The Dentist

Usually I'm not so thrilled to be going to the Dentist's office, but this time it wasn't for me and I knew I'd have lots of time to sketch! (I know, I shouldn't delight in the bad fortunes of others!) Anyway, I took my hand-book sketch journal and tried it out. I'm not sure I like the size I chose, but I do like the paper! (I'd get a larger size next time.) So, I did three sketches while I was there...one at the Starbucks, pre-appointment, one in the office, and one facing the office. I added color to the one facing the office. And later I doodled a little girl and painted her for my niece.

GAH!

Whoa! Things went from bad to worse when I added watercolor to my sketch! I've heard about the wax repelling the watercolor in the moleskine sketchbook, but I had had a more successful attempt earlier on a smaller sketch, so I thought I could pull it off. To hide some of the awfulness, I then added some watercolor pencil. That only helped a little, so I then went over it with the ink. I'm not really happy with it, but I blame it on the paper instead of myself this time. Anyway, the pencil sketch was dull and needed some life. This is an improvement from that.

I forgot to paint the rearview mirror. It is bland anyway...only shades of gray since all I could see was the ceiling. I really really wanted it to have my husbands face in it, but he wouldn't let me move it. He said, "Besides, you would be cheating because that isn't what you see!"

I hit the road...

I just returned from a quick vacation to North Carolina to see my husband's family. It was last minute and I had planned to post from the road. There were all of these grand ideas floating around in my head: I would draw for hours every day and have tons of sketches to post at night. I took the laptop, the camera, all the cords...everything I would need to post without a scanner. ...But we can all see how far I got with that!

We went by car and hit seven states (Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, and North Carolina). 2600 miles, round trip. Since I get car sick easily, I didn't last long on sketching from the car. Though it was a nice thought. When we got to our hotels, I was exhausted and my husband needed to use the computer to figure out more of the trip. So I didn't fiddle with my blog, or even look at others.

We finally arrived and went to visit Grandma O. After much talking and catching up she said she had a CD she wanted us to hear. About 10 minutes into the CD, Grandma was snoring in her chair and a few minutes later my husband was too. I was afraid Grandma would wake up to me staring at her, so I attempted a sketch of my husband. It was done on the back of an envelope, very quickly. The sketches of him are a bit wonky because he moves a lot-even in his sleep!



I do wish I had known I would be traveling a little sooner. There are so many of you that I would have tried to meet up with and I'm bummed that I was so close and didn't have time! I had a fantastic time though and have more sketches to post and a lot to color.

And if anyone has any tips on how to get a better scan from a moleskine sketchbook, I'm open to suggestions!