Weekly Mind Sketch

My daughter turned 13 last week - YIKES!  Where does the time go, and what is all this talk about teenagers being so difficult?  I guess I will find out soon enough (if at all)!  This is a picture I drew of her that was from a photo taken at a beach in Monterey about a year ago.  I liked the easy going feeling of the hair flowing in the wind, and her happy, relaxed expression.  I hope I captured that in the drawing. There is definitely a change in how my daughter behaves versus a year ago.  Besides having a TON of homework this year, she is more strong-willed, and more independent, and takes longer to choose what she is going to wear each day!   But this is all very innocent, and not difficult to handle (the homework seems to be the most difficult part).  Last week, I gave in and gave her a cell phone.  I hope this was a good decision.  There will definitely be limits on how much time she spends on the cell phone with friends,...

Self portraits. So I think every artist has done one.  Since it was my birthday yesterday I decided I would draw a self-portrait in honor of that.  I took a picture of myself in a window reflection from our backyard and decided to draw this reflection.  To me, this symbolizes a personal reflection of my own life this past year.  I liked how my hand was on top of my head making me look a little more perplexed (as if I'm thinking about my own life and what I have done). The picture was done in pencil, and then I took it into Photoshop and added more of a sense of reflection by using one of the filters which enhanced the reflection even more.  I thought it was a nice effect! To reflect on my life last year makes me think I should have done a lot more than I did in terms of helping others, being more patient, and being less stressed about things that I had no control over.  I will want to work on lots of things this next year. Prayer is a big part of ...

Here is a fall tree I drew this week (same tree as the winter tree I drew last year). It's cool to compare how different the tree looks in fall with all the beautiful oranges, yellows and greens.  There is a different mood that I felt with the tree changing colors. A kind of soft, quiet and peaceful feeling comes out of this picture with its leaves scattered on the ground.  I also found it fun there was still some green leaves left contrasting against the orange, yellow and browns.  Also the trunk had a white/grey color that had more of a cold feeling contrasted against the warm tones. A reminder that winter is just around the corner! Fall is a reminder of cycles and changes.  As you look around this fall I hope you see colorful and "quiet" images that catch your attention, slow you down, and make your day more peaceful and calm...

It has been a while since my last post, and I decided to draw a picture in honor of all the veterans this Veterans Day weekend 11-11-11. I didn't know of any better way to show my appreciation to all those that sacrifice so much for our country than to draw a picture that touched my heart somehow. I found this image from a Google search here: (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2007573/Afghanistan-Iraq-wars-What-West-got-10-bloody-years.html).  I wish I could give credit to the photographer, but there was no name associated with the photo.  I appreciate whoever took this image as it really touched me with it's compassion and emotion that it evokes. It illustrates the compassion of two unknown soldiers helping their fellow comrade out. Also, the burning fire in the background makes me envision all the terror and fear that soldiers must face in any war.  It's almost like the fire doesn't have any affect on the three men walking right in front of it.  But...

Summer is here in the Bay Area - hot temperatures and all!  The SF Bay Area has had a very unusual weather pattern this past year probably due to the la Niña system.  We've had lots of rain and unusually cold temperatures for the Bay Area.  We had rain and snow in the local foothills and there was LOTS of snow in the Lake Tahoe area, as well as Yosemite.  I heard just this week that one of the Yosemite campgrounds has flooded because of all the snow melt.  We'll see how this summer's weather turns out - I hope warm but not too hot! I have been so busy that I've taken 2 months off from drawing, but hopefully now I'm back into the swing of things.  I drew 2 pictures this week of my twin nieces who are about to turn 4.  As you can tell, they are not identical, and have such different personalities it's amazing they're twins!  I was trying to capture their personalities in the pictures, and think I succeeded!  The one on the left...

This week I had an interesting experience with a hummingbird in our backyard.  I was standing near an  orange tree in our backyard with a handful of oranges and buzzing bees, when a hummingbird flew right up about 2 feet from my face!  It stopped in mid-air, and hovered as it turned one side of his face towards me, then quickly flipped around showing me the other side of its face. Then about 10 seconds later it flew off into the distance. The way it flew quickly up to me and flipped rapidly from side to side felt like it was making an aggressive move towards me to protect its precious nectar from the orange tree blossoms.  I felt for it! I'm sure flowers and trees with nectar are becoming more and more difficult to find in our overpopulated neighborhoods. Interesting fact about hummingbirds that I discovered from Wikipedia:  with the exception of insects, hummingbirds while in flight have the highest metabolism of all animals, a necessity in order to supp...

