Birds around my house......

This little guy was Gracie's toy bird, one of her first toys. This thing lasted for ages, which is always a big surprise for dog toys. The challenge on this one was to keep the toy looking yellow and still having shape and form.





Here is a Cardinal, the picture was taken out our back door. There were a couple of challenges here. One was getting the feeling of a lot of branches, without losing the bird as focus. Another was showing snow on the branches, while at the same time having snow in the background.

This tree is about a foot outside my front window. It is an over grown ornamental White Pine (if I remember correctly). The birds just love it for nesting in and the cats next door just love that they do! I am not sure if this was the mother or an older baby. The challenge here was the grayish-brown colour of the bird and the bit of sunlight shining through the tree lighting up the front of the bird.

I let you guys decide on how well I handled the different challenges that I faced doing these cards. All are Prisma CP on drafting film.



An updated picture of the pet chicken. I put in more colour and did a bit of burnishing with a colourless blender.

Water colour.....

While I love water colour as a medium, I had no particular desire to try to learn it anytime soon. But... I am a firm believer in 'when opportunity knocks, answer the door'. Well opportunity knocked with a new website, Lori Andrews, Come Paint with Me!
Lori is offering free online water colour demonstrations, as well as downloadable, paid for lessons. There is an upcoming class near the end of April and Lori has let us know what we will need for materials.

While I am waiting on the class and the new materials, I decided to use what I have. I received an easel a while back and it came with some water colour paint tubes and I had some Dollar store paint brushes. (which I really like, although maybe just because I have never used a real brush).

Overall I am pretty happy with the picture of Bob. While by no means perfect, it does have some of the aspects that I like about water colour. I can see that learning to blend colours is going to be an art form all of its own.

Christmas puppies.....

This is Magic. We have just adopted her, she is a retired breeder from Quiche Kennels. She is eight years old and doing very well adapting to our home. As you can see, she even puts up with Christmas hats.


Here is Gracie, she is not so happy with the hat. This took a lot of coaxing and numerous pictures!

Well I think Gracie is done.....

Well I think she is done. Not an exact copy, but I feel I have kept Gracie's look. I'll give it a couple of days before I spray it.

This is the photo I worked off of.


Now I have to start again! After $60 and 2 1/2 hours she no longer looks like the same dog. I'm thinking of calling my drawing "time for a grooming" or "woolly bully". LOL

Gracie has ears.....

Added fur to the lighter side. Here are some of the colours, white, cream, cloud blue, true blue, apple green, blush pink, parma violet, light umber, black cherry and indigo blue.

Worked on the ears and the darker side. Here are the colours, white, cloud blue, parma violet, true blue, light umber, violet, black cherry and indigo blue.


This photo gives a better idea on what the colours actually look like.
The sheet I am working on is about 8.5x13, I am hoping to frame it in an 8X10 frame. As you see I didn't plan that as well as I could have. Ha, I just remembered that I was actually thinking 5x7, so there should have been plenty of room to crop and frame. I basically drew in the nose and started working around it, so my minor planing went out the door. I have to learn not to do that.

Getting started on the full Gracie....

I decided that I liked the Gracie nose on black paper enough to go ahead and do the full picture. This is the outline so far.

Here is the picture I will be working from. This was taken on a walk in the woods. I couldn't believe that she sat still long enough for me to get several pictures.


This is the Gracie nose with some white highlights added and trimmed into an ATC size. I also took the picture with better lighting, it shows more of the colours that I used.

Dog eyes and a nose.....

I am in a CP animal drawing class at Drawspace. Our first thing to do is try out some eyes, nose and fur. The picture on the top right is after I add more reddish browns, the dog was more red than I realized.



I didn't do as well on the dog's nose, not enough patience. Something you need loads of with CP.


I took my camera on our walk today, hoping to get some decent pictures of Gracie. The sun was really bright and washed her out a bit, she looks really grey here. Today was a real treat, it was warm enough to wear shorts.

Gracie's first snow....

She loves it!

I think!

Bob one pixel at a time...

Bob
Done on MS Paint

100x100 pixels.

In Memory of Bob....

Bob
January 14, 1999 - October 11, 2007

Big Buck has passed on....

Big Buck went missing this week. Our neighbor found him in his garden. I thought she would be around a bit longer, but when I think about it she was getting quite thin despite plentiful food that she liked. Big Buck and Little Johnny were getting up there in age so I guess it's not a surprise that they went within months of each other. I was thinking that they were around 13 but my husband thinks more like 15 to 17 and when he counts it out I would have to agree. Ten years at this house, three or four at the last house and another 2 or three years with the previous owner.
My son William, Jim and I buried her in the woods out back. She is the first animal we have buried. The others have all been brought to the vets to be put to sleep and cremated.
Well hopefully Big Buck is frolicking with her sister and our Danes Amy and Fred.

My Dog Park.....

Many experts say no to dog parks. I have to agree and yet there I am with my dogs. I go there with a great group that is centered around a dog walker and her dogs. We have all found out what time she goes there so that we can show up at the same time. The dogs all do their business, we clean up and then off we go for a walk in the woods. We head down to the river where the dogs get a good workout chasing sticks and balls into the water. After an hour of walking and swimming we head back to the dog park and visit a while.
Now we have made a dog pack around the dog walker so maybe it takes care of some of the problems that are associated with dogs meeting. Ed Frawley has an ebook on Why dog parks are a bad idea. It is worth reading and understanding what you are getting into.
Something I have found on my own is that if you only have your dog off leash and never deal with it in a training situation, you will begin to have problems. Running and getting the extra exercise is great but training is very important. That goes for you small dog owners too!!! Ed Frawley has some great training info on the net for free as well as selling DVDs with more info. I find him a bit extreme but more and more I find that his information is very good.
Cesar Millan, the dog whisperer is also an excellent source of information. I find his approach to be common sense, after he explains what common sense for dogs is! Much of what the two of them have to say is the same. Mostly be your dog's leader. I wonder what Cesar thinks of dog parks?

Active????

I was filling out a form the other day, on the Pet Smart site. I was trying to decide on what food to feed my ever growing puppy. At one point it asked me if she was active one hour a day, one to six hours a day or over six hours. I was trying to decide between under six or over six...... today I thought maybe I should rethink that....

Photo Treasure Hunt....

William and Douglas went on a photo treasure hunt. They took five pictures of each item on the list. These pictures are the favorite in each category. Next we are looking up what each thing is.

The boys picked Wilbur the Great White Pine for their tree picture.

They picked this rock for the skeleton image they could see.

We think this is a Gypsy Moth Pupa, insect picture.

The boys picked Grumpy for their person photo. Dad got the Grumpy sticker at Disney World because he was grumpy in the morning.

In the toy category they picked their friends Nintendo DS Lite.

Our neighbors 2007 Hyundai, Santa Fe made the car category.

Bob made the cut for pets and animals. Bob is a Great Dane.

The mailbox came about in 1923.

Good fences make good neighbors. We learned that this phrase comes from Robert Frost's, Mending Wall.

Inukshuks make really interesting garden structures.

This fire hydrant made the anything category. In addition to being handy for putting out fires it is a doggy message board.

Best photo of the day.