Paper and Threads

I am still working on my Carla Sonheim 100 Faces Drawing Lab project - and several weeks ago sketched 3 third graders during a brief, 10 minute, orientation to their local Barnes and Noble Children's Dept. I was with different classes each morning for 3 sessions, so these 3 were sketched on sequential days and then painted at home.

My Own Book Fund is a volunteer activity of mine, and we visit 3rd graders to discuss reading and books, then meet them at a local Barnes and Noble where they each purchase books totaling $50, and end by visiting their class one-two weeks later for presentations about their favorite new book.  They are so excited and so cute, and this year I think I was attracted to girls with great hair and bows and/or head bands.

My favorite report this year (not one of these 3 girls) was the student who stood up and told me that she was going to compare and contrast the Dork Diaries with the Diary of a Wimpy Kid - both very popular series with this age group.  And then she presented a number of conclusions.  Impressive!

Posted by Shirley at 3:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

Our beach week ended yesterday, and I have two more journal pages to post - both done at the end of our 2 mile early morning beach walks.  We haven't figured out why there is "feast or famine" finding shells on the beach, even when we are there around low tide. 

My husband and I LOVE walking the beach early in the morning and see only occasional dog owners and joggers during the 2 mile strolls.  We saw more crab shells like the one I posted earlier, but still can't identify it.  And we always see several skates and horseshoe crabs that have washed up.

Some sea gull feathers and a slipper shell - one of approximately a half dozen I found:

This is my straw hat - with several shells from the morning walk resting on the brim. 

And a birthday photo:

I'm amazed that the sea gull's really long wings, fold up and are barely visible on the gulls.  I brought these photos home to do some summer sea gull drawings - which I find almost impossible to draw on the beach.  As soon as I walk toward them, they scurry off and as I get closer they look like a gigantic plane heading faster and faster down the runway until they are eventually airborn.

Posted by Shirley at 11:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (11)

My husband and I are spending a few days at the beach.  We love to take long walks on the beach early in the morning, and spend time collecting shells and learning about the variety of fish, crabs, skates, skate egg sacs etc that we see.

One of my grandsons asked me to start a shell collection for him and in the last few days I found a good selection: clam, scallop, oyster, moon snail, whelk, mussel and slipper shells. 

There were several dead horseshoe crabs, and two of these crabs that we still can't identify.  Any ideas?,

Today I painted 5 views of the largest and prettiest intact moon snail shell I found.  Now I look forward to tomorrow's walk - we never know what we shall find!

Posted by Shirley at 8:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (16)

My husband and I spent a long Memorial Day weekend with our son, his wife and our 3 year old grand daughter Annabelle in Washington DC.  When she was born, I started a sketchbook for her and I routinely fill one page each day that we visit.  It is part travel sketchbook and part visual journal of our days together.  I completed 4 pages during this visit and I'm including them in this post.  Prior pages can be seen by clicking on the Washington DC category at the bottom of the right-hand side bar.

The sketchbook is a 10" x 7" Cachet Linen watercolor sketchbook - the same one that I used for all of our trips to London.  I can work on both sides of each page, but there is a little buckling that you can see when the page is scanned. 

We watched the Pixar movie "Cars" our first morning and she requested that I draw and paint "Mater."

We took Annabelle to the National Air and Space Museum on the Mall and while my husband took her through her favorite simulators, I sketched an aerial airplane and painted it later from a photo I took.

One morning I took Annabelle to buy art supplies and thought that she would love using the Crayola Paint Brush Pens.  But after she used the first one, she insisted on using the other new brushes and Crayola pan watercolors I bought - and I couldn't convince her that the brush paint pens weren't markers!

It was really hot in DC all weekend, and Annabelle spent several hours with one of her friends in an Arlington playground with lots of waterplay.  I sat in the shade and did quick sketches of her, pail in hand, to record the event.

Posted by Shirley at 11:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

I'm posting the three 20 minute sketches - all done with watercolor pencil, then clear water, then watercolor paint around the images.  My paper is bigger than my scanner, so all 3 pages were photographed and I couldn't get rid of the blue gray color of the paper, even with Photoshop levels.

Posted by Shirley at 3:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)