Stamp Saturday

My mom and I spent time on Saturday making some stamps. A Flickr friend had mentioned I should try to create some stamps as comment on a drawing I posted..so I thought I would give it a try.

Mom had been doing some carving on her own prior and introduced me to the dollar store eraser. They work great and carving them is wonderful!

I also brought along a carving block I bought online ($). I cut the gingko-type leaf with that one. The blue/white ones are the eraser. I made  few more but will post those another day as I didn't take photos of them. I did take some photos of Mom's:

Barb at work



colored erasers

When we got back from my parents, my son and I were greeted by this beauty -

This plant sits right along the stone wall that our driveway runs against.

 Its just amazing, the flowers are as big as lunch plates!

Hope everyone had a great weekend!

Summer Storm

OK so I have been out of my house since Wednesday. We had a huge storm here and our house lost power for more than 24 hours. I decided the morning after the storm that I would go to my mom and dad's so I can work since my computer was down for the count. What a crazy couple of days! My son and I are here during the week and its relatively quiet and low-key. My parent's is like Grand Central:) We managed to have a great time and I got most of my work done for the week despite all the excitement of having a full house!

ICAD -  Mom has a baker's rack that she displays seasonal decorations so brough them down to the table to draw.

My son was so pleased to get to hang with his cousin Eric. They are both 12 and enjoy the same interests. My 10 year old neice is a piece of work and brings alot of drama, creativity, energy and spunk to the scene. We were able to get alot of work done crafting and creating last night and I was able to spend time with my neice and her girlfriend, who came along.

 The bunch of us were sitting around the table drawing and crafting and we got on the topic of sisters. Reagan was talking about her little sister and how she isn't into drawing like she is and she dramatically ( you know the way 9 y.o girls can be) declared "She doesn't get art!" and that almost made me burst out laughing because she was so serious! I was grinning like a crazy woman but didn't laugh...what she said was so adamant and passionate it made me want to illustrate it:)

Dreaming of Paris:)

Paper lanterns

mom working on her creation

Emily showing off our lanterns

I can't believe the month is nearing to an end soon. I've gotten very much accustomed to drawing and creating on these cards! We're back home now and it feels good to be back in our element and looking forward to a relaxing Sunday! I hope everyone has a great weekend.

Sunday Sunday

I've posted more ICADs on Flickr and I've got them below.


Leafy goodness

Was looking for inspiration and I asked my mom to give me a single word so I could illustrate it. This is her contribution.



  

Cherry tomatoes from my dad's garden

Random Flora

After a month and a half, I am really growing to love this small area of art to work in. I'm mostly using my colored Micron pens. I know that I wanted to use my acrylics more but the page is so small and flimsy. I've got all those acrylic paints and some small canvases, but I just don't have the time or the 'oomph!' to want to get set up and do it. Those darn micron pens make it so easy to just grab and doodle/draw/create. It's all good:)

happy Sunday

ICAD and IAC

I was thinking of the Queen song when I did this. I was such a Queen freak when I was a teenager. It was my cousins who turned me onto them and a bunch of other groups. The boys were a little older than me and, in my mind , so cool.

Ah, Freddie has some voice:)

Fly away far away...

Have a good night,

ICAD #? who's counting

I posted last night because I thought I had to go updstate today but it ended up I didn't have to ake the trip. So I'm having more time than I thought I would today. yay!

As for the ICAD, I have stopped keeping track. I'm so far behind its pointless...LOL. But I just love this challenge and can't stop:)

I wanted to try out a card that is related to another challeng and that would be Inspiration Avenue's teapot challenge. I am a HUGE coffee drinker but do drink tea occasionally. I like the idea of all the 'accessories' that involve tea, the pots, the spoons, the tea balls, the cozies, etc etc. I also like the different shapes of the pots and cups. And they are so fun to draw.

The index card I made shows pot and cup shapes  I saw on Pinterest.

