6-5-16 ~ A Barn, Flowers, and a Sad Week at the Robinson Homeplace

This week I had to have my beloved pal of 16 years, Little Jack the Schnauzer, put down because of kidney failure, incontinence, and advanced dementia. I never knew dogs could get dementia, but Jack was having a terrible time getting lost and just not responding. He laid in his little bed crate almost all day. It has broken my heart as I have never killed or had to have a doctor put down any animal in my life (a ground stinging bee hive attacking me and flies so not count). I had no idea how hard it was going to effect me, but there has been some real depression. As always, I draw to try to get over the doldrums so here is my first beginning sketch. Jack is NOT a girl as you all know, but I love bows so put them on him. The lighting was terrible this morning so please excuse the dark gritty places in both pictures.

As the week went on, I decided to try to come up with something happy that included him so created... The Kerrs Creek 2016 Beauty Contest with him as the Judge from up in Doggie Heaven. In case you cannot read the names of the contestants here they are...

Edgar Egret

Kelly Kitty

Brenda Bluebird

Matilda Mouse

Claudette Cow

Roscoe Rabbit

As you notice, they all have their little red hearts on them.

Just hunt and you will see them.

So, how do you put a smile on a sad old face....well, you go out and take pictures of a very old barn of a friend and all the wildflowers he planted 3 years ago and has nurtured them day after day. Thank you, Tom, for giving me a reason to brighten my days this week. For anyone wanting to see more pretty barns, go to Tom the Backroads Traveler's Barn Collective. This post is also linked with I Heart Macro and Macro Monday 2. 

4-9-16 ~ Mice, Cheese, and Teacups

I am in love with Dea Lenihan's blog. Here is the link to her site: http://dea-lenihan.blogspot.com .
She is a wonderful illustrator, teacher, and so graciously shares much of her things with all of us. This was a piece she posted for anyone to download and color. It was so cute I could not resist. I use pen and ink filling in every little bit on the page, and watercolors. The basic drawing is hers and the coloration is mine. It makes me smile. So many little mice and so much yummy cheese. It is mice heaven.

This was SO much fun to colorize. 

Print it out and go for it. You won't be disappointed.

3-26-16 ~ Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds

"The best reason for having dreams is that in dreams no reasons are necessary."

~Ashleigh Brilliant

Beatles – Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds Lyrics

Picture yourself in a boat on a river

With tangerine trees and marmalade skies

Somebody calls you, you answer quite slowly

A girl with kaleidoscope eyes

Cellophane flowers of yellow and green

Towering over your head

Look for the girl with the sun in her eyes

And she's gone

Lucy in the sky with diamonds

Lucy in the sky with diamonds

Lucy in the sky with diamonds

Ah

Follow her down to a bridge by a fountain

Where rocking horse people eat marshmallow pies

Everyone smiles as you drift past the flowers

That grow so incredibly high

Newspaper taxis appear on the shore

Waiting to take you away

Climb in the back with your head in the clouds

And you're gone

Lucy in the sky with diamonds

Lucy in the sky with diamonds

Lucy in the sky with diamonds

Ah

Picture yourself on a train in a station

With plasticine porters with looking glass ties

Suddenly someone is there at the turnstile

The girl with the kaleidoscope eyes

Lucy in the sky with diamonds

Lucy in the sky with diamonds

Lucy in the sky with diamonds

Ah

Lucy in the sky with diamonds

Lucy in the sky with diamonds

Lucy in the sky with diamonds

Ah

Lucy in the sky with diamonds

Lucy in the sky with diamonds

Lucy in the sky with diamonds

Songwriters: LENNON, JOHN / MCCARTNEY, PAUL

Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC

This post is linked with:

Dezinaworld15 Cheeky Challenge

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.

3-18-16 ~ 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.

3-13-16 ~ 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 8, 2016 ~ A Walk in the Woods - Art Journal

"The person who knows how to laugh at himself 
will never cease to be amused."
~Shirley McLaine

A Walk in the Woods

Genie Happily Walk Home after Her Day at School

I grew in the city and always wanted to live in the country in a house way back off the beaten path. Before Buddy and I were married I did rent a place off the beaten path with both indoor plumbing and an outdoor privy, and a spring well. Well, I finally got my dream 37 years ago, but we are living on a 10 acre not-used-as-a-farm-farm that unfortunately happens to be on a main road. So, in my picture I pretended I was living back in the woods. Here I am skipping (as a chid I was always skipping everywhere I went)  home after school...my books in my little basket (the basket reminds me of the little basket I had on my tricycle).  As you can see, I am very happy and cannot wait to see my Mom and have my usual milk and cookies. 

I have just begun using distress inks. I did not even know about them until I started reading other girls' blogs where they said they had used them. This is one of my first attempts working with this new medium. Using the inks was really difficult at first - even after watching lots of You Tube presentations - but it is getting a tiny bit easier and I am getting a wee bit better at not having the inks ending up so dark. It's been a fun experience, but I always enjoy learning something new. Each day I look forward to experimenting with them hoping I will finally come up with something of which I am really happy about.

Below are some changes I made to my picture using PSE 11.

I love this one. I t makes me think I was at a friend's house and was skipping home after the sun went down. My mother had turned on the lights so I would not trip and fall of the path.

I am linking my post today with Art Journal Journey.

The prompt was "Into the Woods".

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 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.