Tag Archives: sketch challenge

Sep5

What Do You Have in Your Garden?

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What Do You Have in Your Garden?

Many years ago my pride and joy was our thirsty gardens with dichondra for the lawn.  The lawn was perfect with my husband spending hours and hours on it edging, and mowing constantly so it would be low and tight!  The foliage was gorgeous.  I had flower beds to die for, and a particularly beautiful Flowering Plum tree in the front yard. Now days we haven’t the time or energy to care for anything close to a yard like that, and I have grown to appreciate the many attributes of succulents!  I’ve learned of the beauty in the happy surprises when they suddenly bloom leaving us with a sometimes unusual bloom that lasts for sometimes six week or more.  My yard is now full of these wonderful plants, and I’m forever on a quest to find yet another variety to display in my garden.

I mentioned on Monday that the theme for the week would be our yards and gardens, and now seems to be the appropriate time to sketch another bunch of succulents.  They are rapidly becoming my favorites!  This little sketch is of a few pots some with freshly planted succulents, others with established plants that have begun to bloom.  I mentioned the other day of the one I love the most right now.  Not sure what the name of it is, but it seems to go on blooming forever giving my garden a much needed splash of color.

I can’t wait to see your  sketches, and paintings of the living things from your gardens, and how much thinking outside the box some of you have been able to do.  Remember anything goes, you are only limited by your imagination!   Life is good, let’s capture some of the sweetness on paper!

P.S.  My husband tells me the dictionary defines Dichondra as part of the Morning Glory family.  Is this a good thing or bad thing, you tell me!

Sep4

Just Another Lazy Day

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Just Another Lazy Day

I’m not whining, really I’m not, but the heat, she’s not going away!  This is  just another lazy  September day giving us an opportunity to create .  I know, you’re going to say, “How can you whine,  you live in Oceanside?”  And, you’re right!   I’m not whining, maybe just observing!  Mornings seem to work fore me, they are quiet, cool, and I’m inspired by the little birds chirping, and dragonflies circling the garden.  I guess we are all tired of the intense heat, and ready for relief.  I keep saying it will be any day now, but any day now brings fall, and winter.  I have trouble getting inspired when I’m freezing!  We have a way to go before the freezing sets in, so I for one am going to enjoy every bit of summer left.

Yesterday, I set the challenge for a week instead of a day.  All week long we will sketch, paint, draw, or collage something living from the yard.  Those are  pretty broad choices!  It can be a plant, a flower, several plants, trees, anything just do a little piece of creativity!  Sometimes there isn’t time to go into full fledged art mode, but some simple little piece of the making  of art  keeps the gates open, and I always feel I’ve accomplished something important to me, even on a busy day.

As you look around the yard, or your neighbors yard (snicker, snicker) take some pictures, or sit down in the shade with pencil or pen, and do a little something to keep the creativity flowing!

Aug31

Let’s Wrap It Up!

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It suddenly dawned on me that not only is it the last day of the week, but the last day of the month!  Just think of all that has happened this month; I’ve been sketching each day, I’ve shopped for  the grandkids school clothes, sat through the surgery for a broken arm on an eight year old, started a new blog, and much more I can’t even remember.  Each day I jump out of bed, get dressed and take an early morning walk with buy dog Daisy.  It has to be real early because of the heat and humidity.  Both of us drag home after forty minutes of walking the neiborhood, glad to be home, and throughly pooped!

This morning I kept thinking about how I really needed to get a new pair of running shoes.  The old ones are beginning to hurt my feet, and I am uncomfortable on our walk now!  Well, naturally once I started to think of running shoes, that quickly morphed into all kinds of shoes, and this became the theme for the day.  So, today the challenge is to sketch, paint, collage, mold, or maybe even decopague shoes!  Any kind of shoes, for anyone.  Let us all see what you come up with……  As I’m writing this, I’m realizing the little sketch I just finished could have been so much more!  So in coming up with the challenge for today, and working hard to suggest things that I think might trigger your creativity, I’m realizing how much more fun I could have dad with this shoe sketch.  I used Derwitt Ink Tense pencils for the color and really love them for traveling.  I guess I get lazy with mu morning sketches because they are to be easy to do and help spark creativity.

As I finish up the week and the month, I am reminded of the beautiful summer we have had so far.  I have complained a little of the heat, but when it turns cold, I complain about that also.  Ok, I admit I am totally a “Goldy Locks Girl!”  Monday through Friday is going to be the format for my posts.  We all need some down time, but occasionally I might add something, or post a sketch or painting just because!

Have a fabulous Labor Day weekend, I’ll be back on September 3rd with a new challenge, and sketch!