Paper and Threads

We had all of our family and two other families for Thanksgiving dinner this year - lots of cooking and lots of fun!

While we were cooking, I took a print out of Kathy Barbro's instructions for drawing a cartoon turkey for the children to draw.  Annabelle and Callum each did the drawing and colored it.  And then my grand daughter Sydney said, I want to see you draw it. 

So here is mine.

Yesterday our children and grandchildren convened to eat leftovers and my daughter-in-law Lauren kept 6 of our grandchildren busy decorating gingerbread houses.  It was wonderful seeing them stretched out along a table with their 6 pre-fab houses that Lauren put together earlier in the day with icing.  Here are 5 of them just starting the process.

Even 10 year old Henry decided that he wanted to decorate his house.

Zach, who is 4, has previous experience decorating these houses and was very focused.  But he also ate one M and M for each one he put on his house.

Talented Sydney was the last one to stop.

And here is Robbie's house - he makes one every year and is the most experienced of them all.

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday and now can rest for the remainder of the weekend.

Posted by Shirley at 4:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Last night we used a bamboo brush and India ink to draw and sketch the model in multiple 5 minute, 10 minute and 20 minute poses.  I really loved it because it felt very much like watercolor.  This is a 20 minute pose that I turned in at the end of class, after quickly snapping a phone picture. 

And now I need to go back to the kitchen to continue cooking.

 Happy Thanksgiving to All and safe travel tomorrow during the Nor'easter.

Posted by Shirley at 2:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I am posting a Halloween journal page that I did at Quilt Festival in Houston earlier this month, while I'm making lots of Santa body parts for Christmas ornaments, and planning the cooking for a huge Thanksgiving dinner for family and friends.  The Toad Collector is a doll by Deborah Quinn Hensel and I didn't paint her until this week.

Yesterday and today I volunteered at a Book Fair to raise funds for Goddard Riverside, a settlement house in New York City.  So in the midst of my Halloween-Christmas-Thanksgiving scrambled holidays, I'm only uploading one sketchbook page today. 

Happy Thanksgiving to Everyone!

Posted by Shirley at 7:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In Class 11 we used Nupastels and I hated them!  This isn't a surprise, I didn't like using pastels in several prior experiments here at home.  So there is no photo of that drawing because I didn't even want to spray it with fixative and bring it home.

Last night, in Class 12, we were given a choice of more pastels or a medium of our choice.  I did the 4 five minute poses in charcoal (General extra soft pencil) and then switched to Sanguine Conte.  I'm actually enjoying drawing with these, and feel as if progresss is being made.

This was my long pose for the evening.  I loved the mirror that our Professor placed behind the model.  Only 3 more classes in this Fall semester course, which makes me sad.

Posted by Shirley at 8:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

From now until Christmas, my blog features more "threads" entries than any other time of the year.

I make multiple Christmas tree ornaments each year.  When I first began this ritual in 1976, I made approximately 20 each year - for friends and our children's teachers.  Now I'm making 14 and they are just for our family.   I love making them for our grandchildren, and hope that they will cherish them for many years.

This year I am making Jingle Bell Santas from an old "Twice As Nice" pattern.  I made 2 using 80 mm bells in 1991, and they are very big.  So this year I'm making them on 62 mm bells which are a wonderful, generous size for the Christmas tree.  I usually make one prototype to test the materials and work out bugs and I finished it this afternoon.  Now I will make the rest assembly line style - a little each day when I have time until they are done.

Here is the jolly little guy:

You can see the bell, which is the body, better in this photo - the head and arms are glued to the bell and the legs dangle out of the bell slots:

And here is my growing menagerie and a painting that I did of one of the bigger bells several years ago:

I have a Teesha Moore style 16 page watercolor journal that I am slowly drawing and painting all of the ornaments that I made.  Here is a Santa page showing the Jingle Belly Santa among others.

Posted by Shirley at 4:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)