Just wanted to say please VOTE on my poll to the right to get a good feel for how environmentally-conscious we've all been this year - so please VOTE and let's all try to keep our world as clean as can be - THANKS! Here is a Monterey Bay Harbor Seal I took a picture of last year trying to sun itself on a small rock!  I'll be posting another drawing later this week :)

This week I decided to draw my brother-in-law's puppy. This was the day they picked him up all wrapped in a blue blanket - SO cute!  He's a poodle / maltese mix and has has a nice temperament. I really have been wanting a dog for a long time but it just hasn't been the right time in my life for that.  I will look for a hypo-allergenic breed when the time is right. I've discovered a website called petfinder.com which has a huge listing of pets (not just dogs) for sale, and have heard good things about them.  For now I'll just have to be content with "drawing" puppies :( I decided to add a poll to my blog this week to get a consensus of how "green" readers have been.  Let me know how green you've been and we'll see how everyone's been doing in a few weeks. Our community has begun a huge new recycling campaign this year where we can leave out recycling AND composting each week.  So far I think it's been a huge decrease in ...

I decided this week to draw a picture of my 2 nieces and nephew who visited Paris this past December 2010.  Since I've never been to Paris, I decided to do some brief research on the Eiffel Tower.  Here are some interesting things I discovered:  The Eiffel Tower took around 2 years and 2 months to build, and was officially finished on March 31, 1889.  It was built to be the entrance arch for the Exposition Universelle , a World's Fair marking the centennial celebration of the French Revolution .  Approximately 6.8 million people visit the Eiffel Tower every year. It is estimated that over a quarter of a billion people have viewed the Eiffel Tower in its long history.  It was originally criticized by the public as being an "eyesore made out of riveted iron plates". I feel that I have seen the Eiffel Tower in person even though I've never visited it - just from seeing many images throughout my life! I loved how this image captured a beautiful night...

My niece who recently lost 2 front teeth within 2 days wanted me to draw this picture of her and I excitedly took on her request!  I think this picture captures pure bliss and innocence.  To me, it's a moment of childhood joy that many of us can remember so well - dancing around in circles without a care in the world. We can all feel like this now and again, maybe even just by closing our eyes and imagining ourselves dancing or flying.  It's a feeling of forgetting what is going on around us and just loving the feeling of being free to do whatever we want to do. Take this opportunity to, if nothing else, smile at others you meet this week - it makes life better :)

My brother took this picture when he was in Paris this past December, and it seemed to capture the hustle and bustle that goes on in the Louvre.  What was interesting to me about this picture was that it is a snapshot of one girl stopping for just a moment to look at you in frontal view contrasted with the stream of moving people in the background running by trying to see everything they could in the museum. The Winged Victory of Samothrace is a 2nd century BC marble sculpture of the Greek goddess Nike ( Victory ).  I think it is very dramatic and feels like it is blowing in the wind with it's flowing drapery and wings raised in the air.  I hope I captured its beauty and movement with all its curves and shapes. This image captures perfectly how society today is moving at the speed of light.  It really takes someone telling you to stop and smile for the camera to slow you down.  How crazy.  I think we don't tend to notice our world around us anymo...

I sit out in our backyard at times, especially in the summer, and have always enjoyed this view of pine trees and oak trees peeking over the roof.  It makes me feel like I'm sitting somewhere up in the mountains.  However, I live right by a park, so I often hear people at the park which brings me back to reality that we're not really sitting within a pine tree forest up at some lake in the mountains...oh well.  It's a nice little retreat anyway for a little while. I think there is an interesting contrast to this picture in that the pine tree is full of green while the oak tree is bare.  The pine tree stays green all year long, while the oak tree goes through it's yearly cycle of losing leaves, and gaining back fresh new ones. I think it's nice to see cycles in tree leaves, but it's also nice that some trees don't change and stay green all year.  I am reminded that we live in such changing times that we need to cling to some things that stay the same ...

I was eagerly waiting to draw this Red Lion Amaryllis flower and finally it was in full bloom on Valentines Day - how sweet!!  The red of an Amaryllis is close to my favorite shade of red.  It's not a real dark red, kind of a medium red with orange undertones, and very dramatic sitting above its long towering stems.  As I sat it on the table and looked up at it, it looked tall and stately - and I loved how the sun created a see-through effect with the flower petals. I hope I captured that feeling is this drawing. Interestingly enough, I have never grown an indoor flower before, and when a friend gave me this Amaryllis bulb kit as a gift I was wondering if I would help it grow or ruin it.  Guess I was kind to it :)  It was fun to watch its growth stages, as it would literally grow about an inch a day at times.  It was just a few green tiny stems at first, then suddenly 6 inches of stem, then one day the flowers began to poke out, and withi...

