ICAD 3 LIFE is NOW

Here is ICAD 3.  Today is the day!

 

My friend has a nice garden so every time

I visit she gives me this amazing mint.

I put a leaf in my water every morning, along with a slice of lemon.

It's so delicious and refreshing.

 

We have petunias on the porch. I could not resist painting them in my art journal.

I gave this to my mother-in-law for one of her birthday gifts this weekend.

Happy Birthday Julia!

Have a great day everyone!

FranT

 

Its been awhile

Oh boy, its been a while... I've ignored my blog for sometime now. Life just gets in the way of things some times. I hope some people venture back and have a look maybe. It's spring again, almost summer actually. I'm painting flowers and trying to keep the sketchbooks filled.

I just painted the flowers, leaves and the shadows on the table. That way the focus would stay on the flowers.

 

this was a shot I took before I added any color

I painted this last Friday. Full color in my sketchbook.

 

The past few months I've been doing a lot of quotes. Most times they are quick and easy to do amidst the crazy pace of life sometimes. I'm posting a few and hope you like them.

 

 

I hope that I hear back from someone and I'm going to do my best to post more often.

Take care and I hope everyone had a good May and an even better June!

Be well,

Fran T

 

 

Patterns, Games and WhatNot

Daylight Savings Time has kicked me square in the pants.

Wow, the power of one hour and what havoc it can wreck!

Well, its not so bad but every year it surprises me

how impactful it is on my being.

I stayed up late drawing the other night and

I looked up and it was 2:30!

 

I used my microns for these two drawings. A pen at

 size 005, the thin one, and 05, a thicker point. 

Garden, Grow!

 

 These were fun to work on.



Tea Time!

I also wanted to contribute a list to Artsyville's List-it Tuesday.

My FAVORITE games when I was younger were the following:

1.Perfection - that is the game where you have a set amount of time to put the yellow s

haped pieces into their corresponding holes. There was like 30 seconds to do so. What a pressure cooker of a game. Its sooooo telling of what type of person I am today. I work my best under pressure, LOL.

2. Gin Rummy - We looooved to play cards as kids. Other favorites were War (what passion!) and Solitaire. A past time that our parents and grandparents passed on to us. We would go to my grandparents for the weekends and I clearly remember all the adults in the dining room, playing cards, drinking cocktails and chatting ;)

3. Uno - another great card game that would go on and on!

4. MasterMind - this is a terrific game and I found the photo on the box so intriguing. I loved the woman's dress and just thought this guy was so slick, but I did think he was a little too old for her. We'd play this for hours. Haha!

5.Monopoly - this is a game that I would start out loving. There is just too much NOT to love. The fabulous pieces, the wonderful and colorful board and the cards! oh I just loved those cards with their cartoons. I liked Community Chest a little bit more. [Its the yellow color over the orange. ] Then the money! I had to be banker. However,  pretty soon into the game, say 20 minutes I would start hating the game, passionately. Mostly because my brothers were just so much better at it than me. And the dread of turning the corner on to the 'block' with Park and Boardwalk, ugh! What stress. Definate love/hate relationship going on here.

 

6. Scrabble - We played this game a whole heck of alot when we were younger. This is still a staple at my parents house! My mom and dad are really, really good at this game and play it quite a bit. We still break it out every so often when we go visit. 

 

 

7. Guess Who? - This is actually a game from my son's early childhood, but I personally loved it and wanted to add it. I liked this one so much that I would actually be the one asking him to play it with me! I just thought it never ever got dull for us to play and we would make up other little games within the game. We would also take all the cards out and play memory games as well.

 

That was so much fun looking back. I think I'll be looking for a deck of cards tonight and play a few hands with the my guys. Take a hop over to Aimee's blog and check out the other participants lists.

 

Enjoy your day!

Fran T XO

 

 

 

Still January

Lets try blogging by iPhone shall we? Wheeeee! I just spent a good amount of time scanning and find Blogger won't let me upload photos! So here are images from my phone I'll post. I am sorry that they are such lousy quality ;)

UPDATE: Thank you Mary for showing me the way - the HTML way to get my photos on my post!

I love love love chapter 9 in the Tao Te Ching. I have a copy of it on my wall. Here it is below with some of my favorite bowls.

 I rarely bake cupcakes, this just came out of my head after I spied those pastel-colored paper cupcake sleeves in the back of the cabinet. I thought, hmmm, maybe I should get some cake mix and bake some cupcakes. Hmmm, maybe not. Drawing them is a better idea.

This one started off as ran dom sections of color but after working on it I see it as a landscape:) I'm calling it the River's Wall. 

 

Some doodling on a blank card while on a loooong phone call with my baby sister:

Enjoy your day!

