How long did it take to carve that?

I am often asked the above question when showing a block to someone.  Given how I work, (print, carve, curse, print, carve, curse, etc.) it's difficult to come up with an accurate answer.  Until today!  Yesterday I sat down to do some carving and can with all accuracy state that it took seven hours to carve the dragon scales on the block shown below.  This morning my wrist is sore and ibuprofen is my friend.

 

Year of the Dragon, in progress.

uno, due, tre, quattro, cinque!

Yay, I did it; five days of the sketch challenge!  Never mind that  I skipped one day!  I ended up with five!  And that's what matters! 
So why five sketches of tears?  One for my kitty who needed some attention from the vet; one for my car which needed another expensive repair; one for my house alarm that malfunctioned; one for the rats who chewed through the wires of my house alarm causing it to malfunction; and the last for my bicycle tire that suddenly and dramatically went flat, mercifully AFTER my bike ride.

Quattro

 Here's is my fourth submission on the fifth day of the challenge. Still running behind.  It's enough to make me cry.

Trois

A few hours late, but here is my third entry in the daily thematic sketch challenge. I completed the sketch yesterday afternoon but was called away before I could post, to attend my book group.  This month we read, and last night discussed, Mennonite in a Little Black Dress by Rhoda Janzen, (loved this book and wish Rhoda was one of my BFFs).  Our discussion took us from religion, to mental illness, to the nature of relationships, to the current state of feminism, to same sex marriage and back again. It's fun when a book can facilitate such a wide and varied discussion.  Of course wine helps as does the fact that as 'women of a certain age' we tend to become distracted easily.

Sketching challenge part deux

It appears my theme for this week-long sketch challenge is tears, or at least the use of my blue pen.  Here is today's installment...

A challenge for the week

One of things I like best about looking at blogs is being inspired by the work and ambition of other artists.  This week a fellow artist/blogger threw out a friendly challenge to her readers: pick a theme and post a daily sketch based on that theme.  This seemed like a perfect kick-in-the-bum for me, so I have accepted her challenge and here is my entry for Monday.   Of course I picked up my sketchbook and pens before I picked a theme, so I guess I'll just see what evolves.

She's back!

Can it be I've taken a two+ month hiatus from blogging?  (I've been away so long Google has changed the blogger dashboard and I am completely lost!) I wish I could say I've spent the last two months on safari, or  immersed in a creative project, or perhaps juggling coffee dates with Robert Downey, Jr. look-alikes.  But, alas, none of the above is true.  That's not to say I haven't been doing anything.  Here's what I've been up to...
1. For several weeks I was obsessed with a game called, Draw Something. I racked up hundreds of points and added dozens of colors to my palette until one of the game updates shut me down leaving me a blubbering mess.  Having now experienced it firsthand, I have a new appreciation for the concept of withdrawl.  At one point I considered dipping into my savings to purchase a new phone or an iPad, just so I could continue sending funny little drawings, done with my thumbs, to family and friends. I'm okay now, but every so often I reload the app to my phone, on the chance that whatever bug shut me down has been remedied.  So far, no luck.
2. Another game that  caught my fancy is Word with Friends and I am consumed with trying to raise the win/ loss ratio with my sister.   She is a fearsome opponent and has defeated me soundly more times than I can count.  I've never been an aggressive board game player. Playing Scrabble I've always been happy just to add a word to the board that is more than three letters long and I've never been one for keeping score. My sister, I have learned, is a ruthless player, with a large vocabulary, and is a strategic master when it comes to using the double and triple word tiles.  Presently, we have four active games and we're 50/50, (I know you're interested).  I'm also playing a rematch with my nephew who, like my sister, is a cutthroat player and toys with me like a cat toys with a wounded mouse.  Personally I think it should be against the rules to score over 100 points on a single word.  Not a competitive person by nature, I am quite surprised at my desire to beat the pants off of both of them.
3. The most interesting thing to enter my world in the past two months has been an up close experience with copyright infringement.  This venture has left me feeling disillusioned, hoodwinked, and very hesitant to share anything on this blog or the internet.  I am still processing this occurrence and deciding how to write about it in this forum. I want to give other artists the heads-up about what can happen, but at the same time, I'm a little embarrassed about my naivety.

In addition to the games and the copyright thing, I've also traveled to visit my hip, handsome and hysterically funny son who lives in San Francisco...

and have made a (return) visit to Oysterville, Washington to help an old friend and to relish in the quiet slow pace of life on the peninsula.  Oysterville's church is picturesque, both inside and out.

 

Making art is still a part of my life; I'm working on a print in spite of the 'fits and starts' way in which I have to approach my studio time, which is sort of a ridiculous statement coming from the gal who has spent HOURS over the past two months playing games on the internet.  Sheesh.