It's winter here and 63 degrees with sun....for the fourth week in a row.  Weird.  As nice as the sunshine is, it feels more like spring rather than winter in the Bay Area.   I do hope we get more rain soon since we need it. My drawing today was trying to depict how interesting a tree looks in winter. Without leaves, you notice the branches more distinctly against the sky.  Also, the shadows and shapes of the branches look more eerie - even on a sunny day. I read somewhere where it's good to hang out with kids under 7 and adults over 75.  I see how this is so.  I often babysit my 3 year old twin nieces who definitely take my mind off myself and help me to focus on living in-the-moment.  If it's not one niece crying on my lap getting tears all over me because she didn't like to be told not to draw all over the dining room table with crayons, it's the other niece laughing and chanting silly made-up words or funny sentences like "he said 'b...

We are living in a fast-paced world where everything comes at you at a mile-a-minute, and sometimes it's nice to take a little bit out of a day to feel "grounded".  One way I feel grounded is to take out a set of colored pencils, turn on music I love, and start drawing what's in front of me.  It feels "real" to hold a colored pencil in my hand, experience its texture scratch away on a piece of paper and see a picture come to life right in front of me.  We all need to feel grounded now and again, but we can't feel grounded unless we turn off all the noises in our life, look at and listen to our world, and do something that makes us feel fulfilled.  Anyway, what is more beautiful than a bowl of fruit?  Well lots of things of course, but the colors and shapes of fruit in a bowl are pretty amazing.  When I didn't know what to draw today, I looked over and saw we had an assortment of fruit sitting in a bowl on the counter and thought: perfect! A...

Beautiful trunks - that's what I saw today.   I looked at this group of Redwood trees and the trunks kind of came alive to me - they looked like a tight-knit family huddled together so strong and vibrant  I love the reds and oranges that hug Redwood tree trunks. I didn't want to draw in the tops of the trees with their green pine needles as it didn't seem important to the overall feeling of this picture. Families should all try to be like this group of Redwoods - strong and connected together throughout the years.  I know many families that don't have a strong connection - I see broken relationships or no relationship at all due to one or both parties involved.  This is so sad.  Again, I am reminded of a previous post where I talked about forgiveness - how hard forgiveness can be.  I can only imagine how hard forgiveness must be in broken family relationships like this, yet how IMPORTANT forgiveness is in trying to reconcile these bad relations...

Martin Luther King day is today, and I just read how this is only the 25th anniversary with a holiday in Martin Luther King Jr.'s honor.  Hard to believe we've only celebrated this holiday for 25 years.  It reminds me how it really wasn't that long ago that equal opportunities were not very prevalent.  We should all take a moment to remember how far we've come in this road to equal opportunities.  I read this morning that President Obama  gave a speech about Martin Luther King Jr. and he mentioned: "I encourage every American to observe this holiday in honor of Dr. King's selfless legacy by volunteering in their own communities and by dedicating time each day to bettering the lives of those around us".  Great thing to remember, as we could all do more to bettering the lives of those around us in our own communities - me included. As I sat this morning, I looked out and saw lots of fog, and I decided to try and capture the beautiful softness tha...

Today was very cold and as I sat this morning eating breakfast, I saw this image outside the window - very beautiful flower and branches.  As I was drawing this, I saw a hummingbird and a few bees pollinating the flower.  As cold as it was, the flower brings forth a warmth in the midst of winter! Then I began to think about something my daughter said to me as she went to sleep last night - how everything in life is a cycle, even things like businesses, and stuffed animals.  Her thought was that everything starts "flat" like a stuffed animal that hasn't been filled yet, and then it gets filled up, and becomes "alive".  Then she said eventually the stuffed animal loses it's filling, and eventually becomes flat again.  Then she brought forth another analogy of the cycle of life.  She said a business is the same as the stuffed animal;  it starts out with only 1 or 2 employees and not a lot of work to do (i.e. "flat"). Then the business starts...

Here is a chalk pastel sketch I did today to start my blog out on a nice note this year.  I was inspired by the Impressionist exhibit at the de Young museum last month and decided to try drawing an old-fashioned looking picture of my niece. I wanted to capture her sweet expression, and also give the picture a strong, yet childlike feel with its color and sketchy feel.  I don't know if I'm loving pastel drawing, but it was definitely fun and kind of messy to use.  When I saw the image of my niece, I thought of a little girl from the early 1900's sitting in a rocking chair - it just had that kind of feel. As I start out the New Year I am grateful for my family, friends, and hope to continue my resolutions of doing my art on a regular basis, and also hope to stick to my other resolution to forgive others (and myself) more often. Forgiveness is hard to do, but when it's done you feel so much better.  Since I've started forgiving more, I have felt a change in oth...