Day 31- Dinosaur Lamp

Every night when I am sitting in the boys room in the recliner nursing Desi I stare at Simon's lamp on his nightstand and I think, "I should draw that for my picture one night." Tonight I drew it, except I wasn't in their room when I did it, and I couldn't remember exactly what it looked like, so I had to look it up online and find a picture of his lamp so I could draw it right. Since I'm not posting a picture of the actual lamp this time, none of you would actual know if it had 3 spikes on its back or 4 or the exact curve of the back, but I wanted to get it right. I think this type of drawing is called a gesture, when you kind of just get the the gist of what you are drawing and are all detailed. At least in my mind gesture drawings are supposed to have squiggly edges instead of straight lines, so that's what I did. I actually added the squiggly lines after I was done with it because it just seemed too boring without them.

Day 30- Alligator

I told Simon tonight that I needed to do a drawing and he said he wanted to help me. Sadly, he did not help with the actual drawing today (that would be a nice excuse for the way it looks like a kid drew it, but no it was me). I got him some paper and crayons and a blue marker so he could draw too at the same time. He told me wanted me to draw an alligator, so I attempted an alligator from my imagination. I am horrible at drawing things that I can't actually see. I could never be a cartoonist or anything like that, because if it's not realistic and I'm not looking at a picture or the real thing, it's gonna look like a little kid drew it. Case in point:

Day 29- Cell Phone

Earlier this week Desi dropped my cell phone into the dog bowl. Luckily I still have Steve's old phone hanging around just in case something like this happens. I actually keep it in the diaper bag in case we are out when this happens. Prepared, I know. Really I just know my self and my kids and what we are capable of. I'm honestly surprised my phone still works with as many times as it's been dropped on the ground, thrown onto the ground, stepped on, dropped in water, etc. I've had this phone since November 3, 2009. That's a pretty long time, and this thing has held up to a lot of abuse. But anyways, after Desi dropped in the water bowl, I screamed and grabbed the phone out of the water. I tried to pull the case off so I could take the battery off quickly, but of course I couldn't get the case off. The case falls off every time I, or Desi, drop the phone, but of course this one time I need to come off quickly, it doesn't. While I was trying to yank the case off I saw the screen light up everytime I pushed the buttons accidentally, so I knew it was still working but I didn't want the water to fry something. I finally got the case off, pulled the battery out and stuck the battery and SIM card in Steve's phone. Of course this happened on a day when I was trying to schedule meeting up with two different people who's numbers I did not have because they were on the phone not the SIM card (back up all your numbers onto your card! Now! Go! I'll wait!) Anyways, I let my phone sit for a day just in case even though I was pretty sure it was okay since it was turning on while I was taking the case off and it was. I love my phone. I've only had Samsung cell phones and they are the best, I beat the crap out of them and have never had one break or die or screens crack or anything like that. Love my Samsung's! So without further rambling I present to you a slightly out of scale drawing of my dear cell phone!

Day 28- Break Day

In honor of the cool pointillism painting my dad found while we were thrift shopping this week and the pointillism picture I did of the ammonite, today's picture is one from high school. It is a pointillism doodle I did in high school, sadly it has one line in it that was an accident but sad all the same. I also have no more interesting things to type up this time. I'm currently watching Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring with my husband, and I'm ready to be done typing and cuddle with him to watch the movie. Nights with him are quite rare around these parts because he works nights, and I kinda like him and want to cuddle him.

