After a very long break, I am back...

Well if you can see this you know I have been gone for months, and this is just a snippet of my life since I was last here.

 

 
I still draw at Starbucks and Barnes & Noble Café most days of the week.

I am fully retired now so my days are spent drawing, quilting, volunteering ... I volunteer in my grand daughter's art class, which is just an awesome experience for me.

I still draw for Sktchy, but not as regularly I had been doing:

And my latest adventure is working with a personal trainer in a gym, just she and I, to strengthen my body and learn and improve balance. I've had seven 45 minutes sessions over October and early November, going twice a week, and I love it. There were moments early on when I asked myself what I was doing, was I nuts? but now I look forward to my sessions and I am starting to see improvements.
I'm keeping a sketchbook just for these sessions to record my progress.

I'm now lifting eight pounds and pulling 40!

 

I draw in other public places as well.

 

Since March I have completed five quilts for all five grandchildren and they all love them. Here are the two most recently gifted.

 And this is the one (below) I am currently working on. I'm really happy that I've gotten back into working with fabrics. It feels so creative and yummy to the touch.

So I hope this finds you all well. It took me a few minutes to remember how to even do a blog post. Really, it's amazing what one can forget when they aren't doing it regularly.

Take care and enjoy your creative lives!

Thanks for stopping by. I appreciate you comments should you feel like leaving any.

Life is Good!

It's hard to know what problems my people will encounter in any given week. This week was full of them. Take the biker and the redhead, who could not believe the other was truly interested in them:

 

 

Or this husband, who couldn't get his wife to sit still and listen to him.

Or the gal on her laptop, who had already written one Dear John letter a week ago ...

... The  younger sister, who just wanted a little reassurance, but big sister wasn't going to help with that!

... or those infernal long lines at Starbucks! Where waiting is the name of the game!

But this one really took the prize! The two lovers were fine, but then unseen here was this other guy who came in with flowers for a different women, who wouldn't look up from her phone to receive them. From my vantage point it looked like "apology flowers" for what I can only guess at, and she was not in the mood to accept his apology! He finally left. Don't know what happened to the flowers.

On a lighter and more positive note this daughter was appreciative of her mom's help with her homework.

Some days were rather uneventful, just he usual waiting in line and chatting.

We went to another town and a café near the court house, where lawyers and jury members and such hang out. I found this couple of interest.

And I always start and end my week on Thursdays at Barnes & Noble Café where regulars and newbies hang out doing their thing, the red table is the giveaway.

And then there is my evening at home art done in my recliner off my iPhone on the Sktchy  App.
A fun way to draw faces. I look for expressions and emotions when I can.

 

I love drawing all of these people. As you can see the most recent is #181. I've almost filled two art journals with Sktchy folks. Bought the next one today to be ready to continue.

 

I hope you are having a Creative week and I wish you another coming up. My life is full of drawing, digging in dirt/starting my spring/summer garden, and something I haven't done in a very long time, years, sewing.

 

Thanks for coming by and know that your comments keep me drawing!

Welcome to my Week in Art

Oh dear, looked like I started out the week with a negative thought, not like me, however ...

 

You know my people have conversations and thoughts of their own!

 

I just follow them around from one coffee spot to another and let them have their say.

 

The day I was drawing these folks a man sitting next to me was leaning over trying to see what I was doing. He asked if I was sketching. I asked if he wanted to see. He looked through my entire art journal of these coffee shop cartoons and laughed and laughed. I couldn't have been given a higher compliment. I told him when he finished that I had drawn him numerous times. I even found one in my book to show him.

He shared that he was a poet and he shared a few poems he'd written that he had on his phone. He shared a bit of his life history with me too, as it made the poem make sense. He is the only child of Holocaust survivor parents and his writing depicted this is such a way to bring tears to my eyes.
It was nice meeting a landsman, someone I'd drawn before, and to find out what we had in common. (both Jewish, artists)
I'm sure we will chat again.

 

Sometimes my people have nothing to say at all.

 

I enjoy being observant and spotting interesting things and goings on.

And once in a while I pull my art journal out at other places like on this day when my car needed an oil change.

Sometimes the environment influences the talk. Like these real signs at Barnes & Noble Café.

And then there are my evenings sitting in my recliner when I find photographs on my Sktchy App that catch my eye and I sit and draw 

and color them with ink and Copic markers.

 

 

 

 

I love these people who let me draw them and it's especially heartwarming when they give me feed  back telling me they like what I've done with their photos. They are on the Sktchy App for iPhone. And some of them actually look very close to the real person. I'm getting better as I grow my drawing skills.

Guess where I am going tomorrow? To the quilt store. I haven't made a quilt in over five years. But I am going to get back to it having had a request, so I need to smarten up my skills. I hope it's like riding a bicycle and I will get back on my sewing machine and remember how to ride it.

Wishing you all a Creative Week ahead. Thanks so much for coming to see what I draw. I love your visits and comments and they truly do keep me drawing.

 

Welcome: Only 22 This Week!

You can tell by the chairs where we go for coffee ... the red/burgundy over stuffed chairs are at Starbucks ...

As are these wooden chairs with the double curved backs ...

Still working on my Creative Lettering between jaunts to coffee houses!

 

This is a different Starbucks in our home town.

 

You can see all sorts of people and fairies if you watch carefully ...

This fine woman offered her photo to draw on the Sktchy App. Here's my drawing just in ink. I loved braiding her hair!

 

Back at Starbucks out of town ... these stacks of boxes are at all the Starbucks, I'm guessing they are the holiday products not yet ready to be put out.

Those over stuffed chairs must be very comfy indeed!

These folks sat directly in front of my table at this higher table. The boy was very into his food and iPad; his mom was very into him; and the dad was busy getting up and down and looking around.

 

The woman's photo gave her skin a purple sheen and I did my best to capture it with watercolors.

She later told me she really liked what I did.

You can see at the first Starbucks at the top later in the week, the Halloween spirit was high.

One more Sktchy woman. She liked hers too. These are such fun to do.

Later in the week I got into a black and white mood. I really enjoyed drawing with my  Varsity fountain pen.

 

And the next day too, today actually (Thursday) at Barnes and Noble Café. These tables are red in real life, but I liked leaving them white and black to finish off the week with this particular pen.

 

And then we went out to lunch at the Napa Deli before running a bunch of errands:

 

It was a good week. I hope yours was too. I only worked part of one day this week. I guess I am officially semi retired. Next week I will work part of two days. And think I may not take any new clients until the first of the New Year. See how that goes.

 

I kind of like this new life style of mine.

 

Wishing you a Creative Week. Thanks for coming by and your comments really do keep me drawing. Happy Paint Party Friday too.