Green Inspiration

It's Thusday and I'm alway eager to see what Inspire Me Thursday has as it's topic.

Today the topic was green. That originally made me think of our recycling box which is not the colour green but is a green idea.

Then for some reason I remembered this snapping turtle that I took photos of almost a year ago today. Saw him on the side of the road. Stopped and went back to take pictures. He was very kind and didn't attack me or anything. Never even hissed at me. Just sat there on the shoulder and looked at me and let me get within about 2 feet of him. Of course at the time I didn't realise he was a snapping turtle (I'm from the prairies and we don't have them there - but we do here in southeastern Ontario) and could have bitten my fingers off....

But he was HUGE. About 15 inches across his carapace and after doing some turltle research I learned that this means he is really quite old. His carapce was covered in moss and he looked like an old muddy rock - really excellent camoflage.
Anyways...

I decided to draw him this morning and this is as far as I've gotten with him in my sketchbook and now I have to go to work for the rest of the day so I'll have to come back to him later. But I think I have captured his eyes and his mouth.
After reading about them I was suprised at how calm and gentle he was that day. So turtles in children's books are green sometimes and maybe that's how I jumped over to this turtle - certainly the moss on his shell was a greenish icky colour.

Either way the topic green inspired me to draw him. So I have started. Stay tuned for more updates with him.

In Memorium of Buster

This picture was done tonight to remember a dear friend who is dying of cancer. Buster Irish. Buster lives down the road from us and used to live next door. He sort of thinks of our yard as being his yard and is the happiest dog in the world. 99 pounds fighting weight.
(Buster Irish, 9x12, pencil)

After supper tonight I saw his owner Charlene coming up our steps with him and he had shaved patches on the sides of his chest and he looked awful. Lost a tonne of weight and just looking generally wupped. I asked her what had happened to him. Last time we saw him he looked the picture of health and was laughing and his normal self (we see him sporadically before it gets really warm outside because he is inside more then).

He got sick about 2 weeks ago - just after we saw him last - and they found out today that the cause of the fluid on his lungs is severe lung cancer which as a primary tumor is incredibly rare in dogs. He can't breath because of all the fluid on his lungs. Over the last 2 days they have drained several litres of fluid out of his chest. Today he is having a good day and they only gave him about 48 hours to live - the cancer is inoperable - and Charlene brought him so that we would know what happened to him and to give us a chance to say good bye to him She is a wonderful lady to have thought of us at this horrible time for her family.

We had him in and he had some ham and wagged his tail and just rested and let us pet him. He tried to be happy for us but he is soooo tired.

He is a terrific dog and always came over in the mornings to say hello and send us off for work if he'd gone outside for his day and usually after work or on the weekends if his family wasn't home and he was outside he would come over and just hang out with us. And then he'd hear Dave's truck pull in and he'd take off home. Or they'd whistle and he'd take off for home. He was always so happy and always made us smile. We will miss him alot. The world will be missing something important once he is no longer in it.

This drawing was done from a photo I took about 18 months ago. Our flyers had been going missing and we couldn't figure out why. I looked out the window one morning and saw him lying on the front lawn chewing on our bag of flyers. Mystery solved.

We'll miss you Buster.

Good Evening In The Morning

Last week I stumbled on the Virtual Sketch Date website which offers a sketching, painting, art challenge once a month. People do a piece of art based on an inspirational photo posted there and then link the photos for others to see. I missed the date (obviously because this is May...) but I really liked the image and wanted to do a drawing of it anyways. So here is my attempt...

Good Evening (9x12, pencil with pencil crayon)

This sketch is really much better in real life. The birds are grosbeaks, I think, from the colour and the shape of their beaks and bodies. I added some light coloured pencil over the pencil drawing but it isn't showing up that well in this photo. And the bird on the right isn't washed out in the original drawing. Adjusting the way you look at the monitor will help bring the make bird on the right up and not looking so washed out. At least it helps on my laptop...

It also looks a bit odd - it's in my sketchbook and drawn on the back of the patched together paper from the "Wednesday at 7AM" still life sketch I did late last night - I didn't want to waste paper and initially I never intended to draw anything more than what was on the lower half so I wasn't worried about the patched together bit. And it looks curvy and that is of course because it's in the sketch book... Oh well, I like it.