Day 27- My baby helped me draw today

Not only did my baby help me draw today, my baby did the whole drawing. My Desi-boo isn't a baby anymore. He is a toddler. He is 16 months and 1 day old. He loves drawing. He's just started copying everything his brother does. Things like kicking and splashing in the bathtub, acting like a goofball, telling secrets. He has also in the past few days started saying words (finally!) I was really starting to freak out about his verbal development. Whenever I get the camera out he says eeeee, eeeeeee. He loves his doggie, his brother, going outside (another word he started to say) even when it is freezing outside and he is barefooted. He loves to play in water, throw Moby's food into his water bowl, sing and scream and jabber all day long. Before today he had given me exactly 3 real kisses in my life, and today he doubled that number in about 2.3 minutes. I have now been lucky enough to be the recipient of 6 baby boo kisses. He does not give kisses often, but he will allow you to kiss him. He will give you his head or cheek and let you kiss him on it if he wants to give you kisses. I love my little baby. He is the happiest, funnest little guy, in fact my sis-in-law just babysat for us and said that he is the happiest baby she has ever been around, and she used to daycare for a living. But man does he have a temper! Major temper on this little boy, but it just makes me love him even more when I see that cute little face all scrunched up and crying because he definitely milks it for all it's worth. So in honor of my little boy getting older, and him stealing my pencil while I was drawing and screaming when I tried to take my pencil back, here is a picture by him in my sketchbook. (I held onto his hand and helped him write his name and the date.)

This weeks pictures were all very small. All 6 of them were on one page in my sketchbook.

Day 26- Chair and another peek at what my house looks like

I mentioned earlier this week that my parents were in town. They left yesterday to head back home before the weather took a turn for the worst. While they were here we went to a bunch of thrift stores and antique stores. I managed to make it through lots and lots of stores and only bought a new-to-me cast 9 inch cast iron skillet and a bag of duplo blocks. Oh and a skirt and a dress that were only $2 each at a sidewalk sale at a cool local store called Junkee. Half of the store is vintage and used clothing and the other half is antiques, junk, and dustables. I got my clothes on the clothing side and on the other side my parents found a desk and three cool chairs that I think used to be dining chairs. They managed to get the desk, a nightstand, all their stuff, and one of the chairs into their car. They left the other two in my garage until next time they come or we go up to see them. The one they took was painted a shiny gold color, the other two were mostly white with bits of orange, and turquoise with bits of white, heavily distressed with bits of wood showing though. Steve and I both thought the chairs were so cool looking and fell in love with them and so I decided to bring them in the house until they can go back to my parents. I put them near our front door where I always dump my purse, diaper bag, church bag, and jackets when we come home. They look so awesome. I'm trying to convince my parents to sell them to us because we really like the way they look in our house, and we love the way the chairs finish looks. Here's a quick chair sketch. 

And a very blurry picture taken from a similar angle of the turquoise chair (and the dog leash)

 And one more for kicks of the whole little area. This is after you come through our front door and to the left before it steps down into our family room. I am sitting on the stairs taking this picture. I painted that picture above the chairs when I was in high school. I love it!

Day 25- Anniversary Flowers revisited and a few guilty confessions

I may have cheated on my picture a day blog already. I have may have cheated more times than I have let on. Today I cheated. This week I cheated. A lot. I drew both shell pictures on the same day. I also drew yesterday, today, and tomorrow, and the next day all on the same day. :/ :) Why am I telling you this? I don't know, but I am, and I'm still dating them all with different days and pretending they were all drawn on each day. They are still a drawing a day, just not drawn on that day. And hey, it's my blog, I can do whatever I want right. Right? And you'll keep reading even though I am cheating sometimes? Right?
Today is another quick sketch of that pretty lilly from the anniversary flowers my sweet husband gave me almost 2 weeks ago... How's that for yet another confession on this post. The flowers have been nearly dead  for a week and sitting on the table still because I love them. Nothing to get you to clean up like having company over!

Day 24- Anniversary Lillies

My anniversary flowers are mostly dead, but they were so pretty I kept hanging on to them. We are having company over though, and it's a little embarrassing to have these dead flowers sitting on the table, so I took a few pictures of the dead flowers so I could draw them. All that's left now is a sprig of eucalyptus and some purple flowers that I'm not sure what they are. The stem on of the big beautiful lillies broke and the lilly was hanging upside down, but I thought it still looked very cool so here it is. Just a quick sketch, very quick, like less than 5 minutes, which compared to the 2+ hours others can take is, well, quick.

