen and ink in my art journal. I actually posted this with my Sunday Sketches post, but thought it would be fun to add it here since it was a barn.

My post is linked to Tom, the Backroad's Traveller's Barn Collective.

3-13-16 ~ Sunday Sketches

"I never look at my watch when I'm sketching!"

~Karl Lagerfeld

 I have an really old barn book, so while we were driving to NC this week, I decided to look at one and see if I could sketch it. I added bits and pieces of my owllike some of the door and fences, but it is all pen and ink. I also played with the hinges and made them different from one another.

 This piece is in my art journal. I enjoy doing little sketches about love so this is another one. This one is done with watercolors, watercolor pencils, and some pen and ink.

My sketches are linked with Sunday Sketches over at Blue Chair Diary Blog.

March 5, 2016 ~ Weezie and Genie in Purple and Lavender

"Don't walk behind me: I may not lead.

Don't walk in front of me; I may not follow.

Just walk beside me and be my friend."

~Albert Camus

These two girls represent my best friend, Weezie, and me. She and I have been best friends for 50 years, reared out children together, lived across the street from one another (I actually lived in the home in which she grew up), and now she is in an extended care facility with serious RA and after having had heart attacks, a stroke, and now she is having memory problems. My husband is taking me to see her Mar. 9 and 10 (it's too far for me to drive alone) because I an so afraid she could become more ill if I wait too long. These little pictures that I draw are my way of dealing with my sadness and a way to keep our happy times together alive and doing well. We were so close and our two families were like one extended family. She is the Godmother of my middle child, and he and his wife named their daughter, Eloise, for her. This little building reminds me of some of the flats in Cancun and in Ireland (two of our trips together) and San Juan. They were all painted pastel colors, had window boxes with flowers, and so very pretty. Many had the little balconies on the second floor.

Here are 2 photos of us...one taken as we were leaving for Ireland in 1996, and the other is the last photo I have of the two of us taken at the nursing home in early 2015.

 It is so hard to believe that this was taken almost 20 years ago.

This was taken at the nursing home in Asheville, NC.

This post is linked with:
 Take a Word Challenge with its "Purple" Prompt
and 
Digital Whisper with its "Lavender" Prompt.

March 2, 2016 ~ Geometrics in My Art Journal

"I'm not confused, I'm just well mixed."

~Robert Frost

Some days I do not feel like I am very well mixed,  and as I grow older and older I find myself more and more confused. Still, I love this quote from Robert Frost. It makes me smile.

These are two of my art journal pages using geometry figures. For the quilt square, I used watercolor pencils and Micron pens while for the 9 Square it was all pen and ink. It was really difficult to replicate the middle on the top with the middle on the bottom. A light box comes in handy, but I still had to figure out what to do with each of the lines.When I set out to do this, I had no idea how long it was going to take especially for that middle square. The one exciting thing that came out of it was the third little square on the bottom row of the middle somehow, magically, showed perspective which I usually cannot create. This little square looks like stone steps either going up or down, and it was so exciting to see them. How I did it I do not know, but I will be referring back to this in the future if I want to do any steps. I added the little bits of red because I thought it perked up the drawing. The prompt for this week was "geometric".

This post is linked with I Play along at Inspirational.

March 1, 2016 ~ My First Sketch of Jack ~ Art Journal

"Good art is not what it looks like,

but what it does to us."

Roy Adzak

This is my first attempt at sketching my VERY OLD Schnauzer, Jack. He now sleeps most of the day and he appears to be losing his sight and hearing. Instead of playing with my granddaughter and her friend when they come for a visit, he goes and hides. He used to scamper on their heels all around our non-use-farm. It is so sad. The one thing he continues to do with a vengeance is bark when Buddy is leaving for work. That really upsets him. The other one is when the pest control man comes - who he does not like - I have to put him in his kennel, and then he barks the entire time Mike is here. So...he still has perk left in him, but not what it used to be. He continues to be my baby, and “King I” around this old place along with “King II”, Trouble, Bud's cat! Trouble does NOT want to have anything to do with me.

This post is linked with Moo-Mania and Inspirational Challenges.

February 28, 2016 ~ Pam's Basket and a Lady Slipper ~ Art Journal

"Knowledge is power..

   knowledge is safety...

knowledge is happiness."

~Thomas Jefferson

This pretty little basket was made for me some 30 years ago by our art teacher. Pam Tinsley back when we taught at Highland Belle Middle School.  I have used it over and over again through the years, and it is still in pristine condition. It is one of my favorite things in which to place fresh flowers.  I need to learn where to place my journal in order not to get all the noise in the photos. This one is full of it.

