Where did the beginning of March go?

Sorry for the lack of posting lately. It isn't that I haven't been drawing-I have! But, a lot has been copying the works of other online artists whose work I enjoy. I can't post those. Plagiarism and all.

Another thing slowing me down is the writing part of blogging. It makes me procrastinate. I wrestle with words; we have a tumultuous relationship. Sometimes they come easily, sometimes they don't. I do better when I'm reading a lot, but that hasn't been the case lately. Too busy sketching!

Yesterday I drew a very loose pencil sketch of my husband tilling the soil in our garden. It had energy and I was excited by the results. I sketched it in my exacompta sketchbook which takes light washes fairly well. Then I started adding a little watercolor. Starting with my husband, things were going fine. But then I came across a portion of the page which must have had something on it because it didn't want to accept paint. I wish I had left just my husband, the tiller, and the dirt painted because I couldn't fix the sky and the fence after that fiasco. I went over my pencil sketch with a micron pen in sepia because the loose pencil lines got lost in all the mess. The paper will fall apart if I do any more, so it must stay this way.

This little girl is Sarah, my uncle's Mexican chihuahua. She's taller the most chihuahuas you see in the US, and doesn't have that roundness at the top of her skull. And unlike most chihuahuas, she rarely barks. That's my kind of dog! This is done in my moleskine sketchbook in pencil, with a little bit of colored pencil added. I don't like the way it scanned. In my sketchbook, it doesn't appear to have the dark dark outlines. I think it's because I did a little with black colored pencil, which scans better than the graphite pencil. This was done from a photo, fairly quickly. I tried not to get too fussy with it.

These two sketches are also in my moleskine sketchbook. (You probably remember the watercolor dude-thing, whatever he is, he got taped in here a while back.) I drew the girl from imagination with my Lamy Safari fountain pen and noodler's eternal black. After it dried, I added tone with a uniball micro which is water soluble, and then brushed with water.

The cat is Eddie, the one that adopted us last summer. We couldn't let him in our house because of our other cat, so we found him a good home with one of our neighbors. He is now a very happy, and spoiled cat who refuses to take one step out their door! I think his previous owners may have abandoned him and he's afraid it will happen again. He's done in 3B pencil.

This month marks the end of my first year of blogging and being a member of EDM. To celebrate, I'm preparing a give-away. I have three books and the winner will get to choose the one they want. I should have that post up in the next day or two. Hope you'll check back soon!

Oh, one more thing! For those of you who haven't already heard, Dan and I have started a new blog to showcase a project that we've started together. We are mailing a sketchbook back and forth from Florida to Texas. Our purpose is to challenge ourselves to improve, and stretch ourselves as artists. There is something about doing these exchanges, which pushes you to do your very best. It will be nerve-wracking at times, but that is the very thing that makes me try harder. We hope you'll stop by to visit, here.