Harriett's Mushrooms

Ernest Meissonier

Ernest Meissonier, born on this day in 1815

Cindy's Chickens

California Rolls

Orchids

George and Henry

(ink and watercolor)

(ink and gouache)

Salad with Avocado

A Quick Portrait Sketch

Herrmann the Great

Nautilus

Sketch from a trip to Ripley's Aquarium in Gatlinburg Tennessee this past summer.

Old Buildings

The  backside of some buildings on Market Street. 

Roasted Vegetables

A tray of my mother's delicious roasted vegetables. Mmmmm.

Weird Tomatoes

Some strangely shaped tomatoes at the farmers market in Asheville this past summer.  Between the colors and shapes they were lots of fun to draw!

Beginning the new year with a few sketches...

It's been forever since I've posted any sketches. Making an attempt to get back into it with the new year!  (The second photo--trying out Derwent Inktense Blocks. They work nicely with a brush and water, like traditional watercolors only more opaque, and very bright colors.)

Fresh Farm Eggs

I loved the colors of these fresh eggs, and they tasted delicious too! 

(Thanks Andrew & Betsy!)

Enormous Skull

This is a drawing of a hippopotamus skull that we saw at Disney's Animal Kingdom.

It was large enough for my son to fit his head inside!

A few more animals...

A few animals...

Emma's Origami Crane

 A drawing of the colorful origami crane my daughter made recently.  

Instead of using origami paper, she used the package insert that lists all the colors included.

Polar Vortex

One man's attempt to survive this frigid weather...

Read about it here:

Polar Vortex Expedition -- The Lost Logbook

by Eric Sterbenk

Rosa Parks

Drawing of Rosa Parks for part two of "Taking Up the Cross" by Eric Sterbenk

You can read it on his blog:

http://ericsterbenk.wordpress.com/2014/01/28/taking-up-the-cross-part-two/

Read part one here:

http://ericsterbenk.wordpress.com/2014/01/20/taking-up-the-cross/

Snacks...and that bear again.

     This is a sketchbook page from late December. "Thinking of summertime snacks on my sunny back porch." Nice to think of warm sunny days and fresh food from the garden on yet another day that dips below zero degrees. (The polar bear is from a previous post...he just happened to be on this page but is also appropriate for sub-zero weather.)

Martin Luther King Jr.

Illustration for "Taking Up the Cross" by Eric Sterbenk

You can read part one on his blog:

http://ericsterbenk.wordpress.com/2014/01/20/taking-up-the-cross/

Drawing Game

     I find that coming up with ideas of things to draw isn't always easy.  Making time to draw isn't always easy either, especially when taking care of kids.  This idea combines fun drawing time and fun kid time.

     I wrote a bunch of adjectives and nouns on little slips of paper and put the adjectives in one bag and the nouns in another.  The adjectives were things like curvy, wide, tangled, small, large, etc, and the nouns were things that could be incorporated into a creature like head, eyes, fins, tail, articles of clothing, etc.  Then we drew random combinations of these words to get ideas for our drawings.  We also added a third bag to the mix with random objects in it that could be included (skateboard, backpack, piece of toast...) 

     This is what my daughter and I came up with.  My words are below my drawing.  Her words were: scraggly mustache, only one eyebrow, green hooves, noodles, roller skates, and clothing.

Mom's Mason Jars

Mason jars in my mother's kitchen.