Animal Wednesday - OWL and the big draw

Copied from my nature book - a snowy owl, and also part of the Big Draw - which is coming to a close soon (boo hoo)

I am posting this in advance as I am off for a trip to southern CA - a quick whirlwind trip with the red eye home. The company is asking us to travel less, which is JUST fine with me! The timing stinks for this trip, as I have a girls weekend planned for the 1st and 2nd - 4 of us are going to Martha's vineyard for a weekend at the house that DH and I stayed in for vacation this summer.

A confession - I have never...NEVER...had a weekend away with just the girlfriends. I really don't know why, perhaps I enjoy being with DH and don't want to miss our precious time together - mostly because I travel so much. I have spent many weekends away with family in CA, Florida and even Italy. But never local...never really intentional.

We've been friends for over 20 years - and we finally get a chance to talk and share stuff that you just don't do when the guys are around. I'll show them Ms. Em drawings and let them draw their own conclusions/interpretations. One friend is a new grandma (altho she looks about 40), and the other has a 40 year old daughter and a 13 year old daughter. The third has raised her stepsons - with little support from their bio mother and has done a wonderful job of it. We all love dogs. We all love the beach, comfortable clothes, and three of us are scientists. The fourth one quit her job at a company in Boston and opened a wine store in NH (the WineStudio!) Our other friend, who was supposed to join us just broke her ankle and has to stay home - altho I think she could make it (having been there myself) - but it probably would be uncomfortable for her. We call ourselves " The Foundation Club" because we all realize that at this point in our lives - foundation garments are a necessity. (for obvious reasons, I am the chief foundation garment wearer)

Happy Animal Wednesday everyone - if you don't see me it's because I'm on a damned airplane!

The Big Draw - October 22nd

I retook these pictures but something seems to be wrong with my camera - too dark and grey but better than yellow and orange like yesterday.

But anyway.

Miss Em was a bit overwhelmed by the fancy clothes the new girl at the office was wearing.


So she went home and looked in her own closet. Everything looked the same!


She headed off to the fancy store and got "fitted" for her new inner and outer garments, and went back to the office, proud to show off her new clothes only to find.................
That New Girl was imitating her now.

What's a girl to do?

(What terrible pictures, I shouldn't even post them - if I can get them better tomorrow I'm going to switch them out! )

The Big Draw - lots of days

I'm going to sort out what was done when - but just thought I'd post a few new and newly finished items for Big Draw. I didn't rotate the picture of the hand before posting it, and then Blogger won't let me remove the unrotated pictue - so I squished it down as little as I could get it and then posted the right-side up one
Squished hand drawing.
Some made up yellow flowers.

Undersea - my favorite dream place.
Mr. Fish Face.
And finally , my glasses, a tissue holder and a spool of thread on the living room table.

G'night!

The Big Draw - October 17th

This is what I would think dust looks like - and it's everywhere as we start to hunker down for the winter. These little annoying prickles will be causing all kinds of allergies!

This was actually done on a plane last April - no actual time to draw yesterday.

My big excitement yesterday was (drum roll please)......

New Bra shopping!

Being well endowed doesn't come cheap, especially if you want the girls to be comfortable and to stay in one plane. I went to a department store...got "fitted" and bought a years worth of bras. I can't divulge the size, it's too depressing. And nothing changes them! I could lose 50 lbs and they'd still be up there in the alphabet.

I know that I shouldn't complain, and should be glad for my curvaceous figure. But I called my best friend on the way home from the store - she's had breast cancer and had to have a mastectomy. I said "can I complain about this" and she had a good laugh with me...agreed that it was my god given right to bitch about it... and even she couldn't believe what I had to buy.

Maybe I should get some milage out of them and draw the heap of bras that I had to buy.

Driving home from the store I felt like they were taking up the whole back seat - I actually had to turn around to see if they still fit into the rather small package that I took home.

And, to heap insult upon injury, ALL the other women in my family are rather flat chested. And tall and thin. I'm convinced that my mom found me by the side of the road, but she insists that isn't true. But even she was astounded when I called her last night. "I wonder where you got them" she mused.

Thanks Mom!!!!
Added Note: This is an illustration that I did for Illustration Friday night - many moons ago. Most (ALL) of my stuff on that site was truly bizarre and bad but I had fun with the challenge and to heck with it all I thought. Anyway, this was one of my favorite drawings and now you know why. Even Mr. P liked it - or lusted it.

The Big Draw - October 15th and 16th

Miss Em decides to leave the classical music quartet and run off to play bluegrass music. Her friends are astounded at her choice, and figure that she'll be back to play "real" music soon.


A sketch of what was sitting on my placemat before dinner.


A sketch of the corner cabinet in my kitchen. It has much more stuff on it..too much actually...so I did some virtual house cleaning. I was at a meeting right before the debate and started doodling (hence the circles and fish head); then came home to watch that oh-so-boring debate. Mostly pencil on this one.

I have my "studio" in the basement but have found it to be much more fun to draw upstairs in the kitchen while DH is cooking or watching TV or whatever. I also get the benefit of him commenting on perspective or giving me hints on how to draw something, or a detail that I'm missing. It's much better than "asking" for a critique - somehow much less bruising to the ego. I'm liking this big draw!

Animal Wednesday and the Big Draw

Poor Miss Em had a bad day, and Sammy is trying his best to cheer her up. Think it'll work?

Happy Animal Wednesday to all my fellow animal lovers and drawers.