Day 23- Ammonite sketch

Today's picture is another version of yesterday's drawing. Just a sketch of the ammonite. Ammonite is a fossilized shell. Ours is from Madagascar 120 million years ago. We bought it at the Rock Shop up in Virginia City once when we were on a date there in the winter time a few years ago. Virginia City is fun, but it's definitely a lot more fun in the summer, and there's more to do there in the summer. This past fall Steve and I went there and took my mom, dad, and sister Leslie. We went and did a ghost tour. It was a little hokey, but pretty fun I thought. After the ghost tour we went to the cemetery in town that was featured in the show Ghost Adventures. That part was spooky and I was pretty scared at first.

This is the Ammonite

This is my sister and dad in Virginia City last fall

Day 22- Ammonite Pointillism

My parents are here visiting and today is my mom's birthday! Happy Birthday Mom!! While they've been here we have been doing some thrift store shopping looking for a nightstand for their guestroom. My mom just refinished an old door from the house on our property in Illinois. Although it's not actually our property anymore since my parents sold the place almost a year ago. I will do a picture of that place someday, it holds a special place in my heart. Anyways though, my mom refinished the door to use as a headboard and it turned out so cool. While we were out shopping one of the thrift stores had a really cool pointillism picture so I decided to do pointillism for today's sketch.I got tired of making dots so it isn't quite finished, you get the idea though.

Day 21- Break day

This is a picture I started a long time ago. It was supposed to be a gift for my mother-in-law, but I never actually finished it and gave it to here. I did a grid transfer drawing of my son, and my nephew. I need to add my other nephew and son now too. One of these days...
P.S. about the lame writing, still tired because I am posting all of the 15th-21st at the same time, and I'm so tired, my eyes keep rolling back in my head and I keep forgetting what i'm typing. Hope these past few days make sense... I know it doesn't make sense, because it's not actually days, the past few posts.. hopefully the posts make sense, if they don't I hope no one kills on our walk back to the hotel.  Oh my goodness, don't know what I'm typing, I'm thinking about my and Steve's trip to Belize and walk home from a restaurant after dark and how scary it was, don't know where that came from though. Ugh, I need to go to sleep. Goodnight!

Day 20- Candlestick

Tonight I sketched a candlestick while watching the movie Elektra with my dad and husband. My mom went to bed early, I think she was probably tired from driving up from Vegas. I am so excited my parents are visiting, and I think it's cool they get to see my side of the picture a day blog, the part where I actually draw a picture every day, and they get to see the process of me drawing and how long it actually takes. It was neat. SO here is today, a candlestick. I have a pair of these. Steve and I found them at a thrift store in Sparks after we bought our new house. They were only $.97 each! This same thrift store is where I found my pottery barn pillows with down inserts form $2.97 each! A steal if you ask me. This one probably took me 1-2 hours while we were watching the movie. Probably closer to 2 because I don't remember all of the movie which means I was not paying attention because I was drawing.

picture taken later at different angle and with different lighting than when I drew it

Day 19- Dog Brush

Tonight, while the boys were in the bath I combed Moby with the doggie brush thing. He sheds a lot, and he has black fur, so it makes my carpets look really dingy. The other day I emptied the canister before I started vacuuming and by the time I did only the front room, the entire canister was full of hair and dirt. Yuck! So in honor of my close relationship with Moby's brush I present to you a drawing of Moby's hair brush. (I am so tired, I keep falling asleep while I type, so I hope this ends up being coherent)

Day 18- X is for...

X is for I failed, I didn't do a picture that actual day, so the x is because there was none, so instead I made a fancy-ish X thereby giving me something to post for that day! Un- Fail!

Day 17- Pumpkin Head

Today's picture is my baby Desi-boo (who was actually a year old when this picture was taken this past fall).  He is holding on to dad's pumpkin at a pumpkin patch we went to with my sis Les, her two kids, and my mom when we were last in Idaho. It was really fun and the kids loved it. We got to ride in a "train" to the pumpkin patch to pick out our pumpkins then we rode it back to the rest of the place for games and a corn maze. It was pretty fun, it was a little cold outside, but that's okay we had fun anyways.

