A Gift for My Mom

Joe & I have been so busy moving that it's been hard to find time to do anything creative. I love old things and I love old shoes, so when I found this planter at a local nursery, it was the perfect opportunity to creatively enjoy spring. I used some chicken wire and curved it to fill in the opening of the front of the shoe and also above the strap. Then I cut enough moss to wet down and mold over the chicken wire. Once that was complete, I filled it with Potting Soil and planted this small Bridal Veil plant, which will eventually spread out and hang down around the shoe. It will be lovely in my mother's screen porch! Welcome Back Spring. Oh how I've missed you!

Just Another Flower .... Waiting for Spring

My husband got a book called "Sketching Outdoors in Spring" for me for Christmas and a smaller sketch pad. The book is perfect for me, since if it were spring year round, I would sketch all year! The smaller note pad will help me not to feel so intimidated by the large white page when I'm drawing little flowers. Right now Ohio is full of snow and slush. So to help me remember spring is coming, I'm posting a little flower I drew last spring.

'Come with rain. O loud Southwester! Bring the singer, bring the nester; Give the buried flower a dream; make the settled snowbank steam;' ~ Robert Frost

Ink Pen Friends

Joe is always sending me emails at work with critters he's drawn on his lunch break. So recently for fun, I grabbed and Ball Point Ink Pen and a Post It and sketched a little guy for him on my break. I knew he would think that was funny that I did that! So now he has this guy up on his shelf over his drawing table watching him as he draws. Joe told me the other day "He needs some friends". Maybe I'll have to work on that!

Summer's Fading Fast

Every year at the beginning of Summer we get ground cover all through our yard that has tiny purple flowers. I was determined to capture this, but really struggled with it. I spent so much time trying to get it right that I ended up with quite a sunburn. It amazes me how there is such a wide variety of designs in nature. This little flower has tons of fuzzy pieces angled downward toward the bottom petal. Only the bottom petal is pointed, where the other four petals are rounded. Also, the bottom petal has a design on it the closer you get to the center. The whole flower is only about half an inch big. It's amazing that such beauty and detail comes in such tiny packages. But Summer is quickly fading.... and I will miss her.

Spring and Spring Rains

I love Spring! It is my favorite time of year. The green is brighter than any other green and the air is so fresh. As I was out doing some yard work, I pulled up a piece of wood that had tiny mushrooms sprouting from clumps of dirt on the side. I was all set up on my front porch to draw and as soon as I made the first line on my paper, it started raining! I tried to move back into the doorway but the wind still blew the droplets onto my page. So in a compromise with nature, I carried the large piece of wood into my kitchen, propped it up over my sink and opened the kitchen window so I could still smell the spring rain! The lighting was not quite as nice and there was a rather constant stream of small ants appearing on the counter top. But I enjoyed it all the same!

I love it, I love it..... Ahhhh, I've ruined it!

Back in September, my husband & I spent a weekend at a Bed & Breakfast on the shore of Lake Erie to celebrate our 10th Anniversary. One morning we sat out on the beach drawing tiny shells together. I was so excited about my drawing ..... until I added the smaller darker shell! Somehow the values all turned out wrong and I just hadn't captured how the shell truly looked. But I'm sure those kinds of issues will improve once I manage to make time to sketch more than 5 times a year! Practice, practice, practice.

Freedom......

I recently took a trip across country to help my friend move home to Ohio from California. I had a few days to spend by myself in Silver City, NM just walking around and being alive..... not caring about the day to day stress of life. Of course even in my freedom, I thought of my family back home and wanted to share little things from my trip with them. So I did that in the form of little drawings of things I came across. I drew them on the back of the envelopes that I sent letters home in. Just remembering those walks and the warm breeze makes me feel like I'm breathing a little easier.