Daily Doodles

It has been a busy week. My drawings for #inktober2016 continue

Some are random subjects, some are inspired by my activities. I was thrilled to attend the Blue Jays wildcard game earlier this week, which they won - yay!

I also had tickets to see Adele in concert, she was amazing!

My Inktober Sketchbook

I enjoy drawing and sketching but I don't do enough of it, which is why I decided to do the Inktober challenge.  I carried this sketchbook with me to Spain last month and didn't draw a single thing in it, so I thought it would be good to use for this project.  It was handmade by my friend Vanessa, I got it from her Etsy shop:  Vanessa's Fancy.

This book measures about 7.5 by 4.5 inches and is filled with watercolour paper, which means I can add colour and water to my drawings if I wish and not worry about the pages getting all wrinkly. I like having that option.

Notice how Matisse wanted to assist me in photographing the book? Cats are so helpful that way! 😁

Wild Card

It's a big night for the Toronto Blue Jays tonight - we've all got our fingers crossed!

Let's go Blue Jays!!

Inktober 2016

I thought I'd challenge myself to take part in Inktober.  The idea is that you draw something in ink each day of the month of October.  If you follow the link above, you'll find this quote:  "INKtober is about growing and improving and forming positive habits, so the more you’re consistent the better." I enjoy drawing and sketching but I don't do enough of it, which is why I decided to play along.

Here are my first two drawings:

The problem I have is figuring out what to draw.  However, I just noticed there is a prompt list on the Inktober website so maybe that will help.  Or maybe I'll just draw little animals and people every day, who knows?  The fun thing is, there are no rules, I can just draw whatever I want!  Okay, there is one rule, it has to be in ink.  I'm okay with that.

A Rainy Day

I took this photo yesterday afternoon.  I love the fuzzy look of the buildings on the horizon brought on by the rainy conditions. Today has looked very similar out my window from time to time, although there have also been some brighter moments.  I expect most of these leaves will be showing their fall colours in the next week or two!

Hello October 2016

Hello out there in Blogland!  I woke up this rainy Saturday morning with the following agenda:

1.  Start drawing for Inktober (done - more about that in my next post);

2.  Make at least one card for World Card Making Day, which is today (check);

3.  Finish unpacking my suitcases from my trip to Spain (okay, I'm still working on this one! I've been home for a week and the clothes are unpacked, laundered and put away but the art supplies and various bits and pieces are still lingering in the cases, waiting to be dealt with);

4.  Watch the Blue Jays play baseball and hopefully secure themselves a wildcard spot (ongoing, although things are looking rather gloomy in that regard.  Still, I'm keeping the faith!); and

5.  Resuscitate this long neglected blog (check). Yes, it has been almost six months since I posted here.  Mostly due to the fact that I just can't be bothered to turn on my laptop when I get home from work.  However, I'm hoping to post a little more regularly in the foreseeable future!

Stay tuned.

Happy Easter 2016

Happy Easter wishes to all those who are celebrating.  Here are some pictures of the cards I made for my family this year.

I used this adorable Stampendous stamp set that I picked up at Michaels a couple of weeks ago.

I love that you can mix and match all the pieces to create different animals and outfits. 

After I stamped the various pieces on bristol paper, I painted them using watercolours. 

I used some glitter paper for the background of this card.

Hope the bunny is good to you!

She Watches Over

I should be downloading and sharing the photos from my trip to Florida last weekend, but instead, I spent the day binge-watching the videos from an online class I've been taking. It's taught by Juliette Crane and it's called Serendipity.  The class ends on March 1st, so I've been busy watching and re-watching as many of the videos as I can and taking notes. And of course, painting.  Here's one I made today, which I call "She Watches Over":

I'm really pleased with how this turned out. It looks like Juliette's artwork but it is also very much my own.  It was exciting to see some of the concepts she talked about in her videos actually happening as I created it, especially the ones about following your intuition and letting the painting reveal itself. That's how those houses and the sun appeared, several steps before the girl did.  It's a thrill to see it happening on the page in front of you, just like the teacher said it would!

Happy (Belated) Valentine's Day

Tried to post this yesterday and in the midst of putting this post together, my computer decided to install not 1 or 2 but 18 updates - yikes!  It took so long, I ended up going off to do something else and forgot all about posting.

So here I am, a day later, sharing photos of the cards I made for my family for this Valentine's Day using the February card kit from Simon Says Stamp.

I made these cards last weekend while having an artful play date with friends.  Because we gathered a friend's house, I challenged myself to make these cards with just the contents of the kit, scissors and glue, because I didn't want to carry a whole bunch of stuff with me and I wouldn't have items like my die cutting machine available.

