Deep Water Workout

I go to Deep Water Workout, usually twice a week.  I like it a lot.  I love being in the water, it's easy on my joints, it's a great workout, and I get to meet new people.  But sometimes it's a struggle to get through the class.  I drew this journal page chronicling my journey through the 60 minute class.  There always comes a point when I think I absolutely cannot do another minute or another repetition.  I have to tell myself that nobody dies of getting too much exercise, but they die of not getting enough.  And I always make it to the end.  But it's hard enough that I always get to feel a tiny bit proud of myself for sticking it out, and doing my body and my heart some good.
Pentel brush pens in the day journal.

My new best friend

This innocent, even sweet, teaset is what's held up my drawing and posting for several weeks now.  The university where I work is turning 100 years old, and we are partying like it's 1999.  One of the many events is the creation of a mural mosaic depicting 100 years of our history.  A mural mosaic is a large painting that is made up of many individual paintings.  In our case, there are 180 small paintings that create the larger painting.  The mural is designed by a professional artist, and many of the flagship portraits are done by professional artists, but they wanted most of the panels done by members of the university community - including amateurs.  I have panel #112, and my reference photo was of this little tea set.  It was painted by a student in the China Painting section of the Fine Arts Faculty in 1931.  Her son has recently donated the set to our Archives.  This is my draft sketch done with watercolor pencils.  The curves of the plate gave me no end of trouble, as did the lack of tonal variation in the photo.  I'm sure I'll have to do several more  sketches before I'm comfortable with it.  My panel needs to be primarily blue to fit in with the overall picture, and needs to be done in oils or acrylics.  That's the next challenge - learning to use acrylics. Gulp!  This could be either the dumbest thing I've ever attempted or the most fun thing.  But I really am thrilled to be involved in this kind of project.

You can check out mural mosaics here   http://www.muralmosaic.com/

They really are quite amazing.

The Remains of the Toast

This is  left over toast from breakfast.  I'm telling you that because, as I look at it now, it doesn't look like toast.  I'm not happy with the way it turned out.  I've gotten out of the habit of daily drawing due to a steep learning curve in my new duties at work, and it shows.

I make my own bread, this loaf was shaped by hand which accounts for the odd shape.  They say the test of good bread is how it tastes when it is toasted.  And this toast tastes very good.  But clearly, there is no substitute for daily drawing practice.  Time to make time to draw.