Bird and model

I used ads in a magazine for these two pieces. The parrot is done in watercolor. The portrait is a contour drawing with some color applied.

 

 

Drawings

I used a reference photo from Traveling Goddess' site for these drawings. A pencil drawing and a contour drawing using a ballpoint pen. Both done on card stock. (My camera doesn't take very good pictures. Sorry.)

 

 

This is so kewl to watch!

Be sure to have your sound on for the full effect:

I came across this video on Suzi Blu's site.

Proper care and benefits of cats (6.5 minutes)

BWAH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA

Sunday

 So... sometimes it doesn't pay to buy batteries on sale. It most likely means they are old. They don't have the same level of engery. I just put new batteries in the camera a couple of photographs ago and they are already out of juice. Its way too soon. I suppose it could be the camera (5 yrs old) but the odds are with the batteries.

Bottom line... no pictures for a while. ('for a while' could be a day or a week. I'm not sure.)

I don't have anything else to talk about, either. I just wanted to leave a footprint.

Sigh

This was suppose to be a pen/ink drawing with a loosely applied wash. Sigh. I tried a second one with no sketch, just the painting. Sigh again. I'm not even going to post that one.

 

Mom and the boys stopped by for a few minutes last evening. I couldn't get any pictures of the boys without them hamming it up. Darius' tee shirt says "I didn't do it." Appropriate.

 

They grow so fast. Its great when Darius comes running in with his arm held wide for a hug as he says "GRAMMA!!" I had to TAKE a hug from Vyron.

A2Z Project - Letter V

Letter V for Violin.

 

(I just don't seem to have the knack of getting a straight shot.) The background is way too busy... too much color. But that's how lessons are learned. No matter how many times it takes.

Fake "Art"??

I came across a so called art site that looks like they've taken photographs and run them through an art software program to make it look like the pictures were painted. (I'm not talking about actually creating art using art software or taking created art and manipulating it... I'm talking straight up photographs (may have been cropped) made to look like they are painted.) I might have missed something, but I didn't see anything that said these are photographs made to look like paintings. It made me feel yucky. (sorry for the scientific terminology.) What are your feelings on this?

A2Z Project - Letter U

Letter U for Uniform.

Artist uniform:

 

This uniform comes from my casual observations. Many artists do not wear a uniform, but plenty more do based on characters in movies and TV shows, real people interviewed on TV, and people at street art fairs.

Head Gear
Neck Scarf... this is the most popular one used. Summers can be difficult, but if the scarf is light weight, its possible to pull it off.
Tattoo(s)
Unusual Clothing
Sandals
Striped Socks (or mismatched socks in bright colors)
Beret...Dated but some still use it
The bangles and paint brush are optional.

A New Neighbor

A new neighbor moved in to one of the apartments next to me. A young woman with a beagle. The beagle is usually quiet unless he is left alone. I think my new neighbor spent the night somewhere else. 3am
 

Do Not Buy This Book

"Colorful Illustrations 93'C"...do not buy this book. I first saw this message at Casey Toussaint's blog. Apparently someone has stolen illustrations and interviews done by someone else to produce this book. Although my readership is very small, I thought I would also pass the word around. You can read more details from a person who had a lot of their work included in this book. Check it out here.

A Visitation... of sorts

When my friends, Rod and Penny, read about my problems with the pc I was/am using they offered me their extra pc. YaHoo! They didn't have to offer twice, that's fer sure.

They live about 85 miles away and yesterday they had to come into the city so they dropped it off. Here are my benefactors. Don't they make a handsome couple?

 
It was fun seeing them again. (Penny has gorgeous skin. Whenever I read a description saying someone had porcelain skin I know exactly what they mean.)

Here's the pc they dropped off (with two keyboards).
 
I'm currently using a card table and I don't think it will hold up under this monitor, so next week I'm going to go get a sturdier table. Then I'll be able to set it up. In the mean time I admire it as I sit on the couch. And between now and then I will be saving all the bookmarks I've saved so I can put them on the new pc. (I copy the links and then send myself an email with them.)

Penny was interested in the rooster painting I did for the letter R, so she was able to pick it up along with another rooster I had done last year using markers. She posted a picture of one of them (made last year) that she framed. Its quite a thrill to see something I made all framed up and hanging on someone else's wall. I think its a first for me.

So... Thank you, Rod and Penny. You're very generous and kind and I so appreciate everything.

A GD RANT!!!!

I've had it! I'm so frigging angry I think I'm spitting nails!!!! F**K Google!!!!!! I'm frigging ass tired of having GD marketing forced down my throat. GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

I do a google search. I find the site I want to check out and click on it. Am I taken to that site? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. I'm stuck in some others f**king site trying to sell me something. And 'stuck' is the operative word because I usually can not click back to google.

And can I find any place to give google some feedback. Nooooooooooooooooooooo

I'VE HAD IT!! Greedy freaking U.S. corporations (AND people) are driving me crazy!!!! And crazy people seldom have money to buy anything so LEAVE ME ALONE!!!

(Its all I could do to use astericks, too!!!!!!!!!!!)

I'm not using google any more. There are other search engines to use. Greedy MFs!

A2Z Project - Letter T

Letter T for tomato.

 

I purposely splashed some water on this one (same painting) just to see how it would turn out.

 

I almost forgot I had already done my letter T a few days ago. I had bought these three very ripe tomatoes and realized I couldn't wait too long before consuming, otherwise they would have been wasted. As I was cooking a hamburger patty it suddenly hit me... "hey, this could by my letter T! If I hurry. Eat or paint, eat or paint them?" As you can see I did a quick watercolor before slicing one of them for lunch.

