I bought a book for making tiny art in recently. Some people gravitate toward large canvasses and big pieces of paper. These huge gaping vacuums of space are intimidating to me, so I tend to work small. When I saw the teeny tiny book with its teeny tiny pages, my imagination was captured. Think of what fun I could have, I mused to myself as I forked over the $15 plus tax. I also immediately decided I could make my own teeny tiny books in the future if this trend catches on with me.
I hesitate to show you what I came up with for the first page, but honesty is the best policy.
Yes, a hastily sketched, poorly colored “Fruit Fly of Doom!”
The good news is that the next one can’t help but be better.
This hastily written teeny tiny blog post will meet its Doom in the morning.
Oh, the joys of summer days! And yes, I still say that after we had two days of extreme heat and humidity.
Our Hallelujah Garden is full of gladsome color – photos and p’raps poems to come in future posts.
Last week with two friends I visited an old forgotten cemetery that has been uncovered and restored. Blog post to come. It’s been a long time since I posted in my Grave Musings series and I am looking forward to it.
After some feedback from faithful blog readers, I’ve gotten some items to dress up our dinner table when we have guests. Thank you! Photos and musings to come.
But at least today I can share with you some water coloring I’ve been doing lately.
No, that’s not for somebody named “Art,” although my father-in-law would qualify. I thought I might string those together and hang them somewhere in the craft room.
A butterfly and many dragonflies. I feel unsettled about the butterfly. It looks somewhat poorly proportioned. If you got that on a card in the mail, would you wonder why the butterfly is sagging a bit or would the gold paint distract you from all of its flaws?
The dragonflies were my attempt to follow a tutorial I found in which you put four dots of paint in a small square and make the dragonfly wings from those. The artist made it look so easy! You can infer from that statement anything you want.
You will show me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore. Psalm 16:11
Many words were deleted in the production of this post and perhaps more will be in the morning.
What’s the difference between frugal and just plain cheap? I hope you can tell me.
I have a favorite purse. It’s not too big, it’s not too small. It’s a purse that would suit Goldilocks: it’s just right.
Into this happy fairy tale, a sad note must be interjected. The straps kept coming off of this nearly perfect purse. It seemed like too much work to try to sew them back in, so I used large safety pins for a while. Clearly I’m not driven by fashion.
Let’s switch to Cinderella. Like Cinderella’s shoe, the safety pins just did not want to stay and would occasionally pop off. And there would be my purse, on the floor looking sad. And with no handsome prince to pick it up, either.
I could order a replacement. The purse was less than $30 after all. But why should I throw away my Goldilocks purse just because the straps were like Cinderella’s shoe?
I went to a shoe repair store and asked them how much they’d charge to sew the straps back. They’d do it for $15. Very reasonable and only half the cost of buying a new one. Of course I did not agree to this reasonable cost. Why should I pay them $15 when I could still find a way to do it for free?
The purse wouldn’t fit under the foot of my sewing machine. I’d have to sew it by hand. I asked my husband to punch a small hole through the leather strap and the purse so I could fit a large needle through with extra tough thread. We are now in the Shoemaker and the Elves story, if you hadn’t figured it out, with my husband playing the part of one of the elves. I had to play the part of the other elf, the one who did the actual sewing. Those elves are completely underrated – it’s hard work. I’ve only completed one strap and the repair job looks ugly. Regrets, I’ve had a few.
Frugal or just plain cheap? You decide!
Sigh…I’ll probably pay you $15 to delete this in the morning.
It turns out that using the dictation feature on my keyboard, isn’t always as intuitive as you would think. Nevertheless, it seemed like a good option to spare my arm some typing. So here it goes!
I’ve got a few pieces of artwork that I finished last week before deciding to give my arm a break.
Shrews are kinda cute! My first drawing in the owl series that I hope to continue. 
This is the only way I can do humans – from behind and with no hands. Ha ha!
The same chick as I did previously, but this time on watercolor paper. 
Most of these, as usual, are copies of things I found on Pinterest, with the exception of the owl which I drew from a photo.
Is the owl a fowl? Certainly not! Perish the thought! Is the owl very nice? Certainly not! Just ask the mice! Has the owl gone crazy? Certainly not! Nor is he lazy. Does the owl bill and coo? Certainly not! What’s wrong with you? Will the owl teach and preach? Certainly not! Just hear him screech! Is the owl a night sleeper? Certainly not! He’s a night peeper!
About the owl I’ve told you a lot You now are an expert On what he is not.
I’m working on making drawing and painting more of a daily discipline than doing it on a whim.
This goose is the last watercolor painting I did on the non-watercolor paper. My dad used to ask if we wanted to learn some “Indian” phrases. “Sure!” Then he’d have us repeat them one at a time as they are on the painting above. “Now say it faster,” he’d say. Eventually we’d get it. He loved that joke, even though he could only do it once for each of us.
