Something you may not know about me…..I love quotes!
I get several in my e-mail every day.
I try to pick out one that is my favorite and make it my
mantra for the day.
This is today’s pick.
"I make the most of all that comes and the least of all that goes."
– Sara Teasdale
May your day be lovely!
I’d love to practice my sketching enough to do adorable things like the sketch above from
For some reason, in the winter, I need more coffee! Perhaps it’s the lack of daylight hours, the cold,
the rushing around to work, shopping and more events.
May your coffee be strong and your Monday be short!
I’ve been sketching when I feel inspired and usually when one of the dogs are asleep. Lonnie loves to
sleep on top of all kinds of pillows and I thought he looked especially sweet on this particular night.
(I’ve been trying to concentrate more on sketching and not really painting my sketches as of late.)
Last night, when we were on our walk, I wasn’t paying attention and he saw a cat and I
went from vertical to horizontal in about 2 seconds flat! Leaves were flying, I lost the leash out of my
hand once I went down, Lonnie was barking, the neighbor’s cat, KiKi, was running….we were quite the
spectacle!!
Other than a pulled muscle, which already feels fine today, no harm was done. I did have to pick lots
of dried leaves off of my nubby coat.
Tonight, we’re skipping the walk and staying indoors. Having a little coffee, cream, and Patron XO
café dark cocoa topped with whipped cream and cinnamon. Honestly, you HAVE to have spray
whipped cream in your fridge during the holidays….it just makes ordinary things more HOLIDAY-ish!!
What makes you feel holiday-ish?
As Kenny has set out the holiday decorations, I’ve taken a little time to try and sketch some
of the deer from our little collection. The good thing….they don’t move while you’re trying to
sketch them!
I think we all need a little good news.
I don’t feel like I’m a person who sticks their head in the sand, but I don’t watch the nightly news
because I find it so depressing.
However, I do subscribe to the “Good News Network”.
It comes to my e-mail once a week.
There is so much good in the world….we just need to seek it out.
I hope you’ll take time to watch the videos I’ve posted…..I think they are touching. I hope
you will think so as well. I hope they will also remind you of all the good in the world.
The making of the video above.
I guess I’ve been in a fairly introspective mood rather than a sharing mood of late.
I keep trying to rug hook, but at the moment it’s just not exciting me.
I signed up for Sketchbook Skool and the semester has ended, but I still haven’t completed the lessons.
I did take some time last night to work on sketching Lonnie, for our animal sketching portion.
Well, for my first attempt, I’m fairly happy. You can’t become really good at anything without practice,
so I will continue on and try more animal drawings (read here, drawings of my dogs)
However, I have been watching movies and reading books.
How did I make it this far in life without ever really watching “Out of Africa”…..loved it!!
I’m also making my way through the series “The Honorable Woman”…. talk about twists and turns!!
As for books….nothing heavy…I prefer light hearted….
It’s a little “The Devil Wears Prada” –ish! A fun read.
Oh yeah, also getting ready for Thanksgiving….the big feast!!
Enjoy your week!
It’s the little things like learning how to make pie crust from scratch….
that make me happy (okay, so I made the bottom crust from scratch and the top one was pre-made, but
I didn’t want to ruin the entire chicken pot pie just in case it didn’t turn out.) Next time I’ll make the
top and bottom pie crust. Baby steps!
Walking through the neighborhood with one of my dogs and finding this ginormous mushroom
thing growing on a tree…..
I swear it’s as big as a dinner plate!!! Too cool!!
Getting together with friends to sketch and paint and drink wine.
Then going out the next day and buying MORE art supplies…..pencils, gum eraser, stamps.
I swear, I could wander around and look at art supplies for hours!!
Hope your week is filled with small pleasures.
I was on vacation last week, but got virtually no sketching done. I thought we’d have cold, rainy
weather, but instead it was sunshiny and beautiful. Here is a sketch from October 23rd using
colored pencils. I only had the primary colored pencils to work with, plus black, so this was a challenge.
Below are a few pictures I took on one of those beautiful days when I took a long walk.
Have a great week!
Dulcy and I went to Nathaniel Green park earlier in the week to sketch.
It was a beautiful day….we sat on the grass and sketched and the geese just kept moving closer
and closer to us.
Although we are entering a beautiful fall, most of the trees that we were sketching were still
green and maybe just a bit yellow, however the mums were beautiful on their own tucked into
their beds.
Lesson for me….if you are sketching something and it looks like something rude, make sure and
write next to it what it is
If the leaves look really life-like, it’s because they are glued into my sketchbook
I’ve signed up for Sketchbook Skool and have been trying to draw every
day and do homework assignments.
I think half of the problem is just making a mark on the page. Getting over the fear
of “messing up” a sketchbook.
Most of us are not “great” at what we do right out of the gates and it’s also okay to
do something just because you enjoy it.
Hope you don’t mind me sharing my new sketching adventures with you.
A few weeks ago…..who knows, maybe it was a month ago…. Kenny asked me to make
veal cannelloni. He had found some veal on sale and then found a recipe that sounded
good. I shopped for the recipe on a Saturday and told him that is what we would have
that night.
Around 5pm or so, I got out all my ingredients and the recipe and discovered this…
the marinara sauced takes 3-4 hours to make…..yep, that’s what you get
when you don’t read a recipe through BEFORE you start it…..needless to say,
that night we ended up having take out!!
However, the next day, I started making my “from scratch” marinara sauce, as well
as the filling.
Got my shells all filled and then made the béchamel sauce…..my first time making
that as well!
Needless to say, making this cannelloni recipe pretty much took up my entire Sunday,
but it was REALLY good…..
and that béchamel sauce ….well, I pretty much licked the pan!!!
If you’d like to make it you can find the recipe HERE.
I doubled the recipe, because if I was going to spend HOURS on a recipe, I wanted to
make sure and have some to have later on.
I’ve still got part of the batch in the freezer!
No need to go on and on about how far behind I am in blogging…….
I really have no excuse other than laziness….
Back in September I went to Kansas City to “Art on the Plaza”
It was fabulous with lots of wonderful art, cute kids, dogs and wonderful food!
I took some time to sketch my cousin’s chickens…..they have a cute little coop, but in the daytime
they get the run of the yard.