I purposely did not include his head. At first I was going to do the pumpkin only, but then decided to add Desi because I wasn't sure how to shade realistically without him there. 

Day 16- Room design

Today Steve and I got to go out on a date for our anniversary. We ended up heading over to the Grand Sierra Hotel to play laser tag and then we were going to go to out to eat. Well no one else was there to play laser tag so we opted not to play in the huge arena with just the two of us. That would have been lame. So instead we went to eat at the buffet. The buffet is now called the Elements Buffet, and they had these really cool moss covered balls with flowers on them hanging everywhere and I thought they were super cool and whimsical looking, so I decided to use them as inspiration for a little girl nursery. This is a very rough sketch, I'm really not great at drawing things out of my head, but it was still fun. I want a little girl someday. Well sometimes I think I want a little girl, then I think about how little girls turn into teenage girls, and I think that I am fine if I only have boys. I'm planning on making a seperate post on one of my other blogs about the things I would put in this room and where to get them from, but I don't have all of that info right now. I will link to it though when I do.  The writing at the bottom that you probably can't read is my notes about things in the picture and where I would get them from. The moss/flower balls are hanging above the crib. Above the chest of drawers changing table is a painting by me, that is similar to one I did for my niece (but never quite finished) and a mobile with birds and owls that I have similar of on etsy. The chest of drawers will be blue, with a green flokati rug on the floor in front of it. The flower arrangement will be by me and feature led flower lights. There is also a changing pad, wipes warmer, and cool glo light thingy. The end table will have a rattan wrapped lamp and a few books. There is also a diaper pail for our cloth diapers, some solid curtains (not sure what color yet), I will change the lamp shade from the circles, but that's just what I happened to draw, and the rocker recliner would ideally be some fun color or design that goes with the whimsical natural feel of the room.

What do you think? I think it's very magical and fun, or at least the start of being that way, I think she would be need to be born in the spring.

Day 15- Owl Gloves

My sister Leslie gave me these awesome owl convertible mittens/gloves for Christmas. They are so freaking cute I absolutely love them. They have these little pom pom ears and are brown knit. I realized partway through this drawing that drawing knit gloves is a bad idea. There are a ton of little threads making up those suckers. So I kind of cheated and made the look of the threads without actually drawing every single thread. It is surprisingly difficult for me to fake texture because I am a bit of a realist I guess you would say, and I like to draw things exactly how they look, so not doing the real texture was difficult, but I do like the way they turned out. I really need to get a manicure, my nails are horrible and uneven. I've never had a real manicure or pedicure before can you believe that!? Just sisters and roommates and myself have done these nails.

picture of sketch taken with my camera, what looks like shading at the bottom is actually the shadow of my camera.

 picture taken later at a different angle

My orange chair

I just though it would be fun to post a picture of one of the things I have talked about often in my posts so far. My orange chair. I love my orange chair. I actually have two of them. I bought them when I was in college, summer 2005. My best friend and roommate Arielle and I were at a thrift store just a couple blocks from the apartment we lived in, when we stumbled across this beauty! It was love at first sight for me, and I just had to have this chair, it was perfect! the color, the lines, the style, the buttons. I'm not sure what it was, but I had to have it, and it had to be mine! So I bought it, even though almost every apartment in the Provo area comes furnished, and I didn't really need it, I bought it. I want to say it cost $20, but I can't really remember. Arielle and I carried it down University Avenue together (it's one of the main streets in town), you know she loves me if she was willing to help me carry it, and put the ugly thing in our apartment! We got honked at and whistled at a ton during that couple block trek back to our apartment, it was quite entertaining I'm sure to see two tiny girls carrying this hideous chair down the street. Now you may be wondering where the second one comes in, since I only mentioned one so far. Well, a few days later, I was back at the store, and they had another one! Another hideous orange chair, it's twin, a match made in heaven, there were two glorious wonderful chairs. I couldn't just leave it there when I had it's companion in my apartment, that would be cruel, they were friends, soulmates, they'd lived their whole lives together, and who was I to separate them and end their life together? I'm sure they'd been together for at least 30 years, maybe even 40! I can't remember how I got the second one back to our apartment, but it didn't matter, I had two matching wonderful orange chairs. I still love them as much today as I did that day I found the first one. And they are so so comfy. One is up in our loft area and one is down in our family room, we always fight over who gets to sit in them. One day when we have better seating in the family room they will both be up in our library loft with a cool end table between them, but for now, they are separated once again, this time by a railing and a flight of stairs.