A2Z Project - Letter S

I'm stretching it this week. The letter S is for stew. That's right, stew.

I didn't take a photo of all the ingredients before hand... I didn't realize until after the fact that this would be my letter S. Anyway, I got a package of stew meat yesterday that was just the right amount and the right price. It was in the bin for the BUY-IT-NOW itmes.

Here is the stew as it cooked:

 

I forgot to take a done picture, but here's a photo of the leftovers. It was good.

 

And here it is all gone. Two meals and a couple of snacks.

 

Stew was perfect for the weather. We are back to cold weather. Cold, at least, for April. So comfort food was a perfect choice. Ya just don't get this excitment everywhere!

A2Z Project - Letter R

Letter R for Rooster.

 

Watercolor, Tombow watercolor pens, 140 lb watercolor paper.

I'm disappointed in the outcome but I'm certainly not surprised. The photo of this bird is quite spectacular, in my opinion, and this painting is sorely lacking in comparison. But its another letter down and another one to go....

I had done a rooster drawing back in October. If you want to check it out, go here. As I was going through older posts I noticed some of the youtube video's did not display in the 'box' area. I clicked on one and it took me to youtube where I could view it. I don't know why some no longer show up and others do. ??

Just Another Day

I went grocery shopping today. Man, was that discount grocery store packed!! The parking lot was full, but when I came back out an hour later there were parking places all over. Go figure.

I also make a stop at the dollar store but kept myself in check. I just got what I needed. I tell ya, life just doesn't get any more exciting than this!

We have a ghost forest on our coast. There are stumps of ancient trees showing up in the waves at low tide. Apparently the tree stumps had been buried under sand, but the sand is now getting washed away enough for the trees to show up. (I tried to find a story about them on the news site, but was unsuccessful. Perhaps it was just a filler story or something.) Someone they interviewed said they thought maybe there had been a substantial Tsunami (sp?) a long time ago that broke the trees off and carried the sand over the stumps. Sounds logical to me.

We're still rainy and cold here but this weekend its suppose to get up to 70 degrees on Saturday. I hope the weather folks are right. We need to dry out. We've got too much moss growing on everything. The rain today feels like a spring rain. That's a good sign.

Just a day in the life of.....

Nothing seems to be working today

The gremblin remains in my computer. Its managed to get rid of Task Manager, changed my comments form to a full screen instead of a popup, takes over a minute to load most things (I'm on dsl), and it may or may not be sending me to other sights when I click on something in google. Sigh.

I tried to do a repair using the Windows XP recovery disk, but things came up that had never come up before. I suppose I will reload Windows later today... if it works, but I'm tired of this all right now.

I just want to rant some more....

I'm so tired of all the greedy people. I'm speaking right now of all the companies (people) who accepted sub-prime mortgages that in turn jacked up all the prices of housing. Now you can get a square box of a house for $300,000. WTF?! I heard the ex CEO (resigned from Bear Sterns just before their condition became public knowledge) has just purchased a $27 million dollar house. "Let them eat cake."

I can understand why the feds had to keep them from going completely under, yet on the other hand its a reward for being greedy.

I use to enjoy watching The View since they added Whoopi and Sherry to the table, but I don't think I can continue to watch it. I get too frustrated listening to that Elizabeth person. But what a lessoned demonstrated though. The demonstration is how several people can look at the same thing and see something TOTALLY different. You see what you want to see. You believe what you want to believe.

And I'm no longer proud to be an American. (my apologies to Canadians and Mexicans for using the term 'American' when I really mean USA... but its a well used phrase.)

Sometimes I wished I was a drinker. I'd go get drunk.

For Sandy and Other Birdwatchers

I was searching images, via google, to find something for the letter r and I came across Fowl Visions... a blog dedicated to bird watching. I immediately thought of Sandy.

Several entries back on Fowl Visions is a youtube video of someone's hummingbird feeder. I couldn't find it on youtube (there are LOTS of hummingbird videos!!) so here's the link to the particular entry.

Deleting comments

I need help. I can't seem to find the place where I can delete an individual comment. I click on "moderate comments" and it just takes me to the set up page for comments. What am I doing wrong?

If these #^&#&$#^#$*& people keep leaving their drivel spam crap in the comments section I will have to review the comments before allowing them to post... and I really don't want to do that.

(I wished i could put my hands around one of their necks right now. The way I'm feeling they would never bother anyone ever again.)

And while I'm ranting... what's up with google these days? I do a search, find a site I want to check out and when I click on it I'm taken to another search engine. WTF? Frustration is my middle name today.

A2Z Project - Letter Q

Letter Q for The Quilt.

 

watercolor on 140 lb paper.

Pirates of the Caribbean

My daughter had borrowed my car for a few days and I just got it back. My first trip was to scout out phones and get an idea of prices. Of course my fingers were crossed for luck.

I found one on clearance and when it was rang up there was yet another discount. Go me. Its a bit of a conversation starter.
 This is my Pirates of the Caribbean princess phone. It cost me $6.38. It feels like a $6 phone, but it works fine and its all I need. I rarely use the phone.

Yawn

This is how I've been feeling... although the snippy attitude directed at others isn't me. Today, anyway.

I just got my car back. My daughter borrowed it on Monday to do errands. I expected it to take a couple of days, but this is the fourth day. Its about time. I hope there's at least the same amount of gas in it as when she took it.

Today is our one day of sunshine before we get more rain. There may be some sun shining through at times, but its still cold.

Sigh. I got nuthin'. Yawn.