Tucked Away

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

 

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.

Just saying hi

 

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!

Sketching at Nathaniel Green Park

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

Just Do It!

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.

Read it through first!

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!

Chicken Scratch

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.