Day 14- Break

Break day again! Thank goodness. There is no way I could make it through an entire year of this, it's really hard to find the time to do this and actual dedicate and apply myself to whatever it is I am drawing. That drawing of my dog earlier this week, it took me over 2 hours to work on, and it still wasn't quite perfect. Today's picture is another one from out of my high school art class sketchbook. It is some roses that were in my mom's garden. I think they were yellow roses.

Day 13- Nightstand

It's late, I'm tired. I don't want to come up with something to draw, but I'm carrying all my stuff in to my room to plop down into my bed  and draw something. So I set it all down on my nightstand, my sketchbook, my can of pencils and pens, and my phone. Why do I carry around the whole can? I almost always use the same pencil anyways. I think about doing a "gesture" of my lamp, but then decide to just sketch my nightstand and lamp area. I love this little vignette. A picture of my sisters and me from a long time ago, a vase of orchids, a sculpture my sister gave me (it was from a previous marriage of hers), a picture of the Reno temple, a painting I did for fun one day in college at that same sister's apartment, and my lamp. I made it, out of ribbon, fabric stiffener, and a large bouncy ball.

Day 12- Anniversary Flowers

Today is our 6th Anniversary of our Wedding! Married 6 years. Sometimes I think, 6 years, that's barely anything, and other times 6 years seems like quite a long time. Either way, I'm very happy to be married to Steve. I love him, and he really is my best friend, and quite attractive to boot, I feel pretty lucky to have him. This morning he brought me breakfast in bed when he got home from work (have I mentioned he works nights so he gets off work at 8ish am). He brought me two plain glazed donuts (my favorite) and some strawberry milk. He also gave me a beautiful bouquet of flowers, and a very sweet card. I was lame and didn't do anything... I know, I know, I suck horribly. But we are finally going to go on a date on the 16th, I'm thinking to celebrate our anniversary, so I will have to have something special for him that night. In honor of the flowers he gave me, I chose to sketch one of the lillies from the arrangement. These lillies in the arrangement were orange and beautiful, sadly the boys end up destroying them on the 15th while I am in the bathroom. The entire contents of the vase (flowers and water) end up on the dining room table and floor. Not to mention all of my paints and some other stuff. Mom is very, very, angry. We also had lillies at our wedding, those ones were white and beautiful. My mom did the flowers for our wedding and they were so pretty.

I didn't *really* finish this one either, I had more I wanted to do but the boys walked in at this point, and came straight towards the flowers I was drawing and bumped the vase and moved them, and since so much of this one was dependent on the angle and lighting it couldn't really be replicated elsewhere in the house, and I am satisfied with this even though there is lots of white on the page still.

I snapped this photo of them after I was done sketching from a similar angle as when I was drawing.

Day 11- Doodle

Today I doodled. Sadly I didn't do as much on this doodle as I wanted to, but you can see where Desi tried to help me (bottom left corner). I had to stop because I didn't want help and ended up not having time later in the evening to finish it.