The Lady Slipper was sketched using Dr. Oscar Gumption’s book entitled Wildflowers of the Shenandoah Valley and the Blue Ridge Mountains. Dr. Gupton was a professor in the Department of Biology at the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington, VA, during his lifetime. His son continues to be a friend of my boys.

This post is liked with 

Paper, Paint, Pencils, and Pens

and

Friends Meet Friends

February 24, 2016 ~ Spring Is on Its Way

Spring Is on Its Way ~ Daffodils

Paper Paint, Pencils, and Pens ~  Bi-Weekly Art Prompt ~ Flowers

My favorite little flowers in spring are my daffodils and because of the warm weather this week they are popping their greenery out of the soil. I have them in all shades of yellow and in all sizes. I’ll go out with my scissors to cut them to bring in the house, and then feel guilty for cutting them. This is my first attempt at trying to capture them on paper and to get the trumpet tops to look like they are above the petals. You can see where I did have some difficulty bleeding the colors, but I hope that will improve sooner than later.  The picture is done with watercolor pencils and light pencil sketching.

February 21, 2016 ~ School Days ~ Art Journal “Flowers"

“The only thing that is stopping you from where you are to where you want to go is your comfort zone.” 

~Dhaval Gajera

Ever since I started working with my watercolors back in 1995 when I did my series on the Oklahoma City Bombings, I have always done this primitive type of work. Sometimes I think it looks a bit Mennonite or Amish, but there are no hats, bonnets, lace coverings and no faces. As far as perspective goes, I have a lot of work to do. Yesterday I started on this little drawing in my art journal after reading the prompt of “Flowers” for Paper, Paint, Pencils, and Pens. This is a blog where people who are interested in drawing to a prompt can come to participate. My flowers are not fancy, but they are all me, and they make me happy drawing them. The story in my head is it is a day off from school, so all the children are playing out front in the flower garden, the tree, and on the equipment.Right now I am trying to draw a Lady’s Slipper, and I am really being put to the test. This is way out of my comfort area, but that is how I learn and move forward. I sent Eloise a picture of this, and being the budding artist she is she flipped out. "Oh, Baga, how in the world did you do all that?” I knew she would get a kick out of it. I hope it makes you all smile.

Look for:

~Trouble, Buddy’s cat

~Children on the see-saw

~Children on the swing set

~Children sitting on the bench

~Children climbing the tree

~Boy and girl playing ball
~School Bell
~Tree swing
~Apples

~Wagon

~Birds

This post is linked with Paper, Paint, Pencils, and Pens.

February 19, 2016 ~ More Red and Lots More Love

 Leave All Things and Come with Me.

Let’s Dance

Reminisce

~ Did you ever take tap dancing as a child?

~Did you ever wear a frilly outfit like this?

~I took tap and adored it, but never did I sport an outfit like this one.

She is oh, so cute.

Sorry I cannot seem to photograph my journal evenly. It seems like one side is always a bit cut off. Actually they are straight. These two are on pages side by side, but to photograph them together makes them so small you cannot read the letters. Both of these collages were made with some old papers I had for the backgrounds, common doilies, cut and paste, typing, and Kim Klaassen’s "Softly" texture. The little girl with the tap shoes came from Reminisce Magazine.

This post is linked with:
Lunagirl Moonbeams - Love
Three Muses Challenge - Love
Moo Mania - Hearts

February 18, 016 ~ The Music of Love

Blogger has given me nothing but trouble today. To create this post has taken hours. It would not accept my pictures, and then after I finally got them to post I was left with these little boxes. I moved the pictures around in order to delete hoping they would go away, but NO luck.When I got up this morning it had printed my journal page five or six times at full size all over the post as well as the drawing of my granddaughter. I have deleted all of those and hope it is working correctly now.

This is another of my art journal pages.
I made an attempt at using watercolors, but it leaves a lot to be desired.
I have a long ways to go. It looks easy, but it's not!
I used watercolor paper that I pasted into my journal, watercolors, stamping,
pen and ink, cut and paste, and embossing. I intentionally scraped off some
of the embossing because I was trying to give the piece an aged appearance.

I am participating in the Creative Artiste-Mixed Media Challenge,

the  Lunagirl February Challenge, and  Art Journal Journey Monthly.

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Here is another shot of eloise and Sage sketching.
Of course, they are watching TV. I have them trained to watch 
House and Garden Channel with the Property Brothers and Fixer Upper.

This pen and ink was done by Eloise this weekend at age 10.
It is all freehand. 
It looks like she inherited her grandfather’s and dad’s art talents.

February 14, 2016 ~ A Barn and a Late Art Journal Happy Valentine’s Day

Even the barn has a little red on it for Valentine’s Day

This barn is linked with Tom’s Barn Collective.

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“True love stories never have endings.”

~Richard Back

Some of my art journal entries this Valentine’s Day.