animals

animals, originally uploaded by e14studio.

There's Dazy & Josie lounging around in the backyard over the weekend. Not a care in the world. Over by the birdfeeder, we spotted this wood-pecker enjoying his Memorial Day picnic and the cardinal waited patiently for his turn at the feeder. What you don't see is a picture of the rude squirrel who hung upside down and ripped into the birdfeeder so he could eat what was left.

Memorial Day Weekend

BBQ, originally uploaded by e14studio.

Yay! Don't you just love 3-day weekends? The "chef" and I are staying right here in our own backyard to celebrate Memorial Day. He's got the grill fired up and ready for our gourmet hot dogs! Have you ever seen these "charcoal chimneys"? They're great. No need to use lighter fluid and get toxic fumes on your nutritious hot dogs! I've got my camera on hand taking backyard snapshots of the birds, butterflies, squirrels and whoever else shows up. I'll be posting them in a day or two.

A Day of Drawing

a, originally uploaded by e14studio.

In and of themselves, these drawings aren't that great but I wanted to do a day of drawing and committed myself to it. I started out with a cup of coffee and sharpened my pencils using my "antique" sharpener that works better than any plug in kind or battery operated kind I ever tried.

Laundry Day

b, originally uploaded by e14studio.

Ever the multi-tasker, I had to get a few loads of laundry in while I spent my day drawing.

Backyard sketches

c, originally uploaded by e14studio.

Once the laundry was taken care of, it was time to hang out in the backyard with the dogs and draw some leaves.

Bottles & Brush

e, originally uploaded by e14studio.

Taking time to freshen up and make myself presentable during the day of drawing.

stuffed animals

f, originally uploaded by e14studio.

Drawing wears one out! It was nap time and I don't nap alone!

Tree Drawing

UPDATE:
Apparantly this particular drawing gets a lot of attention and I don't know why. If you are interested in my current blog post click CLICK HERE

Anyway, glad you found me!

Tree Drawing, originally uploaded by e14studio.

Here is a drawing I did after reading Frederick Franck's book,Zen Seeing Zen drawing

I was inspired to draw a tree in my backyard. The quote from the book says, "I trust that what words cannot convey the drawing will."

That's the thing about drawing, you really can't talk about it or write about it, you just do it and whenever you go back and look at the drawing you get feelings or memories that are vivid and beyond words. And if it's a drawing by another artist, if it moves you, it's not about a description of the drawing, it's about a feeling you get when you look at it.

Time to get out the sketchbook and sharpen up the No.2 pencils and just draw!

Draw Me!

DrawMe, originally uploaded by e14studio.

Who's old enough to remember these ads??? While cleaning out my office the other day, I came upon some old - and I mean old - magazines (1956). I've been having a gay old time getting ideas for my retro theme. I think I'll give this challenge a try and post my drawing tomorrow. Anyone else want to draw her??

---

UPDATE Click to see
my drawing

16 years of stuff

I am procrastinating when I should be busy. I am supposed to be moving stuff from an office I've kept since 1988. I am a college professor in the advertising art department of a community college. I have been going through shelves of books that have reference material dating back to the time we used production boards. Does anyone even know what an "amberlyth overlay" is? I have kept student projects dating back to the time before Photoshop and scanners when all we had was a paint program on a PC that had just 56 colors. I have disks the size of pizza boxes. (I'm not kidding!) And, I have manuals all the way back to Adobe 88 before it became "Illustrator CS". I even have the "world's ugliest menu" taken from my own portfolio to show how NOT to design a menu. I have Mac parts and cables lying all around as we tossed aside the old machines, we've brought in the newer and sleeker models. I can't see the light at the end of the tunnel yet. I should just back a dumpster up to the fire escape door and toss it all. I'm not kidding! Part of me wants to just throw it all out and start fresh. No baggage.

Another fabric collage

She knew, originally uploaded by e14studio.

I was so inspired at the Houston Quilt show when I went last October. Thanks to my friend Tishy, the Guest Artist, who took me with her. At first I resisted going because I am not a traditional quilter; but once I saw all the "art quilts" and fabulous choices of fabrics, I realized you don't have to be an expert seamstress to make fabric collages, just a quirky artist like me!

Happy Mother's Day

If She.., originally uploaded by e14studio.

I play off my memories of growing up in the 1950's to create cloth collages. To see more of this kind of work re-visit my early blog pages.

---

I'll post another one in this series very soon.

Guest Artist

artcards, originally uploaded by e14studio.

My good friend, Tish has been making these exquisite postcards with fabric and embellishments that she sends all over the world as part of an art exchange.You go, girl!
Isn't it great when you can get together with your friends and share techniques and work on projects together? We call ourselves the "La-La's"; stands for "Lake Ladies" because we try to get together every so often at Tish's lake house and do nothing but art projects all day and night. Hey, isn't it about time we did that again??

Process/Product

artstuff, originally uploaded by e14studio.

I posted the "product" already. It was the Creativity Chain. As for the "process", here's all the fun stuff I had going on while building it. Whenever I take a workshop I can expect to come away with some new ideas to inspire me. I like learning about new products or new ways to work with the same old stuff. Everyone likes to leave a class with something to show for it, but sometimes it's not about the finished piece, it's more about the exploration and experimentation. My goal is to develop a workshop that I can teach. More on that in the coming months.....