Damn that Pinterest is like a vortex, its so hard to get out of there!

Thank goodness its cooler today but we've still managed to keep ourselves holed up today since we've been doing that for the past 4-5 days now, tomorrow I'll get myself out of the house:)

Enjoy the rest of your Sunday!

Early Sunday morning

I'm posting this for Sunday Sketches. I worked on this tonight and technically ran thru to Sunday a.m.:) Big day tomorrow (Sunday) and little time for art. I've been doing ICADs alot lately so I'm not thinking big and I typically don't paint large at all. I did this 'kind of' large and you can see in the photo below its not too huge but when you work 4x6 anything more is pretty big...LOL! I'll admit I am a thief. Our neighborhood has some awesome flowers and bushes so I 'm snapping off specimens here and there while I am walking the dog at night. I painted this one pretty quickly and I can see now that I overworked the blue glass. I like the way it looked when I first started but at the time I thought it was too plain.

I also left the tabletop white and there was practically no shadow so I added one but I think I should have used paynes gray rather than the purple. It looked better when it was wet:) Oh well, that's how we learn. Another day another painting.

I was also working on this crazy abstraction.

 I am completely obsessed with just making a particular pattern I put it on everything, geesh.

I know. I know. its nuts. But I have to do it! I'm compelled. I'm not in love with the shapes but whatever. 

The whole time I worked on the green sections I was listening to the very cool Matthieu Ricard, a Buddhist monk on TED. I thought he was great. I think I have a crush on him and his serenity... Check it out if you have time. Its all about meditation and the mind and happiness. That is exactly what it feels like I am doing when I do 'my' little circular patterns, I zone out. Its very meditative.

I also started this tonight earlier but got bored, I will got back to it, I think. The boys were watching Gattica and the movie got to be more interesting than the painting.

I hope everyone has a happy and cool Sunday. Its hot as hell here.

Tomorrow is looking to be a 100 degrees.

Take care and go easy.

more cards:)

This is all I can dream up for the time being :)) Busy week is over now, maybe I can get to an abstract card soon or something involving acrylic paint. These quotes were a fun diversion during phone calls this week. I just keep the index card pad and markers on my desk.

The quality is a bit crappy because I was too busy to scan them tonight...its such a pain with the spiral wire and how they are bound.

Hey everybody have an awesome weekend!

Weekend: ICAD and Sunday Sketch

 I was creating quite a bit today in order to catch up on my ICAD challenge, therefore I am also going to use my hydrangea cards below for Sunday sketch :)



White, wonderfully puffy hydrangea that I found on my walk.

I would say most of the index cards I have been doing I haven't been sketching out them out but this one I just had to. Midway through I was ready to tear it up and start something different because of all those teeny petals! LOL But I am glad I didn't and stuck it out.

It's hydrangea madness I tell you! I can't get enough of them. I particularly like this variety.

I have this purple lacecap cutting in a pink vase. I didn't think of it until after that I should have included the vase because it is so pretty. Its simple but a nice shape and pink colored glass. Maybe I'll do that tomorrow before the cutting fades. Hopefully it holds up til tomorrow evening.

I love this quote and when I read it I thought 'How true!' :)

We had a great time this weekend with my brother.

He was so great, took my son to the city on Friday and then today he took him to Old Timer's Day at Yankee Stadium. Wow, they had a great time and it was so much fun hearing all about it when went to pick him up at my parent's house.

 My brother was so happy as he was just hoping to catch a game while he was in NY but it turning out to be Old Time's Day was a happy surprise. Bonus, The Yanks beat the White Sox 8-6 !

Hope everyone has a terrific week and maybe taking some vacation days this week to coincide with the Fourth of July? I wish I had dreamed that up a while back but a colleague beat me to the punch so I'm covering for him this week :/  Oh well...any how another colleague on maternity leave returns tomorrow after being out for 2 months so I will happily turn her accounts back over to her tomorrow!

woo hoo!