pair of cardinals

Our Arizona cypress tree, planted about 5 years ago, is home to a myriad of birds of many species — Bill snapped a quick photo of a couple of our cardinals.

2 wooden bowls and an autumn treat

Our multi-talented son, Matt, made both of these bowls. The one on the left page was turned on a lathe after various pieces of wood were glued together. It holds our favorite autumn treat, peanuts & candy corn. I prefer the candy corn with a chocolate flavored top end but they are hard to find.

The bowl on the right page won’t hold much with that dip on the side, but isn’t the wood beautiful! It has an edge of rough bark.

tiny bit of crepe myrtle

Our crepe myrtle is constantly sending up small suckers during the growing season. Bill gave me this pruned off bit, saying it wasn’t the red roses he used to bring me but it’s pretty. I placed it in a small honey jar and it continued to bloom for days.

Before the barn-house we now live in, every house we bought had red roses growing in our yard or in a neighbor’s yard spilling over our fence. But here, the climate seems a bit too hot and humid to grow roses so we planted the red crepe myrtle instead.

I drew this with a Wren pen from Tom’s Studio, filled with a deep teal ink sample that came with it — forgetting that it isn’t waterproof. So color was added with Neocolor II crayons.

looking forward to Autumn

 Today I rode in the back seat of our son-in-law’s truck as he drove us to an appointment at the Med Center. My vision was still fuzzy from a bad (temporary) reaction to the iodine contrast used in yesterday’s CT scan, but I could still manage to paint these swatches. The medical stuff was just routine follow-up but Bill and I don’t drive the horrendous downtown Houston traffic.

(Text was added later after arriving home — my hands shake too much to write in a moving vehicle.)

I put this palette together for the Calmtober drawing challenge in October, hosted by an illustrator in Cornwall, UK who goes by the nickname Kriksis. She also chose the handmade watercolors in Deep Deep Light’s “Autumn Forever” palette (shown below), which I was trying to match with whatever I had on hand.

*️⃣ Instead of the burnt sienna, I wanted a muted warm red that leans towards a pinkish orange. After trying various mixes, I realize now that my Daniel Smith Quin. Coral would have been perfect. Oh, well! 🤷🏻‍♀️

our bird-watching kitten

One of Luna’s favorite spots is sitting on top of the cats’ scratching post (behind the chair) watching birds at the feeders in front. This is looking towards the front of our converted barn house; two windows and the French doors are where the barn door used to be. Bill made me the Morris chair and footstool years ago.

Inspiration for this drawing came from a wonderful new book I’m slowly reading through, “Pen Drawing, An Artist’s Guide to Drawing With Ink” by John Harrison. The second photo is from the e-book, part of a demonstration where John draws a chair in a similar position, though his background is a shelf full of lovely books. I decided to leave the line drawing in ink lines only, adding colored pencil to suggest the outside view. Luna is in watercolor.

Drawn with a Sailor Fude de Mannen bent nib fountain pen and Rohrer & Klingner Sketch Ink (color Jule).

waiting for haircuts

Our barber, Donna, was running behind yesterday so I did a quick sketch in my Traveler’s wallet with the first drawing tool I grabbed hold of. Totally forgot about my favorite Kaweco mini fountain pen that is attached to the wallet’s pocket (seen at far right).

domino cactus

The above sketch is how our small domino cactus looked on Saturday and the next photo shows how it looked the following day. Blooms are so exuberant but only last one day. I simplified the sketch by leaving out the small garden rocks and the shells imbedded on the pot. The last photo is of a sketch I did of the same plant earlier this year, with the beginning of a couple of blooms. Flowers repeat sporadically from spring to autumn.

early this morning

As a child, I was told “a watched pot never boils”. It actually _does_ boil . . . if you wait long enough. Seemed to take forever this morning as I was fixing a mug of my favorite tea, Taylor’s of Harrogate Spiced Christmas Leaf Tea. Currently no longer available; I hope it returns at Christmas time.

lost and found

Luna takes . . . and Luna gives back. Sort of.

Apparently our kitten stole this Lumos Duo pen from the bookshelf and chased it around in the middle of the night. Yesterday, we saw her trying to reach under the loveseat recliner — Bill lifted it and there was my pen, along with bits of pet hair and dust bunnies.

I saw a dragonfly perched on a wire fence and snapped a quick fuzzy photo. It was holding its wings strangely. It flew away as I stood there — as we came back from our walk, I noticed it had returned to the same spot.

a pen thief among us

Apparently, this blog post from last week never posted and stayed in the “draft” statis. Curious . . .

After baking a loaf of sourdough earlier this week, I drew a continuous line sketch using my black Lumos Duo pen from Tom’s Studio, currently filled with the non-waterproof ink that came with it. Today, I added a bit of watercolor and colored pencil, pleased to see that the ink doesn’t bleed much.

I just wish I knew where that pen _was_ at the moment. It was used yesterday morning, and is now missing. Our 4-month old kitten, Luna, has probably stolen the pen from whichever surface I laid it down on.

With Luna in the house, my art space has been streamlined: the various postcards, color charts and notes usually hanging on the wall over my desk have been put away for now, and my pencil / tool carousel is covered up when Luna is not napping. I have actually caught her lifting a colored pencil held between two paws and then dropping it to the stone floor to play!

The upper note in green ink was jotted down using a Wren pen, also from Tom’s, which I immediately smeared before the ink dried. Today is a messy day.