New Pencil Box

Here's a picture of Maggie checking out the new pencil box I got at Staples today.  5 bucks.  Got the last one on the shelf, but if you hurry, you might still find one or two in your local store.

Because you know you want one!

Happy Talk Like A Pirate Day

Arrrr, matey - have you seen the chicken cartoons drawn by Doug Savage?  His pirate ones are hilarious!

This one is my favourite:

You can check out his other cartoons here.

Drawing From Observation - Lesson 1

I signed up for a six week drawing class being held at a local art store called Articulations (they have lots of great classes lined up for the next few months, several of which start this week).  The first class was last night.  The teacher's name is Beth Conklin (who, as my friend Kate McKinnon said about someone else in a recent blog post, "has an ailment unfortunately common in the arts: a truly anemic web presence").  Beth is a lovely young woman, very kind and gentle, just the sort of person you want to be teaching your first drawing class - totally unassuming and always encouraging.  I think she was just as nervous to be teaching as we were to be learning but no doubt that was just first night jitters for all of us.

There are only 3 students, myself, my friend Marilyn (who hadn't told me she had signed up, giving me a lovely surprise when I arrived for class last night) and another young woman who wants to expand her portfolio prior to applying to art school.  What a treat to be such a small group!  Heather, one of the oh so very nice owners of the store, was also on hand to help us pick out the appropriate supplies.

Our first few drawings were made standing at an easel using a stick of charcoal, something I had never done.  Beth got us each to draw our purses.  It's called a contour drawing, just drawing the basic outline of something.  We only had about 60 seconds to do it.

After a few more sketches, I drew Sarah's purse and the scarf tied to it.  The idea is to get the essence of the item and if you can, convey some of the energy.

Then we had to draw on the piece of paper under the top piece of paper, so we couldn't see what we were drawing - yikes!  But a very cool result.

After that, we sat down and started drawing in our sketchbooks.  Same idea, more contour drawings, some "blink" and some not only now we were drawing our own hand.  Danny Gregory has a similar exercise at the beginning of his book called "The Creative License".  He says it's all about turning off the left (analytical) side of your brain and using the right side of your brain so you can really see an object, rather than drawing what you think you are seeing.  It also involves going slooooow, taking your time. That is going to take some practice for sure!

The initial results were quite hilarious and in some cases, resembled the Incredible Hulk's hand more than my own:

But the more we did it, the better (in my humble opinion) I got.

Then I drew a few pictures of my camera.

Can't wait until next week's class!  In the meantime, I will definitely be doing my homework - which is to - you guessed it - practice making contour drawings!

Drawing Class #1

Started a drawing class tonight - here's the very first (charcoal stick) drawing I did:

Stay tuned, more details tomorrow...

It Doesn't Take Long

One minute, the kittens are amusing themselves in the bathroom sink, mesmerized by the running water

Belle Simone, Calliope and Belle Simone

or chasing each other in and out of the tub.

Belle Matisse and Cherie

The next thing I know, Katrina is sitting in the hall on a strip of toilet paper with a look that says, "Hey, you really didn't think I was going to be able to stop them, did you?"

Katrina - an innocent bystander

Here are the culprits:

Calliope

Belle Simone

 

Belle Matisse, Simone and Cherie

Vintage School Days Journal Swap - Part 3

At long last, here are the remaining pages of the book that resulted from the journal swap I told you about here and here.

First on today's agenda, a page by my friend Heidi Redfield, with a giant paper clip and a small blackboard.  There are goodies tucked underneath (a teeny little composition book, for one) and a secret pocket on the side with an envelope for the kind of secret notes you would pass in class.

Here's the reverse side, decorated in vintage style:

The next page was made by Barb Rickard and I have to say, it's my favourite.  This is actually a double paged creation, a folded piece of paper that creates a front, middle and back. The front features a writing board on the top half, with several pieces of paper that flip up, and a box of crayons on the bottom half. Yup, those are real crayons tucked in there - how clever is that??!

The middle is a double page spread, with a mini composition book on the left side and a pocket on the right.

On the back page, a real pencil tucked in a pocket and more blank space for journaling on.

After that, a page made by Jessica Rodarte.  The front is an "assignments" page with a pretty silhouette:

and there is a vintage bingo card on the back.

This one was made by Jill Sibbald and features a photo from the Rosehaven School for Girls on the front, with a pocket full of tags with ribbons.

The back features a page from a "champion" spelling book.

Jill also included extra photos and vintage ephemera for each of us that "didn't make it onto the page". I'm planning to make a few extra pages in order to find a home for these treasures!

The last page was made by Lisa Stanton and features more pockets on the front, side and back with vintage paper goodies tucked inside.

Last but not least, swap hostess and journal assembler Michelle Geller tucked a little envelope labelled "lunch money" into the back of the book, such a cute idea!  You can read her blog post about putting the journals together here.

And there you have it, our wonderful little vintage school days journal.  What a marvellous treat it is to have this journal to hold and treasure.  I'm so grateful to all who participated for the fabulous pages they contributed to this book.  Every time I look through it, I find something new I hadn't noticed before.  I am debating about whether to leave it as is (it's almost too special to touch!) or to start writing my own school memories into the blank spaces.  In the meantime, I'll continue to enjoy flipping through this little book of delight!

A Door

How awesome is this door?  I wanted to rip it out of the wall where I found it, quite unexpectedly in the bathroom of ARTiculations and take it home with me...