Winter in the Back Yard 1

Crumbs on our faces

Goodbye Calico Cat

We lost her a little over a week ago.

Knitting and stuff

I haven't had focused time that I could devote to working on those portraits since I got the first one finished.  But I hope to resume work on those within a week.  In the meantime, I've been knitting a fair bit.  And for the first time I made my own pattern and am using it to make myself a little cashmere/silk top with this yarn:



Yummy stuff.  I can't wait to see if the top is actually wearable!  I will post my pathetic little pattern sketch up here for all to see at some point.

I also made a few knitted soap covers:

...out of this yarn:


And the first half of a sweater, knit out of bamboo:

Oh my gosh, bamboo is a dream to knit with (if you can get past the nightmare of the balls of yarn which tangle badly if a lot of care isn't taken.)

I've been drawing a lot of airplanes for my son's birthday party (tomorrow):


(scribbles added by said son)


And today I made this little drawing for a birthday gift for another little two-year old friend:

I like the idea of children being given art for their birthdays so they have a collection when they become adults. I read about some parents doing that in a magazine once. So lately our little friends have been getting art from me.

Portrait #1 DONE!

Lorna and Morfar, Graphite on Paper, March 2009

C'est finis!  (Original here.)

I thought it was finished last night. Then, I got crazy this morning and started tweaking it, which is generally NOT a good idea (once you think you might be done). I usually go a few steps too far and regret it. Didn't do that, but I'm absolutely FIGHTING the urge to tweak further.

I'm sad to say I do have some problems with this drawing. It's about 15+ years since I have worked with pencil/graphite so I'm learning the medium over again (and learning the limitations of my eraser!)

Morfar's face is a bit overworked, and not right, and baby Lorna is not as solid looking as I'd like, but I'm afraid of ending up with her being overworked.

It's not too bad for my first portrait effort after a HUGE drawing break though.

Now on to portrait #2!  Wahoo!

I made some shrimp curry.

I think food photography is cool.

iPhone charger

Birthday balloon and flowers

Father on the computer, son in his lap.

A boy and his grandfather, on the ranch

A boy and a goose

Here are a couple of recent sketches.

The first one is for a bunny painting I did for a little friend on her first birthday.


The second one is the third version of some preliminary sketches I've done for the giveaway.


I think, after the third try (it was the charm I guess!) I am getting there with this latter drawing.

Will keep you guys updated with these pieces as I work on them!

Wild horses appeared