Another question for my friends out there - do you copyright your artwork and/or your blog? Just askin'!

The Big Draw - Oct 12

This was from October 12th, forgot to post it.
Don't ask me..he's wearing the hat!

The Big Draw - October 12th

After our epic bike ride yesterday, I couldn't help but draw my ideal, made to order bike - with its accessories and maintenance package.  Of course, instructions are also handy. 

My scanner isn't big enough to scan the whole picture, had to do it in bits and pieces. Color comes next when I get a chance. 

The Big Draw - Oct 11th

After a very, very grueling 7.5 mile bike ride (of which I walked more than half, pushing my bike) I had a few minutes to sketch the tree that I crashed into at the very end.  

I am bruised, and battered, and sore from my head to my feet, but feel like I got a good day's play in. Hot bath...wine...a little food and bed  - that's the plan. 

Big Draw - October 10th

There's always some good news to be found in lousy times.  

More of Miss Em's day for the Big Draw

Waking up - love those pj's  missy.  

Too bad...raining outside

Walking to the store with the purple umbrella

Doggie bath - he needed it after walking thru puddles

Locking up for the day

Walking home - getting in trouble as usual.  Watch out Em! 


A night out after a long day at work. 

The End. 

Day 6 - the big draw...and a Monday

It was such a typical Monday. I overslept, ran around like a turkey getting to work, only to sit, bored, at a web-based conference multi-tasking as usual. So while the web meeting was going on, I was drawing my computer and desk stuff...and watching the stock market prices.

Frankly, I don't understand the stock market stuff, I just know that it makes me nervous. I'm not fond of change...and change is here and I get jittery. Hearing all those stories from the '30's - how Dad's family lost money and houses - just makes me shudder. Right now all my money is in my mattress :) so I guess it doesn't really matter to me.
God, I just want to live happy and healthy - can't we arrange that?

But babies still go on being born, and the sun still rises...and I finally finished my football quilt. It was a real challenge, but the gift giver likes it so there we are.


Now I can finish the quilt that I really like, it's green and brown. No one else likes it as a baby quilt, so I'm going to hang it on my wall. I have a thing for sage green, and love it mixed with ticking type fabric and browns. I went yesterday to The Fabric Place, in Framingham, which is going out of business after 60 years. Actually, it wasn't the best store for great fabrics, but they had nice stuff, and with two huge floors, had just about everything else also. When I got there yesterday, it was like vultures had picked over the place. They're selling everything from fabric to store lighting, and boy - people were buying. I did get some nice fabric for future projects, and some lovely yarn..but all the knitting needle holders were gone, no knitting elastic - nothing. But, as noted before, I hate change and Fabric Place has always been the fall back place to go when you couldn't find it anywhere else. They say that they were actually losing customers to boutique type fabric and yarn stores.

Well, that's my rant for today. It's monday. Chorus practice tonight and Ethyl Smyth piece ( a Mass - makes me feel guilty singing it this week - so guilty that I feel that I am personally responsible for the stock market plunge because I'm so non-observant). Interesting to control the world from my little corner of Stow...

Early Sunday morning - nothing special!

If you are into handmade fabric - check out this site. Lynn, I thought this might be great for your grandkids art work somehow. It's a site called Spoonflower and somehow you design your own fabric. I think about Ms Em, tromping across a quilt. Could be a bit odd.

I posted Ms. Em walking the dogs and trying to protect them from the rain. Eliz thought that the doggies should be carrying their own umbrella and send me this photo. Not only was it great that she sent this to me...but I'm childishly pleased with the way I have copied it here. Thanks E - (and my tutors, Fern and OF)

It's pretty cute isn't it? I do agree that doggies should try to carry their essentials when able. I used to have a great fanny pack called "Outward Hound" and it had two places to put water, one for dogs and one for humans. And it had a collapsible bowl and a place for food. I think that if I had made Samson the lab carry his own food on one of those doggie backpacks, he would have spent all his time curving in circles trying to get at the delicious smelling stuff.

We did go bike riding yesterday, and it was alot of fun, but we got sort of lost (well, he says he knew exactly where we were but I guess we weren't exactly where we were supposed to be) so it was longer than anticipated. But still fun. I didn't get the great fall pictures that I wanted to as most of the wonderful fall foliage was flying past me as I was hurtling downhill faster than I really wanted to be going. But here are some pictures I took of the path.

We picked up Chinese food on the way home, chowed it down, I had a hot bath and became a lo mein noodle and crashed into bed for a good solid 8 hours.
Excercise is really amazing. All of the troubles seem to melt away when I'm out there bike riding. I know it doesn't mean that they've gone away...and frankly, I don't get clarity on how to deal with them, but they just leave me for awhile. I love being off the roads, in the woods and not knowing what I am going to find around the next bend. While it's a bit scary, I love going fast down a hill...and if the uphill doesn't last too long, I love that also. The flats are my favorite, where I can stop and take pictures and enjoy being outdoors. Well, maybe again today, we'll see.

Oh yeah...the Big Draw! I copied this picture from one of my art books - always fun to draw backsides.

October 3rd - the big draw

Somehow this challenge is just perfect for me right now. Copied from a magazine and no...she didn't really have those squinty eyes, or Breck-girl hairdo, but it's closer than I thought it would be.

The Big Draw - Day 1 - October 1st

I started out drawing a picture of a beautiful maple leaf - then these guys appeared on the TV, telling us how they'd just signed away my life savings!

Couldn't help but draw them, with some editorial thoughts.