It’s been a crazy week…ok, almost 2 weeks. Sorry. The kids (all 3) have been sick with the flu…Sam, too. It has worn me out taking care of everyone and waking up at night with the kids. It seems like everyone is getting the flu. At school there are several teachers sick and today we had 64 kids absent!!!! That’s crazy. I am glad I am feeling ok. I am just praying that I don’t get sick over Spring Break. Tonight, I was sitting here killing time and waiting for the laundry to finish so I can do one more load before bed, with nothing to do (ok, actually a ton of things to do, that I don’t want to) so I drew this capital detail of the Church of San Spirito in Florence, Italy. I was thinking of working in my altered journal of my trip to Italy, and then just decided to do this small drawing…’cause I owe someone an ATC for a trade. It was very relaxing to draw it. I spent at least an hour on it, maybe more…I don’t know because I lost track of time. I haven’t done a lot of drawing lately and I miss it. Tonight I did 3 pages in my journal, too. but most of that was writing about stuff…so I won’t post them. Tomorrow we have early dismissal and I am planning to do a bit of shopping before I come home. I am kind of looking forward to that, and kind of not. I like shopping…but I have to buy some new bras. (sorry guys, I know you probably didn’t want to know that) I hate buying them!!!

A new friend suggested I do blind contours on ATCs…I was up for the challenge, but didn’t realize how big of a challenge it would be until I sat down to work on them. How in the heck do I do a drawing that small if I can’t look at the paper while I am drawing? I was sure I would go off the edges and totally mess up. So I decided to just try doing several small blind contour drawings all over a large sheet of paper…trying to work smaller, but not being worried about the edges or format of the paper. I then decided later how I would cut them out and make them fit within those tiny boundaries…and I think they turned out ok. I did eleven in this series. The first two are totally different than the rest. As I worked, I came up with a simpler look that I liked better. The one good thing about these drawings is that they are fairly quick to do. And since they are so quick, I may do a few more.

Today I had my drawing lesson with Jodie. She wanted to work on learning how to shade and make things look 3-d. So we worked on this teapot that she did a contour drawing of last week. She is so incredible! I can’t believe how fast she picks stuff up. This is her drawing…and I will remind you that she is 10! I am very proud of her. It is so much fun to invest into a kid who is so eager to learn. I am loving it! While she was drawing, I grabbed my watercolor crayons and sketched this out on tracing paper. When I scanned it, I put some scrapbook paper I have with handwriting behind it…I think it looks cool. The teapot is silver, I used my imagination a bit with the colors. It love using color this way. Today, I am taking a nap, working on ATCs, and housecleaning. Later on tonight Sam is going out with the fellas and me and the kids are going to go shopping for Sam’s birthday tomorrow.

Another beautiful day here today. The crocuses came up yesterday, and we had a bunch more peeking out today. I took advantage of the nice weather and drew a few while the kids were having the time of their lives riding bikes in the driveway before family nap time (our Sunday tradition). I drew the ones below on the same page of a drawing I sketched of the pew in front of me at church while a visiting choir was singing this morning.

The weather today was sunny and warm, about 60 degrees. It was awesome. So many people were outside. I didn’t get out too much, but had a really relaxing day. This morning I half cleaned my laundry room…half, because I spent 2 hours on it and that was just with sorting laundry and picking stuff up off the floor! So I have to still clean (dust, vacuum) and get stuff off the counter…but it looks so much better! My mom and sister & her kids came over for lunch and then the us girls went to Michaels where they were having some lame demos on scrapbooking stuff. I bought a few things, 5 items and a bunch of paper and only spent 12.00! So I felt great about that. This evening we went over to Micki’s birthday party and had a great time and laughed a lot. But the highlight of my day was getting the mail. I had two packages arrive for a swap I am hosting on ATC_World and it’s always fun to see what’s in those, but the best thing was this note from Jodie, the 4th grader I am doing drawing lessons with. I had sent her a cool little horse paper clip I found (she’s crazy about horses) ealier this week. So today I open up this little note that was so sweet. She drew this little girl on the inside and then wrote this on the back. I had to laugh because I don’t think I will ever really be famous, but I loved reading that she wants to keep the note I wrote her forever because she thinks I will be. Jodie, you’re the best! Thanks! I am going to keep my note forever…because maybe you’ll be a famous artist someday too!!!

I know these aren’t anything outstanding…but it’s something! I have been terribly busy lately and just have not done a lot in my journal in the past week. I am looking forward to a weekend and having some time to slow down a bit. Anyway, the first card is just designs…some colors I like together. The second is in the style of the artist, Keith Haring. It was a lot of fun to make…I am probably going to make some more. I am sending these two cards plus one more off to a girl in Holland tomorrow. She is sending me 3 of her cards and I am very excited about them, they are really cool. She let me pick the ones I liked, but mine are a surprise to her…unless she checks my blog between now and then…then only one will be a surprise.

This is a blind contour drawing of my stove. Blind Contour First Friday’s topic this month is “HOT”. If you are not familiar with Blind Contour Friday, it’s where a bunch of us do drawings without looking at our paper and then post them for Friday. Now we are doing it only once a month and with an assigned theme. Check out the other Blind Contour First Friday submissions at Inkfinger.

Max’s First Written Word!

The other night, Max told Sam he was going to make him a special surprise. He took some blue chalk and wrote this on the bathroom door (it’s covered in chalkboard paint, so it’s ok). Then he told him to look, and we could hardly believe that he had written “DaD.” We were both amazed at the fact that he even made the letters recognizable. I have only worked with him on M,A, and X. So this was pretty amazing…and deserved a blog entry.