A much-needed, very therapeutic Saturday of a little cleaning and a lot of sketching, reading, watching You've Got Mail for the 100,000th time... Pure Bliss... (except the cleaning - but the results are great!)

My first page of sketches is below, and then speaking of results...











The more finished sketch below may very well be my favorite sketch of my entire artistic career.  I don't know why, it just has it all to me... great lines and energy, my favorite things - cups that hold coffee or tea, and of course, books.  This sketch just feels like an accomplishment of sorts... And may I add that there is nothing, I mean NOTHING like a brand new Prismacolor colored pencil sharpened with an X-acto knife and chiseled ever so slightly at the end.  YUM!!  I had forgotten the pleasure that simple tool can bring.  The shadows in the white cup were too dark, so I used white gouache to lighten it and add highlights.  I started the line drawing with Faber-Castell PITT pens, and just went a little wild from there.  I do recommend knife sharpened colored pencils.  There is just something about the line they make.

And now I am having cinnamon coffee.  I drink mine black but I'm sure most people use cream if not cream and sugar - black and strong that's the way I like it... Just add a dash or two or three of cinnamon to the filter after you put the coffee in and then brew!  Perfect fall drink!  Happy Saturday evening everyone!

Busy End of Summer Days

One reason I haven't posted in so many days is because I'm too busy DOING to sit still long enough to blog!  I've painted my window casing bright red...took me about 2 weeks to finish it. 

These days are so very very busy.  I am rarely home and so today is a special treat.  A cloudy, cool, rainy day to stay home and be cozy.  I am looking forward to fall days.  Everything seems to calm down around this time of year.  Days are shorter and cooler and I always feel like my life kind of takes on a more relaxed pace.  I hope this fall is no different, because I could sure use a more relaxed pace.

Lately I've been on a book-buying craze (for lack of a better term).  I just can't seem to stop buying books!  Cheap, beautiful, enticing BOOKS!! 

"Books to the ceiling, books to the sky.

My piles of books are a mile high.

Oh, how I love them!

Oh, how I need them!

I'll have a long beard by the time I read them." -Arnold Lobel

This is only the tip of the iceberg!  My house is overrun with books, and all I seem to want to do is READ!!
I just finished The Help by Kathryn Stockett, and I'm currently working on a collection of sermons by John MacArthur, C. S. Lewis' The Four Loves, A. W. Tozer's The Pursuit of God, and yesterday I found Blogging for Bliss by Tara Frey for about $7 with my AC Moore coupon! 

I've also been cooking a lot of Italian food after having finished Peter Pezelli's Francesca's Kitchen.  All these are highly recommended.  I think I'll go have some homemade spaghetti now following Francesca's easy sauce recipe... But first I will leave you with a few paintings/sketches I've managed to do:

Don't forget to sip some tea or coffee on this cool, cozy, September Saturday... Enjoy!

Not Your Typical...but a very wonderful Fourth of July Weekend

 My July 4th weekend trip: visiting a friend and her husband...Oh what a wonderful time!

Colored pencil sketches done while traveling in her "bookmobile" to bookshops and a book fair. The scenery was absolutely Gorgeous!!!

My friend thought my little tin of very short pencils was simply ingenious, so I must share it here.  It's a credit card tin I bought at a dept store and turned into a pencil case.  Inside are almost-used-up Prismacolor pencils that fit perfectly!  And the tin fits perfectly in my purse!

And lastly, I must share my huge selection of book treasures that I brought home with me.  This is not even all of them! I also got first editions of Corrie Ten Boom's The Hiding Place and Rosamunde Pilcher's Flowers in the Rain and Other Stories!  Splendid weekend!  Happy Fourth of July everyone!

New Marker Art!

5" x 7" 4" x 6"

Wanted to share some new marker drawings with you. I plan to use the one on the right in a collage (I think). The sale on markers (see earlier post) ends tomorrow; I'm thinking of going back again before it's too late and getting MORE MARKERS!! Somebody stop me! LOL

Quote for the Day

Just the knowledge that a good book is awaiting one at the end of a long day makes that day happier.

~~~Kathleen Norris, Hands Full of Living, 1931

I recently joined the American Christian Fiction Writers Book Club group on yahoo. I am so enjoying myself! I used to labor over my reading trying to "perfect" myself with Christian self-help, classics, and other laborious books - forgetting to ENJOY myself. Mind you, Christian self-help has its rightful place, as do the classics and those laborious books -- but I have rediscovered the power of a good story to thrill, inspire, uplift, entertain, suspend, evoke emotion, and fulfill. Right now I am reading A State of Grace by Traci Depree and awaiting the arrival of It's Not About Him by Michelle Sutton (the book of the month for the book club). At the library tonight I checked out the first in the O'Malley Series by Dee Henderson. Now I'm off to see what happens next in A State of Grace.

Hopefully by the end of the week I can share what I worked on this past weekend during studio time with my favorite partner - my daughter.

Here's to a good book awaiting us at the end of a long day!

Happy Tuesday to all!

Saturday Evening Post

This is my messy corner of the living room - books, books, books! Oh how I love books!

Speaking of books...below are a couple of two-page spreads in my SKETCHbook --- I did these just now while my husband watched VA Tech play football -- fun! This has been a very cool (cold actually) fall day (felt like winter actually). We accomplished a lot today - cleaning, organizing, getting ready for winter with blankets and sweaters.





Happy Autumn Evening everyone!

New Moleskine Spreads