Art Spirals

From Fiber Art

Here's my entry for the Clothpaperstudio Wild Woman pin swap, hosted by Wendy. I am so spoiled, I know, but I bought a Huskystar embellisher machine last weekend, and had such fun creating the fabric of the wings of this butterfly. Then with the addition of a trim given to me by a friend, from the textured collar and trim of her old coat, to make the body of the butterfly, and then beading for Belle's body and hair. Fun, fun!

I think I'll be moving on to a series of Barrel cactus women. I see one on my way down to the kids' school, and it spots make it look like a face...and of course the spikes and flowers are just RIPE for bead embellishment. so that's my next thought....

Well, I've been away from the EDM yahoo group (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/everydaymatters) -- EVeryday Drawing Matters yahoo group...and they are almost at their 200th weekly challenge. I'm happy to say I've caught up to this week's, and last...but as for the bulk of the others? I have a long way to go!

anyway, here they are: EDM 192 -- draw somethign that floats

From Everyday Matters Challenges (yahoo group)

And EDM 191 -- Draw paper money

From Everyday Matters Challenges (yahoo group)

Sorry about the wavy paper. I did the second on the backside of the first, and the sketchbook paper isn't strong enough for that. the money one is my favorite of the two...it commemorates a backyard camping adventure with our kids, one of their friends, and her mom. Six of us, hence the $6. It was a glorious starry sky, so we had no rainfly....sad to say, the rain came at 7 am...after a fitful night of sleeping, I was DRAGGING the next day.

The water hyacinths was a quick draw near dusk. I'll try them again another time.

From Cool Things

Aren't these gorgeous? The blue hubbards are new to me. The farmer said kids love them if you tell them they're alien jackolanterns. They are sweeter than pumpkin, and can be substituted for it. I'm 45 and I've never made a pie from scratch, and I told the farmer, I guess no "mrs. smith's" pies this year, I'll have to learn how to make pie crust. he assured me I could buy pie crust since I was making the hubbard squash from scratch!

Now this food is REALLY local, it's from my own pear tree. The tree has put out thousands, or so it feels, of pears this year...and I've been drying them, in a 200 degree oven, to make pear chips. They have such a cool look and texture, don't you think?

From Cool Things

From Cool Things

From Cool Things

From Drawing 2008

From Drawing 2008

The Cosmos pencil sketch was such fun to do, and an eyeopener. I used direction from this book Arnosky, Drawing from Nature that has wonderful illustrations and clear writing. The amazon link I've chosen has the jacket cover, so you can see how wonderful his illustrations are. He says: Look closely at the opened flowers and stil unopened buds. Then imagine how the flowers bloomed from the buds." First time I'd done that, and it was educational. I'll definitely approach flowers that way again.

More life drawing classes. Most poses are held 30 minutes, with a break in the middle. During the break, I usually try to change my angle and sketch the pose from that difference.

From Drawing 2008

From Drawing 2008

From Drawing 2008

and then these were from this week's class. I thought it was smart of the model to bring a book to read. I can't imagine holding still this long, if I were the model!

From Drawing 2008

From Drawing 2008

From Drawing 2008

In these I found that I made her torso too tall, in each of the three drawings, but I was able to "see" it, and correct it, so that made me happy. Part of the height difference is that her lower body is closer to me, so it'll be bigger in comparison to what's further back, that's perspective.