Sunny Days Are Awesome

If you are at all familiar with the Pacific Northwest, you know that our winters and springs are not known for their sunny days.  So when that elusive orb finally comes out, it makes the whole day a little bit brighter.  I took advantage of the beautiful (if still chilly) conditions to photograph my latest peg doll creations.  I'm having fun learning new embroidery stitches and these little guys are the perfect size to try something new.  I like how the middle (pointy hat) gnome turned out; I think I might have to try my hand at applying dye to wool felt more often this spring.

 

 

 

Drawing Exercise

Many months ago I purchased Carla Sonheim's  Drawing Lab for Mixed-Media Artists: 52 Creative Exercises to Make Drawing Fun.  It's filled with some excellent ideas for improving your drawing skills and useful if you need to get past a creative block.  It's organized as a series of exercises, many of them fairly short in duration.  I started one of the exercises when I purchased the book, but never got around to finishing it.  Today I went ahead and finished the painting/drawing because I wanted to use some new watercolor pencils I purchased last weekend.  Here is the result.  I like that the exercise freed up the movement in my drawing, as I have a tendency to draw animals in the same position.  What I don't like is that it's obviously off as far as perspective--part of the nature of the exercise, as I tried to stay as close to the watercolor washes as possible.