Category Archives: animals

Cute Javelinas

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I’m not real consistent about getting greeting cards made. Sometimes I just can’t think of a good idea. Sometimes I just want to buy a card. Or I never get around to it. Or all of the above. But sometimes I pull through with a winner like this one. It’s an anniversary card I made for Spence and Tuyen a while ago. I found this cute picture of a pair of javelinas huddled in the dirt to keep warm in a National Geographic magazine and decided to use it since it reminded me of them. In a super nice way of course! The white bedding is cut from magazine pics. Drew the brass bed with a gold metallic pen. Aren’t they the cutest animals ever? Aside from YOUR pets of course.

Momma Bear

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Here’s a belated Mother’s Day post. I drew this piece from a photo I took of a clay sculpture at the Smithsonian Museum of American Art in D.C. It’s in the glass cases that serve as their visible art storage system. Louis Naranjo is the sculptor and he was from Cochiti Pueblo in New Mexico. He did a whole series of storyteller bears and this was his first. You can google him and see lots of photos of his wonderful clay bear sculptures. It’s smallish–about six by nine inches as I recall. Very sweet. I used watercolor pencils and am not happy with how the black bear body turned out, flat and streaky. Probably regular watercolors would have worked better for me–which is what I used for the background. Wanted to share it anyway. She looks a little dazed. Kids.

Ten Minute Elephants

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Sam and I did three of the timed charcoal sketches that I mentioned in the last post. I should have included Sam’s camel in that post but I wasn’t thinking and hadn’t gotten his permission. So now here are our elephants (mine on top and Sam’s below), and his camel (at the bottom). His drawings are charming. Just like him.

I just want to mention too, that charcoal paper is so much better to use with charcoal than regular paper. So much easier to get good results. Easier to smudge and blend. Get some and try it!

Ten Minute Camel Sketch

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One weekend when Sam was here he suggested we draw together, doing timed ten minute sketches. The object was my choice, the medium his–charcoal. It was so much fun. I may have gone a tad over ten minutes but not much. This ceramic camel is about eight inches long and three and a half inches wide and I guess it’s meant to be a tea pot or creamer since his mouth is a spout. It probably at one time had a lid. But matching lids to things are in short supply in thrift stores. He’s charming, though, don’t you think? Definitely fits in with my curios.

Bunny in the Meadow

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scan0243I know. It’s been a long time. It’s been a weird, bleak winter and I guess I’m in a funk. I would probably feel better if I had been making art every day but no. So time to plow through the fog and make a blog post. Let’s think spring with a cute bunny in a meadow. I made this card for my friend Mary Jane who loves bunny rabbits. There, that wasn’t so hard, was it?

Stardust Sleeping

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stardust 009The charm bracelet painting I am working on is not coming along swimmingly. So in the meantime here is a charcoal drawing of Stardust–the best cat in the world–who belongs to Jill next door. Sweet, sweet kitty. She lets us pretend that she’s our kitty too. And we let her pretend that she owns our yard, the back porch, the bird feeders and all the birds.