I called this "Good Evening" but since this is moring I'll just say have a great day.

Tulips and Lunch

Yesterday I got to do alot of work in the afternoon. I started playing with some of the tulip images I had taken last week. And playing with media I haven't played with in a while.

This first drawing is with coloured pencil in my sketch book. I'm happy with the way it turned out because it's been over 20 years since I've used coloured pencil this way.
Independent Tulip #1 (5x9 coloured pencil drawing)

This second image is the same tulip but done in mixed media. I have watercolour crayons that I haven't had a chance to fool around with much and wanted to play with them today. This went through several stages. I painted the tulip first and then worked on the background. I wish I had masked the tulip and done it in reverse but oh well. The tulip originally was quite nice but I used too much water on the background and the tulip ran because there was alot of pigment and I wasn't patient enough to let it dry well enough. I had a much lighter background at first but again with the running pigment I decided to go dark instead. I added in some coloured pencil and some ink as well. Not too bad I guess.

Independent Tulip #2 (5x9 mixed media)

The third image is a line drawing I did of the group of tulipe I want to work with and my intention is to use this a the basis for some other things. Perhaps some block printing and maybe some painting. We'll see. This I am happy with because I think there is some perspective in it.

This last drawing is also from my sketchbook and it got too large (well I started too large) and had to glue in another set of pages behind the initial sketch in order to finishe it. I'm happy with it and took some reference photos of it so that if I want to work in colour later on then I can.

I have to say that I really like that little coffe cup. I like the whole thing but that little cup just makes me smile because it was soooo quick and simple. Well that's all for now. Enough tulips for tonight. Gotta get to bed so I can get up and make lunch tomorrow (well this) morning.

Bandit Sleeping (2.5 x 3 inches) Ballpoint pen on sticky note

I did this picture last night when I was sitting on the couch and watching TV. My cat is pretty cuddly at night time and he snuggled down with me and I thought I should sketch him. But as soon as you move to get something a cat is up and going and won't settle back down for awhile so I decided t be a bit sneaky and just use whatever I had at hand. Which was a blue ballpoint pen and a pad of sticky notes from Meyers. I'm actually pretty happy with this sketch because it captures him at that moment.

These guys below are my second set of Easter goodies I made. They are from an accucut die and I really just assembled them and added some colour and ribbons and candy but they are cute and everyone seems to like them. Marchant Paper Products in Kingston has a die cutting machine that uses accucut dies and if you buy the paper there you can use any of the dies for free. I however was lazy and just bought them pre-cut but I'm not going to beat myself up about that.

Happy Easter!!!!

Talking Turkeys and Tulips Etc

Late last week I was on my way to Ottawa and looked into a field to my right to see a cat stalking through the old corn stalks and wondered what he was trying to catch. About half way down the field I saw these guys....

I'm pretty sure the tomcat was not going to be able to bring one of these wild toms down for breakfast but he was sure concentrating on them. I've seen this group of wild turkeys in that field a few time but this was the first time I'd ever been able to get a picture of them. Never got a picture of the cat though. Too bad!

When I stopped to take the photos this guy walked across the road right in front of me...He's a bit blurry because I was sooooo shocked to see him there and that he stayed close enough for long evough for me to even focus. Normally when you stop the truck these guys are GONE!!! Very shy from being shot at I guess and smart enough to say so long.

Today I made two sets of Mini Milk Cartons for gifts. I got the idea from Inking Idaho (http://www.inkingidaho.blogspot.com/) and if you want the instructions you can purchase them from Becky there. Great value and very clear with diagrams and colour photos.

Yesterday I bought myself some lovely orange tulips and took some photos of them today in the half light from the front window. Nice a cloudy and supposed to be ideal right??? Well I'm particularly happy with this one and hope to do something more with it eventually but for now I'm just gonna toss it out here.
It's nice to have something lovely smelly and pretty and sunshiny to look at after two days of spring snowfall here. These tulips remind me that spring is almost here.