Day 10- Mobius

This is our dog Mobius. In real life he isn't quite so skinny looking, and his face is a little darker too. I love this dog, he is the perfect dog for us, and we were incredibly lucky to find him. He had only been at the pound for about an hour before we found him. Steve wanted to go to the pound earlier in the day and I just didn't want to, it didn't seem right to me to go look for a dog because I wasn't sure yet if I was ready for one, and like I said, it just didn't feel right, and we were kind of in a hurry to go have lunch with Steve's old lady friend Rachel. Luckily, we didn't go earlier in the day, we barely made it to Rachel on time anyways, and we wouldn't have found this dog. I have no idea why anyone would get rid of this dog. He was picked up by the county and no one ever claimed him. He is the sweetest guy, he is about 2-3 years old, loves playing catch, likes going on walks, is great on a leash (doesn't pull), doesn't bolt from the house when we open the front door, isn't aggressive with his food (Desi can be down at the dog dish messing with his food while he is eating and he doesn't care), doesn't beg for food or jump up on the counter or table looking for food,  is kennel/crate trained, house trained, doesn't jump on people, doesn't jump on the furniture (unless we tell him it is okay, he is now allowed to get on Simon's bed, but that is it), rarely barks, gets along with other dogs (except for the ones in Steve's family, which he gets along with ok, but the other dogs are kind of aggressive towards him trying to exert their dominance and it just scares Moby), is a little timid and shy but so loving, has the sweetest saddest eyes, loves the boys, loves Steve, and loves me (although he always brings the ball to Steve even though I'm the one that throws it! and it makes me really mad too). Seriously the perfect dog, someone spent a lot of time training him, and I can't imagine why they would leave him behind even if they foreclosed on a house and had to move suddenly, you'd think they would have given him to someone they knew! I also love that his left ear is always cocked, it's flopped over a little.

Day 9- Mobius Strip

Have you ever heard of a Mobius strip? Today I drew a Mobius strip in honor of our new dog we got at the pound today. Steve named him Mobius in honor of some robot protector thing in a video game, I just think it's a cool name. Regardless, we had some friends over and both people in the couple separately explained to Steve and I what a Mobius strip is, and we even got a demo, I have to admit, they are pretty cool. What you do is take a strip paper, turn it one time and tape it together. You now have a Mobius Strip, a three dimensional object that only has one side! Really, it only has one side. Don't believe me? Go ahead, find some paper and tear off a little strip, I'll wait while you find some paper and tape.... Now take a marker (sorry I should have told you get to a marker or pen while you were looking for the tape, they are probably in the same drawer), take your marker and start drawing a line down your strip, trace along it and just keep going, before you know it you will have done a line across the whole thing, and ended where you started without lifting up your pen! Craziness I know! So anyways, in honor of our new dog Mobius, and my math nerd self and friends, here is my very simple drawing of a mobius strip. 

It's sideways, blogger made it go sideways and I don't know how to fix it...

P.S.- The reason our friends told us separately is because the men were at our house watching the kids and playing video games while the women were supposed to be at a church activity. I went to pick up Ellie and Leslie and a dog kennel, and we ended up just staying at Leslie's (and Ricky's) house chatting for a few hours. Whoops! (While we were at Leslie's though was when she told us about a mobius stip, when we got back to my house is when Terre told us about them and made one and did the drawing a line thing, so cool!) Then Ellie and I went back to my house where she was able to get her husband Terrence, and kids and go home. It was a fantastic evening for the ladies and men, and I am excited that we are finally making a few friends in our new congregation at church. 

Day 8- Blind Contour Bookshelf

Today I was feeling quite lazy, so I decided to something fun and easy- a blind contour drawing! For a blind contour drawing you make one continual line, you can't take your pen (or pencil) off the paper, and you also can't look at the paper! (At least those are the rules I remember from high school.) To prevent myself from peeking I actually had to hold a blank piece of paper up to block my view of my sketchbook. It's so hard not to look! Here is my blind contour drawing of my coral bookshelf and the stuff on top of it. Steve and I bought this bookshelf from a yard sale the summer after we first got married. We always meant to repaint it, and we never did, but I kind of like it just the way it is, horrible coralish colored paint and all! The top shelf is Steve's books, the other two are mine. (Notice his nerd books!) I like this blog so far because even though it is just a drawing a day, I feel like it gives quite a bit of insight into our daily lives and our personalities.