The black and white background on the card below is actually from a set of cards I picked up somewhere for $1.00 a piece.  I had been meaning to do something with them, as the B&W by itself was a little much. I think it works perfectly here as an edging for these other papers, don't you?

I made this one for someone's parents who are celebrating 70 years of being married. Can you imagine? Quite the milestone!  Did you know the traditional wedding gift for that year is platinum or iron?  I had to look that up, I've never heard of anyone celebrating that anniversary, the diamond 60th was high as it went, I thought.

 Here are a few more.

Hope you had a lovely Valentine's Day, however you celebrated!

Talking About Money

My sister and I went to a free seminar last night featuring financial guru, Gail Vaz-Oxlade.  She is doing a book tour, promoting her latest volume entitled "Money Talks".

The talk was held in a small theatre in the Fairview library. Believe it or not, as you can see from the photo below (taken with my iPhone since I forgot my camera, so apologies for the overexposure, it was the best I could do with that lighting), she did the whole session in her bare feet!  She explained it this way:  "Women of a certain age travel with their own heating systems. Some of you out there know exactly what I'm talking about!"

If you've ever watched one of Gail's TV shows ("'Til Debt Do Us Part", "Princess" and "Money Moron"), you know she is very much a "tell it like it is" kind of gal. She is even more so in person, when she doesn't have to edit herself for a television audience!  Lots of laughs but also lots of straight talk.  She spoke for about half an hour and then answered questions from the audience (who numbered about 200) for the next half hour. All too soon, our time was up but I certainly could have listened to her talk for much longer, it was that interesting and enjoyable.

I took this picture at the book signing afterwards (I didn't buy her latest book, I got one of her earlier ones, called "Money Rules").

Her signature is just as exuberant as she is!

My sister took the photo below. She was very friendly and courteous to all who came up to her to say hello or have a book signed and graciously posed for photos, all while keeping the line moving quickly and calmly.

Thanks for a great evening, Gail!  I definitely left feeling like I needed to rush home and get to work looking after my money!

National Doodle Day

Did you know yesterday, Friday February 5th, was National Doodle Day? I didn't, until about 11:30 p.m.  I hastily sat down and sketched this girl with an ornate hat.  I don't quite know why, she was just who showed up when I put pen to paper.  I used some glitter pens to add the colour, although the sparkled doesn't show in the photo.

When did you last draw a doodle?

Remembering Craig

Hard to believe it has been a year since we lost my brother.

I wasn't sure how I would feel today so I didn't make any plans to be out and about but it has been a reasonably good day, better than I expected.  Grief is funny that way - some days are good, some not so much.  Sometimes you are prepared for the sad feelings, sometimes it's like a wave catching you unawares, knocking you off your feet.

I stayed home and puttered about.  I was going to have Kraft dinner for lunch in his honour as that was always something he enjoyed, even into adulthood, but as it turned out, I didn't have any in my cupboard. :(

So I put my new office chair together in his memory instead. He was an engineer and was always taking something apart, fixing something or putting something together.  

Miss you, Craig, love you lots!

Making Art in 2016

My first journal page of 2016 is complete.

I spent several hours this past week binge watching the 33 videos of Mary Ann Moss' Stencilry class (after breezing through the entire contents of the Stitched and Stencilled class earlier in December). Both classes were due to expire on January 1st and I wanted to watch every last minute of the videos before they disappeared.  I gotta say, you certainly get your money's worth when you take a class with Miss Mary Ann!  The videos were very informative, entertaining and fun to watch.

Since it was too cold to be spray painting outdoors yesterday, I used spray inks instead - four of the Heidi Swapp ones, to be exact (green, blue, black and gold).  Not nearly as bold as the Dylusions inks, the HS colours are lighter and more shimmery. The red dots in the top right corner are the Plain Jane baseboard brand called Red Rocks.

Happy to be making journal art again, after focusing mostly on cardmaking for the past few weeks!

Happy New Year 2016!

It's hard to believe another year has passed, time seems to be moving so quickly!  I found some vintage greeting cards in my stash the other day. This one with the black cat in the window is so cute! It reminds me of my two black cats, one of whom (Matisse) likes to sit in the window just like this and watch what's going on out in the world.

For the most part, 2015 was a good year for me - lots of art, travel and adventures, spending time with family and friends, meeting new people, learning new things. The worst part of it was losing my brother Craig at the end of January; we're all still trying to find our way past that traumatic event.

The inside of the greeting card above sums up my wishes for all of us for the coming year.

Here's wishing all of us a happy and healthy 2016.