At The Zoo

 I took myself to the zoo to sketch. I got to use my brand new Derwent bag, but I forgot a paper towel, so any mistakes in color I was just stuck with. I took my 3 legged chair and it worked perfectly. Most people said not a word to me. One little girl said "she's a painter" and inside I felt pretty proud at that.

Here the female kept pacing, so I didn't record her at all.

The lions were my best subject.  They just slept in the sun.

The camel cooperated only so much, I never did get their head.  There were two of them and they kept moving their heads around each other and then completely changed positions.

At the Penguin cove I got some contour drawing done.

The pig just slept while I was there. A sleeping animal is so much easier to draw. That is all I did in the two hours I was there.  The next time I will stay longer.



 Some music for your enjoyment.

A Week in Yellowstone

We had a great time in Yellowstone, there are always beautiful views.  This is Lamar Valley, you can sometimes see wolves and Grizzly bears here.

We saw lots of Big Horn Sheep, these are the females.  I saw males too but never got a picture of them.

This is something I have never seen in the 30 years I have been going to Yellowstone. Ranger/cowboys herding buffalo across the road.  That was quite cool to see.

Here I am on Dunraven Pass.  They had just opened the road.  As you can see the snow banks are a little high.

This is a cinnamon black bear.

This is Rosie the black bear with her three cubs.

I got around to doing a little art one night. Playing with paint and stencils and a bag of scraps led to this collage.

Its funny that I didn't realize there was that white line going down her face. Old book pages are always fun to draw on.

Back To Reality

Since getting back home its been a whirlwind of activity. We sold our trailer and bought a new one.  I've been tying up all the loose ends for my trip out of the country. I leave for Ireland on Tuesday.  I am taking along my iPad with the idea of blogging a little while I am there. I am not sure how long I will keep that up. If I think it is taking up too much time, I 'll postpone it until I get back home.  So I will guarantee at least one blog post from the road. I may end up being more active on FB or Instagram so you might want to follow me there. There are links to do this in my sidebar.

For Sunday Sketches I drew some flowers in a small notebook I had in my purse.

The first page was just some random flowers.

Then I decided on a bigger flower and it became a zentangle. Sketching is always great fun. Check out what others are doing here

Exploring the Chakras

Back in this post I shared Julie Gibbons link about her exploration of the Chakras.  I was enthralled with the idea and now I am finally getting to the start.  I made s small journal to hold the journal aka Teesha Moore"s amazing 16 page journal. I really like the idea of using that journal for small focused projects.

I am starting with the first chakra of course. My page was created with Neocolor II watercolor crayons and a pitt artist pen. The name of the chakra is Maladhara. Also known as the root chakra. I focused my image first with the elephant for its strength and then added parts of the traditional image of this chakra.  The four petals represent the four directions, the yellow the earth. The earth is also represented in the drawing.   I drew the roots to be very extensive and then wrote down meaning and connections.  The first chakra covers your roots, grounding, ancestors and beliefs so I added words to represent my ancestors and so forth.  This really was fun. In exploring this I found I understood the chakra and myself better.

Don't forget to check out all the other artists posting for Paint Party Friday 

Animal Dreams and The Wicked Tinkers

Last year I was working with Carla Sonheim's book Drawing Lab. I had gone to the zoo and had made some animal sketches. I was using a small sketchbook I had bought from Diana Trout, which I had bought  to try out the stonehenge watercolor paper but ended up just doing drawing in it. That seemed a waste so thinking about that and then being anxious to work with my watercolors I went and added some wc to the images.

This camel was just sitting and panting in the sun, I felt lucky to capture the image as sometimes they are not so accommodating.

The giraffe was so cute... We don't have giraffe's in our zoo so I must have drawn this from a book or memory I can't remember.

I have a thing for zebras,  and actually most black and white animals. I love the black and white stripes but decided to make a purple zebra instead. I like his expression, it makes me wonder what he is thinking.

Men in Kilts

I am off for the weekend, in the morning we head south for The Utah Scottish Festival and Highland Games. I need to see some men in kilts and listen to some great Scottish Music.  One of my favorite groups, The Wicked Tinkers will be playing.  I love those guys, they play tribal Scottish music and they are so much fun.  Here is a video of them on the Craig Peterson show.



and yes I will remember my camera this time.

Blizzard 2010

I've got a mug a hot cider in my hands and the snow is blowing like a banshee outside.  Dave found some really good cider at the store so I have warmed it and threw in a cinnamon stick for flavor.  It tastes really yummy.

I went outside to rescue the prayer flags that had come down.  This is the back yard.  The wind isn't so bad in the back.

This is our driveway, that is about 4 ft of snow piled up. We won't be going anywhere any time soon.

I tried taking a pic of me by the snow bank but as the wind was blowing so hard I couldnt keep my eyes open and my hands were getting cold too.

Flynn didn't mind the weather as long as I made a trail for him. The cats are bundled indoor except for Boromir who didn't want to come in. She is holed up in the garage probably sitting on some wool fleece keeping warm. I will check on her later. The sheep are all nestled in the barn so all is well in my world.  How about yours?

Update:  Boromir the little grey kitty is  inside now....