 

Sunday Sketches and AEDMs

 I had such a nice week off. I did zero! It was fantastic..

I spent the whole time drawing, painting and working on Etsy stuff.

Today was spent mostly working on my shop. [ I'll post more about that tomorrow or Tuesday.]

 

Here are some art journal pages I created this week. This one below was my final AEDM for the month. The Gadget page was made on the 29th and my amaryllis page was created on the 30th:

 

 

 

 






I posted this one a while back but got a chance to finish it up with watercolors this week.

 

I also decided today that I'd update my banner on my shop. Here are some sketches I made this afternoon , so it's technically, my Sunday Sketch!

 

Then here is the cleaned up version below:(Blogger gets funny after you put in a couple of photos, it doesn't allow me to up size this art...oh well!)

 

I wanted to have a banner that was made with my own handlettering rather than a computer generated font. Mostly because I do so much of it. I'm happy with how it turned out but I'm sure I'll change it in the future.

 

 

 

I am still learning about working on  and keeping an Etsy shop.  I have to commend each and every person who maintains a presence there. It's such hard work! I knew it would be that is probably why I procrastinated so long... I am really trying to attack this and tried to upload as much as I can. I felt for a long time that I had to wait for the "right" time , blah, blah...but it's never the perfect time to do almost anything so who was I trying to fool? LOL I have alot more to do but I feel like I'm finally getting started. I have to learn how to make a treasury. I also have to remember to get active on that site at least once a day. I am open to any and all suggestions/comments:)

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Speaking of Etsy sites....Please check out Cameron's blog, she is hosting a contest and giving away a  a 50% OFF Coupon Code to use on any ONE item in her shop

All you need to do is leave a comment:) 

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Please remember to stop by Blue Chair Diary's blog and have a look at all those participating in Sunday Sketches, I promise you you'll be glad you did!

 

Have a good week!

Sunday Sketch 10/7/12

It's Sunday again...

 

I had such a nice weekend with friends and family.  

Saturday we got together with family for birthdays.

Things turned out different than planned but in the end it all worked out fine:))

 

 My nephew, sister and mother are all celebrating

birthdays on the 5th, 6th and 8th of this month. 

[Happy Birthday Mama! XO] 

 

And today I got together with a friend for lunch and some shopping.

The weather was rainy and gray, but what a pleasant afternoon we had.

 

Please stop over to Sunday Sketches and

check out the other participants.

 

 I hope everyone has a super week:)

 Take care! Be good to yourself

and to those around you,

Sunday Sketch 9/16/12

I can't believe we're at Sunday again. These weekends fly right by!

 

I am still working on my 'pickings' from the neighborhood.

This Sunday Sketch is a similar in style to Friday's post.

 

The next one I plan to work on is waiting in the water glass on the kitchen window sill.

 

Quiet and easy-going weekend, thank goodness. Nothing exciting, perfection.

 

Tomorrow and Wednesday the boy is off,

LI public schools are closed for Rosh Hashanah.

 And next week they are off again for Yom Kimpur.

So many days off, he should be glad we didn't enroll him in Catholic school!

 

Hope everyone has a wonderful week!

XO

 

 

Friday Finally

some bits of foliage left over from summer...fall is soon coming

I walked the dog tonight and was

picking at all my neighbors' plantings along the road and sidewalk.

My anniversary/September bouquet kicked the bucket so

I need something new to study.

I noticed the house at the corner has these terrific flowers but

the pots are on either side of the front door,

and I wouldn't dare, truly.

 

Earlier this morning I noticed down the block these amazing

morning glories but

1. I just couldn't pick it as it was true perfection and

 2. its broad daylight

I console myself by saying that I'll probably never 

capture that blue/purple anyway.

I found my stash of index cards from ICAD challenge from a while back.



 I have been following DPP at Daisy Yellow and

thought I saw 'circles' as a prompt..when

 I went back to link up my art to her blog, I couldn't

 find it as a prompt at all.. I'll just chalk that one up to a 40s-moment.

I found another stash of small pieces of watercolor paper I cut last winter.
 I didn't realize what a squirrel I am.



I'm glad this week is over. So many big unexpected things happened,

forcing the cash to fly out of my wallet. 

 I'm going look on the bright side and just say they were all improvements...

to the car, the kid's glasses...etc.

Half full, half full.

Have a totally FULL weekend!

Sunday Sketches for 9/9/12

I worked on this post more than once, my scanner was messing up and I was afraid to miss the cut off time for Sunday sketches

 I got it working and here is the post as I intended:

 

I am thoroughly enjoying the bouquet I received.

I'm getting so much enjoyment out of it!

Sketch in micron 9/9/12

color study - micron and watercolor 9/8/12


Please visit and take a look at some great Sunday Sketches!

Enjoy your week!