Trying to Keep My Mind on Task

It had been a while since I had lunch at Garrett's. It's good food and only a block away. I was not feeling well enough to go to the gym today.


I am glad I squeezed a sketch in while I waited for the burger and fries to cool. I might add color later.


I cannot believe how much I ate. I must be hungrier than I thought.


Quick note at work: we like to label stuff here to make things easier, here is my contribution lol.
I am getting my head pretty worked up with ideas of what I want to get done for the Queen of Arts shows (I will probably be mentioning that show a lot in the blog posts to come) I have been making lists in my head and some on paper. I have a few new jewelry designs I hope to make. I really need to look at my stock of stones before we go to Gem Faire. I hope I will find the time to do that. I hate to over purchase! I will have to post all the goodies when I get them sorted. Back to work!

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And So Begins the Art

 Yay! Starting work on some pieces for the Queen of Arts shows and Knitfit said they might want some too. I am close to finishing a batch of 25 and will need 2 more batches. I am hoping to finish these by next week and start up a batch this weekend. I might try to enter them in a
 Larks Books thing. I am pretty happy with them right now. The Gem Fare is this weekend too. I want to get some supplies but I really need to be stingy. I am tired of buying stuff I do not use. I am so limited with time to dedicate to silversmithing, so I need to make everything count. I need to make a silver order too. This is already sounding expensive. Ugh. I am entering a piece into the Rock Paper Scizers show at Art From Scrap in September.

 I got out to the beach this Sunday and got a few quick sketches in. I am realy enjoying the Valley Sketchers group. We had our 3rd meet up in LO and it was another good turn out and lots of fun. It has kept me pushing for sketch time. It has helped carrying my new sketchbook I made. All blank pages instead of rich pages of images and reclaimed art ( I have already talked about that hehe) There was some fog way out that made the SB islands look like they were floating. So much I want to get done this week. I cannot imagine I will get to all of it, but I'll keep you posted

 

What a Great Day to be Out and About

 What a nice day in Los Olivos. Started the day heading out with Joe and my daughter to Corner House Coffee to grab some coffee and breakfast (had that awesome egg, cheese and bagel sandwich again) and meet up with the Valley Sketchers group for some fun sketching. It was also Quick Draw where local artists do their craft for an hour and then they auction them off. It was so fun to watch them paint, draw, sculpt...etc. I love this pallet that was LOADED with medium, wow.

Here are some of the sketches I came out with. I feel like I was really warmed up just as it was time to go. I wish I had spent just a bit more time at quick draw sketching the artists. They were all so focused, perfect subject matter. I am currently painting my paperclay tags white and hoping they will dry fast enough to add a quick layer of black wash before calling it a night. I will post some photos later.

I love the way all the quick Draw artist's medium was layed out. I took a bunch of photos I will put on my Flickr account, so go check them out if you like that stuff. I do. Have a great weekend!

More of my Dad's Sketches to Show Pana

 Sorry about the last two. I can never get photos to sit right in any of these web things. Enjoy Pana! My Dad is honing in on his style.

More of my Dad's Sketches to Show Pana

Yummy Beads in the Mail

 Aren't these great! They are Czech glass beads. I love the vibrant color! I only wish they were a little larger.

 http://www.etsy.com/shop/artebellasurplus is the Etsy shop I found them at. Her photos are so pretty! Now I have to design jewelry to go with these beads. I promised myself I would use them all.

 I remember this model well. He always had these crazy stoic poses. I swear he flexed the whole time too. This was from my Life Painting class I took at College of the Redwoods. I really loved the class. I am hoping to grab some of the paintings I did (most of them on cardboard) and explore the thought of selling them. I thought I might see if Quack and Bush was interested in Los Alamos. If he wanted them I would then get them properly framed. This guy here is a pretty good representation of the type of paintings I am thinking of (this is my least favorite of the batch). I might put them on my Etsy shop too. Funny thing, this guy showed up at my advanced Life Drawing class I took at Humboldt State too.

 This painting is rare for me. The canvas I painted it on is unstretched, she is life sized, and the colors of her skin are pretty realistic. The painted got a bit smooshed, but its starting to flatten out.

The SB Fiesta work lunch was at Cafe Stella's this year which is rite accross from the kids fair, so after food and drinks me and two others crossed the street to take a peek. I had planned on sketching a little, but not an easy task when enjoying the company of others. The detail was a bit too much anyway, and it was very hot. So hot, that we went back for more drinks after our stroll. This is a photo of what I had hoped to sketch. Sketching the dancers would have been a bunch of fun too. This Saturday I head to Los Olivos Quick Draw for my monthly Valley Sketchers meet up to draw. I need to get the next flyer ready, but I am kind of excited to see what sketches I get.

Old Painting Back on the Wall

I just looked through some old, stored paintings and drawings I have not seen in s long time. Some of the paintings were from high school.


I will post some photos of them soon. This one is not that old, but had been on loan to the Backdoor Board shop for almost a year. I think I will be pulling a group of paintings I did in college in a life painting class to explore prospects of selling them, either in a gallery or on my Etsy site. stay tuned! I hope to get a little feed back when I post them.
On the jewelry front: I purchased a small (priced to sell!) order of unique Czech glass beads, and my goal is to use them all by the end of the year. I think I will gift myself a new necklace too. I miss wearing the green beaded one I used to wear. It's pendant setting bugged me, but I never made a new one to replace it. I will be starting many lists of what will be needed to get a significant amount of pieces made by November, which is rapidly approaching. I am also trying to ramp up my blog entries to help keep me moving forward. Wish me luck on getting anything done this year.

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A Post of My Dad's Wonderful Sketches

For my Pana (grandpa)

These are just the sketches my Dad did at the June 23rd sketch day. He has done many more since then and is really starting to master his technique. I will have to steel a few more photos of his book and put them up too.