sketching at church, 24 April

Before services began at Beth Yeshua, the musicians were warming up. I sat near Jason while he set up the overhead equipment, starting to sketch one of the Rabbi's as he sat in an introspective pose.

As soon as I began sketching, a very talented musician, Johan, began to play Clair de Lune on the piano. Everyone, including the Rabbi, sat up and listened . . . . it was THAT beautiful! When done, everyone present broke out in spontaneous applause.

So I altered my sketch of Rabbi Tom.

eating at Zorro's

I did not have a timer going as I sketched this last night, but I know it was less than 20 minutes. After eating my share of chips (this is our second basket), I sketched it quickly with a Pentel Pocket Brush pen and added washes before our food arrived.

The text was added later at my son's home. Even with daughter-in-law Carrie watching me, I dived right in to sketching without pencil guidelines -- scary but good practice.

Josiah makes a stand

His parents have been encouraging him to use a pacifier (he'll only take one made by Avent) . . . . at two months, Josiah already has a mind of his own and likes his thumb.

I quick-sketched this in a 20 minute challenge from a photo I took --- I've been a bit intimidated to try to sketch Josiah, so I forced myself to just jump in without time to niggle.

Jayna's egg hunt treasure

One of my art goals for this month: sketch something every day, even though I'm having trouble finding any time for sketching. No matter how simple, silly, or speedy.

Today Jayna shared some of her Easter egg hunt treasures with me.

back to the bear . . .

I haven't been working on the birthday gift for Mikala while busy with Josiah & Jayna. Too many sharp tools and tiny parts.

But on Sunday Jason's family spent the day with Carrie's parents --- good work time for me.

Having pre-sewn the individual body parts before my trip, I just needed to turn the parts, stuff them, join together with machine-screw joints, and stitch the openings shut.

Later this week, I'll start on the face, adding ears, eyes, and nose / mouth. Oh . . . and I still need to sew the clothes together.

Passover with Beth Yeshua

One more journal entry left on this week's church events . . .

We arrived to the Houston hotel early Monday evening so Jason could set up the overhead video equipment. His church meets on Saturday in a local Baptist church for now; they are in the planning stages of building their own place of worship. For big celebrations like Passover, they meet in hotel meeting rooms for now.

While Jason worked on his set-up and Carrie assisted her mother in last-minute tasks, I had the children with me. Until the young girls from Carrie's class stole Jayna -- they were teaching her to dance traditional Jewish steps with them. Josiah was soon taken by his other grandma, leaving me to sketch some of the items on our table set up for Seder (I added watercolor later at home).

Sketching the Hebrew characters was harder than I thought; if I was around longer, I might be tempted to take the Hebrew class at the church. Meanwhile, below is a photo of Jayna dancing with the girls.

busy weekend

This past weekend started with checking my dog, Maxwell, in with a local kennel for boarding, then worship at Jason's church, Beth Yeshua HaMashiach (which translates to "house of Jesus Christ"). Immediately following the service, we headed to Austin for Quentin's 3rd birthday party.

All our family was there except husband Bill who has to work back home in Kansas, and our youngest son Jeff, still in the Navy. Fun to see the cousins all playing together! Matt & Misty put together a great party at a local park.

Kristen and Mikala drove in from the north side of Houston, but Kristen didn't feel up to driving home since she still had jet lag (having just returned from a mission trip to Romania), so I drove her car back to Houston with her (getting lost in Brenham, TX on the way!) Jason's family stayed in an Austin hotel overnight since travel is tough on a 2-month old baby.


           
Sunday, I went with Kristen's family to their church, Jersey Village Baptist. Then out for dinner and she drove me back towards Jason's -- they were just returning from Austin and met us half-way across town to pick me up. Houston is one really BIG city -- our daughter in the NW and our son in the SW are about a 45 minute drive apart by 70-mph freeway.

Then I kept the grand-babies while Jason & Carrie did their grocery shopping. And today? Pick up the dog from the kennel, get everyone dressed up, and head to a Passover celebration at a downtown hotel . . . .

Shabbat, 20 March

Our son, Jason, and his family belong to a wonderful Messianic Jewish congregation in Houston, Texas. Whenever I visit this church, it's like coming home.

The congregation is of an international flavor; the worship a blend of ancient Jewish traditions and contemporary Christian praise & worship. (Who knew that a shofar could actually produce such sweet music?!) I especially love the traditional Jewish praise dance -- so sweet to see grandparents, teenagers, and tiny pre-schoolers all holding hands and going through the ancient steps together.

The revered Torah scrolls in the sketch are in fragile condition; according to normal practice they should have been replaced long ago. But how do you replace such history? These were lovingly hidden between newspapers and smuggled out of Hitler's Germany, to be gently put back together once they were in safer lands.

Sunday's journal page

Mikala and son-in-law Michael are visiting KS during spring break; we had a delightful time with Mikala on Sunday. (Our daughter, Kristen, is on a church mission trip in Romania).

I recently found some candy Lego blocks -- they made a BIG hit with Mikala. We still don't know what they taste like though; she wasn't sharing! Had to build first. I wish I had sketched some of them.

After taking her back to her other grandparents, I finished knitting a beret and sweater for her birthday bear. Not wanting to take the pattern book with me to TX, I went ahead and knit them, then will sew up seams later.

Rose & Kawliga

Just when I am full of doubt regarding my ability to illustrate books written by others, an unexpected thing happened.

I have not yet turned these illustrations for Misty's book over to her -- I'll do so in Texas in a couple of weeks. I don't think she has seen the finished pages I posted privately for her. My mind has been full of doubt as to their quality --- If there was plenty of time, I would probably re-do the whole project completely differently.

Then yesterday, our veterinarian dropped by to check Maxwell out and give us a health certificate to travel. He is going with me to Texas next week and will be given to 4-yr old Jayna as a surprise. She has been begging for him to come visit her ( . . . "and can he stay a L-O-N-G time?").

(Yes, our vet makes house calls! She is soon breaking ground on her new clinic; meanwhile, she makes house calls on her patients.)

Anyway, after finishing with Maxwell, Dr. Beth asked me about my illustrating. I thought she was only being polite. But she then said she was wanting to write a series of books for children visiting her clinic. "Uh oh," I thought.

I told her that first maybe she should look at what I've done for this book. And showed the illustrations to her . . . . She said YES, she DOES want me to illustrate her books, as soon as she researches publishing options.

I'm still in shock.