I think I did pretty awesome on the globe and owl if I can say so myself! And also notice how I did a few of the "books" on the bottom "shelf" crooked as well! 

Day 7- Break Day

Creating every day is exhausting, I forgot how long it takes to draw an actual good picture and how much effort I have to put into it if I'm actually applying myself. I decided that since the Creators of our world got to take a break on the 7th day, then the creator of this blog and these pictures gets to take a break too. But that's not quite as much fun, so I decided on the 7th day, I'm going to post a picture from an old sketchbook. Some will be from high school, some from college, some doodles, some assignments from former art classes, some from sketches not associate with school.
Today's picture I did in high school. This is still one of my favorite sketches. It is a reflection, I believe the back side of a spoon.

I also took my mom's suggestion and just took photographs of my sketches this week. It was very time consuming to scan them. I think some detail is lost, but not a whole ton, I thing the bigger difference is just the color quality of the picture, it appears much darker than actual sketch which is drawn on a white sketchpad.

Day 6- Rubber Duckie

Tonight's picture was once again done after the kids went to bed. I walked out of their room to the library/loft area and saw this rubber duckie sitting on the floor. Somehow during bathtime last night he made his way out of the bathroom and out into the loft. Instead of putting him away, I stuck him on the desk and settled myself into my orange chair to draw him. I think he's awfully cute. We kind of have a thing for pirates in this house, maybe I will tell you all about our family flag some day. We use it to conquer things. You may not have known it but Chicago, the Grand Canyon, Olympic National Park, Seattle, the Hoover Dam, the Redwoods, and lots of areas belong to my husband and I. They are part of the Conquered States of Steve and Kari, don't worry though, we still let other people visit and run the places even though we conquered them. (I guess I just told you about out flag, haha.) We made it when we were dating, and had it safety pinned together, when my mom saw it's sad state she helped us out and sewed into a nice version using good nylon fabric, and she even sewed the edge so we can put it on a dowel rod if we want to. We take it on all of our adventures (when we remember it, we're pretty forgetful people). It is top half blue fabric, bottom half green fabric (or maybe that's reversed) and on top of that centered is a pirate flag. I'll maybe post a picture of that too someday... we'll see... I bet if you go onto our other blog though you can see pictures of it, that would probably be much faster than waiting around for me if and when I actually post a picture of it. So yeah, just go to our family blog and look for it, you'll see it. So back to my original thought, we have a thing for pirates as is evidenced by our pirate themed playroom, pirate flag, and pirate rubber duckie, but isn't he cute!?

(picture of the duck, at a different angle than he was sitting when I drew him.)

*Pencil used: Staedtler Mars Lumograph 2H. I told you it's my favorite! It's just good for sketching because it erases easily and doesn't go on too dark or leave marks, but can easily be layered to make a wide range of values. all of this was done by the same pencil just depending on how hard or soft i pushed and if I went over it a few times to darken. 

