Taking a vacation

Thank you everyone for your kind and encouraging words about my art. I'm off to Chicago for eight days - 4 at a a conference and four days on my own visiting museums and aquariums. How exciting - maybe I'll try to quickly sketch some things out in public. Yikes! Not sure I'm ready for that yet.

EDM #3 - Wallet

This is a leather change purse that I bought on one of our trips to Puerto Vallarta. It was in a tiny shop on a busy corner near the beach. Every square inch was crammed with beautifully worked leather goods of all sorts. (It smelled luxurious in there.) We had promised not to buy anything that was large, or unpackable, or breakable, so this mini change purse seemed like the perfect purchase. I keep 3 pesos in it for luck. As long as I still have pesos, I must go back to Mexico to spend them, right? This side of the purse has two cacti and the Mayan calendar. On the other side, is a sombrero and a different cactus along with the word "Mexico". But the side I've shown here is the one that really reminds me of our vacation and that beautiful little shop and the busy street corner. There was even, oddly enough, a little burro on that street, right outside the restaurant where we drank icy cold Coronas. This is a photo of that corner (and burro). The shop is down the stree that is behind that green van.

EDM 1 - Shoe

I'm going to try to catch up on the challenges, and do the current one and at lease one other every week. I might not do them in order, but I really wanted to do the shoe challenge. This is my new pink summer shoes (or Rose Madder Hue shoes if you're a purist). I liked the colors of the shoe and Rose Madder is not a color I use very often. The beds are a soft grey, and there are little brass colored metal accents, and small cutouts. It was a very fun shoe to sketch.

I have actually been doing the challenges since last summer, but they were mostly quick sketches in my journal using crayons or markers. Maybe I could post them side by side and see the progression, see the difference between reallly trying and just tossing something off.

EDM Challenge 114 - Something Ugly I Love

While I think that most vegetables and fruits are beautiful, asparagus is one that I really don't like the looks of. It seems like a vaguely alien appendage, or a root vegetable that got its directions mixed up. It doesn't look like a "real" plant. I don't even like it's rubbery, clammy texture and cutting it is like what I imagine cutting a finger would be like. (And white asparagus is an abomination not to be tolerated raw or cooked.) But I persevere because I love the taste. Roasted with fresh parmesan or steamed with lemon butter, it's a magical transformation. This is watercolor in the Aquabee sketchbook.

EDM 113 - Fence

This is the birdbath in my back yard. It is enclosed by fences and is quite small and safe from predators. It is a haven for the sparrows and chickadees. During the winter, I set up the birdfeeder and we have a large, chattering, entertaining flock that perch in the shrubs. In the summer, I set up this birdbath. We have three pairs of sparrows that nest in the yard, and two pairs of chickadees, and one pair of robins. The robins nest in the spruce tree in the front, but visit the bath daily. There's always lots of avian drama going on, with birds lined up on the fence waiting for their chance in the bath. Who needs TV?

Wacom Fun

At work, I have been testing out a Wacom tablet with Adobe Illustrator. Here is my first attempt at using "artistic" effects such as brushes and pencil tools. I don't find this any easier than actually doing a painting, except that there's no water involved. And you have to look at the computer screen instead of where your hand is. It's a little weird. This is the first time I've tried any kind of "art" on the computer. It could become a little addicting in its own way.