The coloring pencil trial versionThe watercolor version (oh, how grand it was to get back to watercolor paper!)
Again, these are all sketches and paintings copied from things I found on Pinterest.
I’m making progress on the mobile, too!
I’m thinking of starting a drawing/painting series of owls. They’re such interesting looking creatures!
I’m still doing some watercolor “roughs” in a book with non-watercolor paper. They turn out rather bumply and weird, and are impractical for making into cards, so why I am even doing this? Good question. I don’t know why, but it’s motivated me to do watercolor work more often than before, It’s been great practice for drawing in proportion and using different lettering styles. It’s been a valuable workshop for mixing colors. It’s also a lesson in why watercolor paper works better for blending. At some point, I’ll transition to doing these in a book that that contains watercolor paper in it, but for now, I’ll keep on with the roughs. These are all copies of things I found on Pinterest except for the words. The words are always mine.
That’s enough for today. I’ll return to old posts tomorrow to save my arm the stress of typing.
Therefore, we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. 2 Corinthians 4:16
The Blizzard That Never Came. So far, our skies have been surprisingly blizzard-less, which goes to show you that the weather peeps don’t always get it right. But maybe it’ll zoom in late and have the last laugh.
So, here’s a fun project:
Isn’t it adorable? My friend and co-grandmother, Martha, alerted me to the presence of this pattern on Etsy and I was smitten right away, smitten enough to purchase the digital download within seconds of seeing it. What a wonderful world.
To explain the term “co-grandmother,” Martha’s daughter married our son and they just had their first child. Doesn’t that make us co-grandmothers? I might have just made that term up. Anyway, this crib mobile (or changing table mobile) will be for our newest granddaughter. Shh – don’t tell!
I’ve got the items cut out and ready to start sewing. I’m hoping that the mysterious parts of the pattern will become obvious as I go.
One of the artists I follow on Instagram just started a project in which she does a simple sketch and painting three days a week. The part that intrigued me was that she’s not using watercolor paper – just a little notebook. Well! That opens up all sorts of possibilities! My brother-in-law Karl gave me a beautiful little blank book made by Baron Fig. (I’ll bet Baron Fig is related to the Earl of Sandwich.) The pages are unlined and just beckoning to be used by this very kind of project. I have begun.
I’m excited to have a painting project that is contained in a book. It will allow me to experiment with painting and lettering without using a lot of expensive watercolor paper and I can cast caution to the wind. Where it belongs.
I’m casting this post to the wind in the morning…where it belongs.
I copied the cats from someone else’s work, but added my own words. I may have shared this painting on the blog before, but don’t feel like going back and checking. The nice thing is that even if I did, you don’t remember it either, so it’s like you’re seeing it for the first time anyway.
Original artwork and poem.
Hey, speaking of poetry, ten of my poems will be published later this year in a poetry anthology called “I’ve Got A Bad Case of Poetry.” Isn’t that fun? Thank you to those of you who contributed to the Kickstarter campaign.
I’ll probably delete this in the green leaf morning.
When I was very young, my parents gave me a little soft gingerbread man which became Very Important for my sleeping routine. I called him “Gingie.” I had to have him in my arms in order to go to sleep. He was an uncomplicated fellow with two felt circles for eyes and a little felt circle for a nose and not much else in the way of expression. Still, he was a comfort to me. Here’s the surprise part: I still have him. He has long since lost his eyes and nose, which gives him a blank look, but it’s less creepy than you might think.
He was sitting around in my craft room waiting for new eyes (it’s been a long wait) and I thought, “Hey, I should do a watercolor painting of old Gingie! How hard could it be?” In truth, it wasn’t terribly difficult, but then I thought, “Hey, I should give him eyes, since he doesn’t have them anymore.” Done. “Hey, I should give him a nose!” Done. Perhaps I should have stopped there, but the train was running down the track by this time and I decided to insert a mouth where he never had one. Then little stitch marks all around the eyes and nose. Looking at those blank brown circles, I thought, “Hey, he really needs pupils in those eyes.” And just like that he went from sweet little gingerbread man to a creature that might give a child nightmares. Poor Gingie.
Here are another couple of watercolor experiments from this last week, ideas I found on Instagram and YouTube.
Original on left, obviously. Original on left again.
Mistakes were made.
I’ll probably sit in a yellow chair while I delete this in the morning.
My sister visited recently and we decided to spend a little time watercolor painting. I found a couple paintings on Pinterest to copy and that’s been my artwork for the week.
Original painting by Lynda Hendrickson Shilhanek. My version looks a little wonky if you look at it too closely (and maybe you shouldn’t). The front of the house juts out a bit, but the roof still covers it in an impossible way. Kinda trippy! It was a quick painting and I enjoyed working on it.
Original by Lavinia de Boer. I mostly like how this one turned out, except for the legs and feet. Fortunately, you can’t see the original. Another quick painting!
I’ll probably delete this quick blog post in the morning.
Lynniebeemuseoday 