Amaryllis 2014 part 2

I saw a small crack yesterday, and today the bud opened up to this.  It's so exciting to watch an amaryllis bloom!  It should look really interesting tomorrow.

Watching the Winter Olympics

I wanted to try sketching some of the winter Olympics.  It's not as easy as I thought.  The athletes move with the speed of light, and the cameras keep changing angles and never going back to the same pose.  I tried first with the figure skating, and that was impossible.  Then I tried downhill skiing, same thing.  But I got the idea to do ski jumping when I realized that there were only a few angles that the cameras always went back to.  It worked!  The speed skating worked out reasonably well too.  The snowboarding was tricky.  I had to watch a lot of runs to get what I had in mind.   I only did a few, because it was sort of frustrating waiting for a good pose, and waiting for it to recur. 

Amaryllis 2014

This sketch shows my new amaryllis plant from it's start to what it looks like right now. I have to confess that I had planned to only paint the part of the plant that is in the circle....but I have a short attention span sometimes, and already started painting the whole thing before I remembered that. So, a slight change of plan. LOL! I intend to do a few more sketches as the bud opens and perhaps a quarter sheet painting when the bloom is at it's peak. (If I'm not away at a collage workshop in Myrtle Beach when that happens).

Backyard Tree with Snow

A quick sketch of one of the spruces in my backyard after our latest snowstorm.  In my 300-page Flexi-Sketch.

More Snow

We are in the middle of another snowstorm.  I'm trying to stay warm and dry, but I liked the way my azaleas looked with various sized mounds and puffs of the white stuff.  I got lost a few times in those "puffs", but this is pretty much what my pretty pink azaleas look like during a February snowstorm. 

Sketchcrawl January 25, 2014

The January Sketchcrawls are always on the coldest, snowy days.  It's hard to find somewhere exciting to sketch indoors, not to mention the motivation to actually drive somewhere.  So, here is my Sketchcrawl from home. 

Merry Christmas

I spent several days during Christmas at my son and daughter-in-law's house.  I took my watercolor sketching stuff with me, as I expected to do a bit of sketching with my seven grandchildren.  But with seven kids and three adults, assorted presents, cookies, food prep, etc., there wasn't enough room to do much.  Plus, the kids had choir practice and someone always had some activity they had to go to, not counting video games and nerf gun chaos.  So I only got one sketch in, and only two of the kids painted with me.  I did have a lot of fun though, and didn't eat too many cookies.