Day 5- Daffodil

The night I did Day 1, my husband was at work, but I texted him a picture of the sketch and he thought it was awesome and different than anything I ever had done and requested a picture of a fire breathing Chinese dragon with a mane. Totally doable and easy right? Well I put it off for a few days, because I had a lot going on and wasn't feeling quite motivated to get started on the dragon and tonight I finally decided to start on it. I'm not really good at drawing things out of my imagination and having them turn out good so I did a google search for Chinese dragons, looked at the images, and got started drawing. About 45 minutes later and after much erasing and redoing, I almost had his head halfway done and a body outline sketched out. Since it was already past 1 o'clock I decided the dragon was not going to be ready today, so I kind of did a cop out and sketched out a quick little daffodil (my favorite flower) gave it a leaf, and then stuck a little bug on it. This one is not favorite, and definitely not my favorite daffodil sketch (I actually do have a favorite daffodil sketch in an old sketchbook from about 7 years ago and when I look at it I can still remember the way the daffodil smelled while I was drawing, maybe I will scan it and share it with you sometime), and I'm not happy with how dark the squiggles are around the center part of the flower (too outline-y), but I was tired, and kind of sad my dragon was taking much longer than expected and I did this in like 3 minutes. Keep watching for the dragon though, I think it may take a week or so of working on in addition to other things, but Steve is home for the next 5 days which may mean I have drawing time during the day too and not just at night! So excited! The dragon is going to be freaking awesome though, not just a quick 5 minute thing just so I can say I did my drawing for the day, so awesome, I'm telling you, just wait and see!

What do you think? I already said i'm not happy with it, too outlined and a little too flat. 

(P.S.- Am I using parenthesis too much?)

*Pencils used- Statetdler Mars Lumograph 2H (It's my favorite pencil to use, can you tell?)

Day 4- Island in the Sun

Day 4. Less than a week into this and I almost cheated and took a day off. After showing our new house to a family member for the first time the other day, I was so embarrassed that our house didn't look as nice I would like it to (and there was laundry everywhere, almost all clean, but still everywhere! and dishes in the sink and counter), and that's it not totally decorated and done yet, that I got motivated to work on a few projects in our house. The boys have a playroom downstairs that is intended to be pirate themed. So far all we have down there is really cool pirate flag banner from my parents that has like 12 or so different pirate flags and we have it hanging around the top of the wall all the way around the room. And I sketched some palm trees on the wall before my parents last visit so it would look like I was in the process of doing more with the room. Well I finally started painting the palm trees, and I was doing it with a too-small paintbrush so it was taking me forever and I was tempted to say my painting the palm trees on the wall would count for my drawing for today. But I decided I can't slack this early on or I'll never make it through the year, so I did a quick sketch of some palm trees in honor of the ones I am painting. These drawn ones have a lot more character than the ones on the wall though, I think these ones are a little more spunky and fun and energetic. What do you think? Should I give these posts more exciting and creative names? Writing's not really my talent but is Day 4, Island in the Sun a better name than just Day 4?

*Pencils used, either a Staedtler Mars Lumograph or a regular number 2, they are pretty much the same thing...

Day 3- Owl

Day 3's drawing I did while the boys were in the bathtub. I was sitting in my comfy orange chair watching them and realized it would be a great time to do my drawing for the day instead of waiting until after they go to bed like I normally do, so I looked around the library/loft area and spotted this cute little bobble head owl that my old bosses gave me because they know I like owls. I stuck him on the desk, grabbed my sketchbook, and settled into my chair. I didn't do a lot of shading on this one, mostly outlining. And I just realized as I glanced over at my little owl perched on the bookshelf that I left out spots/circles that go in the center of his feathers on his belly... oops! And I totally ratted myself out, you would have never known. I love this little guy though, he is so cute, turquoise and green and orange, and just so bright and happy and cute. Once again edge cut off by scanner and shading around the edges from the scanning process.

Would you be interested in me posting the picture of the actual item when I am drawing real things?
(Update: I added the picture, but it is obviously from a different angle than when I drew it, but you get the idea)

*Pencils used Staedtler Mars Lumograph 2H and 3B I believe.

Day 2- B, my coaster

Day 2. I was looking around for something to draw because I wasn't feeling very inspired to do something from my imagination and saw this coaster that one of Steve's aunts and uncles gave us for Christmas a year ago.  (The left edge got cut off a little in the scanning process, and the top is a little discolored also from scanning because my sketchbook is slightly bigger than the scanning area and the lid won't close on top of it.) With it's black background I thought it would be a great thing to draw to get me using something besides just a number 2 pencil, and to do lots of dark. 

*Used Staedtler Mars Lumograph pencils, a 2H pencil for sketching, 8B for filling in.