Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Look! A real drawing!



This afternoon I attended one of those retirement seminars. One thing she said that struck me as odd was that most people find it hard to adjust to life after work. And that one of the things they can't emphasize enough is that you have to make sure you have a reason to get out of bed each day. I'm not sure we will have that problem.

I've been taking a class on drawing with pen and ink and I'm really loving it. It was hard because traditional drawing is not something that's in my comfort zone. I look at these sheets of paper that I'm supposed to cover with stuff and it's intimidating! Plus, the fact you're working in pen means you can't erase mistakes. No undo button.

I find the classes pretty intense. We seem to be doing a full drawing per week. The first week we did three cubes using three different shading techniques. That was manageable. These flowers was the second week's project. By the third week, I was falling behind. It was a stipling project that was done on vellum. That was over the Thanksgiving weekend so we had two weeks to complete the drawing. Now I'm at three weeks with it and barely got half of the stupid lizard done. I've started my homework for the fourth week and have decided to ignore the lizard for now.  The classes are fast paced and I'm struggling to keep up but I'm having so much fun!

I don't think I've ever done a real drawing like this before. I can't wait until I retire!

My apologies to my Twisted fibre friends. I meant to come back on Wednesdays but have been doing homework instead.


Thursday, October 17, 2013

Game Face

Game Face

Although I don't wear make-up anymore, every morning I wake up and put on my "game face". It's something everyone does, whether or not they admit to it. It's a way of protecting our inner thoughts and our vulnerability. 

Photo was manipulated in Sketchclub using the transform tool, mask was painted on a separate layer and feathered. Butterfly brush for the hair was created in Procreate. Hair and background was erased using a soft edged brush with the opacity down. I turned down the opacity in small increments as I worked into the figure to soften the blending and to make sure there were no harsh lines. Once everything was done, the picture was imported to Snapseed for the grunge effect and the border. 

Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Dressing up for Halloween

What? Doesn't everyone dress up for Halloween?

I'm running out of time...I need a quick simple costume.

A quick doodle on the iPad, using Paper53.

Monday, October 14, 2013

Kitchen Sunday - Peanut Butter Nutella Cookies

Ok, it's technically not Sunday today. But I was too busy lazy to write up a post yesterday. After the weekly blueberry muffins, I made peanut butter Nutella cookies. I found a recipe on Pinterest but decided not to follow their recipe. I made my usual recipe and instead of baking the cookies first then making the indent and put the Nutella in after, I made variations.

I indented the cookie dough, put in a dab of Nutella, then baked them. They didn't look as good as the pictures in the original recipe - the Nutella formed a crust and fell out of the cookies when you bite into them. Still, they were tasty. I know they're tasty because I left 24 cookies on the rack to cool. This is NOT 24 cookies!



Tuesday, October 08, 2013

Just a moment to get back some sanity...

Squash Minion

A small squash and a couple of Sharpie markers can make a rough day at work much better. This is now sitting on a window ledge looking out to the rest of the office. Maybe it bring a smile to someone else too and make their bad day better. It doesn't take long to find a moment to create something simple and fun.

Don't ask why I have a squash in my office.