never too old . . .

I sketched our friends Billie and Macy from a photo I recently snuck of them at church. 16 year old Macy, at about 6 ft. tall, is never too old to sit in her mama’s lap for a snuggle!

I only wish I had done better with the skin tones, and the ink began running a bit in Macy’s face and hand. Oh, well . . . It’s just a simple sketch.

my favorite pine

My favorite childhood book was Heidi. On my tenth birthday, I was sitting outside on our apartment porch reading it as another gift was given to me: a baby toy poodle which I immediately named “Heidi”. After all, they both had curly black hair!

In the book, Heidi loved the tall fir trees behind Grandfather’s shack that seemed to dance. I “befriended” some tall evergreen trees on the side of my grandmother’s house on the outskirts of Wichita — I often climbed in the branches of one to hide and read.

We have several evergreen trees on our property, my favorite of which is this pine standing at least 55’ tall, behind a shorter cedar tree. Earlier this week, I woke up to a sky full of pink and purple wispy clouds behind the tree, which I tried painting on this journal page —- along with a quote from Heidi. After 55 years, I decided to read the story once more.

a bat-sickle and a flat-bat

It seems we have “bats in our belfry” . . . or at least bats in the crawl space above the ceiling at church. Sometimes we can hear them up there. Our church is located in a couple of very old side-by-side downtown buildings in Somerville, TX.

Recently we had a bit of unusually cold weather for south-central Texas. And that’s when we noticed a flattened bat corpse on the sidewalk in front of church. Later, a young member, Kathleen, also found one frozen, still clinging to the brick outside. She was upset, being a nature lover.

I took photos to sketch them but I’m not going anywhere near them — interesting but so creepy!

Reece’s as a wee kitten

Sometimes I just want to draw something but have no real “inspiration” . . . whatever that is. Such was the case last night after I filled this Pilot Metropolitan fountain pen with De Atramentis Document Brown ink.

Looking through some old photos on my iPad, I came across this one of Reece’s, our granddaughter Mikala’s street rescue kitten, when she just barely weighed  2 lbs. — still too tiny for shots so she was isolated in our daughter’s library, away from the two other resident cats. Reece’s is now a full grown, healthy cat living with the Maine Coons, Mocha and Pumpkin.

a teabag charm

Anyone who knows me knows that I love a good cup of freshly brewed tea. Even better is a cup of tea brewed from loose leaf tea, not tea bags. But I do buy tea bags as well for their convenience to use at church or when eating out.

But how can I enjoy my favorite loose leaf teas when away from home?

I have this box of empty tea bags that I can fill with tea leaves but wasn’t sure how to keep the bag closed (besides the obvious stapling). And a string would be needed to remove the bag easily. I did some searching on Etsy and found these beaded teabag clips — perfect answer!

a new-ish iPhone case

When I upgraded to my current phone, I saw lots of cases for them online. Everyone seems to have a black phone and I wanted my black phone to stand out. But I couldn’t decide between a case with watercolor paints or one with a cool scripture. And I didn’t want to spend the higher price.

So I chose a plain clear case.

Yesterday, I decided to change that. On a scrap of watercolor paper, I painted a palette and added a scripture — and I love the results!

I wasn’t sure if the watercolor paper would be too thick, so I also made one from my granulating pigments on a thinner scrap of paper from India. Haven’t picked a scripture for it yet . . .

a humongous teapot

Trying to take a photo of my sketchbook after the daylight is gone can be a bit challenging — not very clear or bright!

* What a huge difference a sunny day makes for taking photos!

Today we needed to pay a few bills and drop a bank deposit off in Brenham before heading to College Station for Bill’s cardio rehab. (Yeah, he’s still in rehab, paid n full by Medicare.) Normally we head out from Somerville, which is closer to where we live, but this time we went by way of Navasota on Highway 6.

Along the highway, we passed this very LARGE teapot — actually an old silo owned by a home & garden store. It made me thirst for a freshly brewed cup of tea!

breakfast this morning

We met our friend Eugene for breakfast early this morning (three others showed up to join us later), and I almost finished this sketch before my own breakfast showed up . . . . But the final bits of color were added later at home.

I like my “lunar” limited palette so much (mentioned here) that I decided to put together a Pocket Palette of the same. Except for the serpentine genuine in the larger set — I had an old unused pan of jadeite genuine so I threw that in instead. Add a touch of quinacridone gold and I still get warmer greens. Fun colors to play with!

Not sure I really need the buff titanium. Perhaps I’ll exchange it for raw umber?

a wee wooden shoe

This is an unexpected gift I received when I purchased a plaid purse recently on Etsy. The seller who made the purse lives in the Netherlands —- a few days after carrying the new bag, I found this tiny key chain inside! So I decided to sketch it . . .

lunar watercolors

Just for fun, I decided to put together a limited palette using Daniel Smith’s lunar watercolors. The unexpected granulation patterns are fun! I already owned the blue, black, and violet, and had recently bought the gorgeous red rock to go with them. There’s also a lunar earth, which I had a sample color dot of, but I prefer the transparent red oxide that I already have a tube of.

All I really needed to add was some kind of yellow; I decided to use one of my pans of the original quinacridone gold (no longer available). After it’s gone, I will probably use monte amiata natural sienna in its place.

Because there was still space in the paint box, I added a green and buff titanium. Then put 3 sable travel brushes in the center space. Now, what shall I sketch with this set?