Category: Workshop Art and Craft

Wednesday, March 19, 2025 The Workshop: Baby Crib Mobile Beginnings, Tea Kettle and Fruit Basket

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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.

Thursday, March 13, 2025 Cats and Leaves

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A couple paintings from back in the day:

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.

Wednesday, March 12, 2025 Gingerbread Man and Other Watercolor Experiments

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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.

Wednesday, February 12, 2025 The Workshop: Impossible House and a Cat

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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.

Thursday, October 10, 2024 The “P” Birds

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Said the puffin to the penguin
You’ve got a lot of nerve
You waddle around pretending –
We know you’re not a bird!

Said the penguin to the puffin,
Oh goodness, just my luck –
I’ve met an orange-footed fop
Who thinks he is a duck.

Said the pelican to the penguin
Don’t mind this little puffin
He’s lacking in self confidence,
His ego needs some stuffin’

Said the puffin to the pelican
Oh look! A beak with wings!
You could rent that big mouth out
For critters to store their things.

Said the peacock to the pelican
Why bother with this ruffian?
Don’t you know better than
To trade insults with a puffian?

Said the puffin to the peacock
Look whose talking now?
A bird with eyes on his feathers
Is uglier than a cow!

Said the peacock to the puffin
Let’s settle this like birds
We’ll show off what we’ve got
And not rely on words

So the puffin flapped his feet
The penguin wore his tux
The peacock spread his tail
Which was so very deluxe

But the pelican was more clever
He made a wise decision
He opened his mouth wide
And swallowed them with precision.

I’ll probably swallow this post up tomorrow with precision.

Thursday, August 25, 2022 The Dancing Peacock

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I recently came across the oil painting I did as a wedding gift for my sister and her husband back in the day. It wasn’t as awful as I remembered, so there’s that. But it’s definitely up there with Weird Gifts. I think it’s safe to say that I was marching to the beat of my own drum. Since I mentioned it on a previous blog post, I thought it only fair to share it with you. (See The Puffin Post)

The best part is the way the peacock is dancing through the tall grasses, perhaps a wedding dance. His feathers are out, so you’ve gotta figure there’s at least peacock romance in the air.

My first and last oil painting, circa 1979.

I’m deleting this after doing the peacock dance in the tall grasses in the morning.

Wednesday, January 20, 2021 Encourage Chickadees

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I mentioned on this blog that I wanted to do more knitting in 2021 and received a commission right away to work on two pairs of mittens for a friend of mine who donates them to an afterschool program for kids. This coincides nicely with my desire to use up my yarn stash, so I plucked a handsome little skein of yarn out and got the needles going.

I was sailing along smoothly until I realized that I had read the instructions wrong, starting the thumb a full three inches above the cuff. You’d think I might have noticed this as an error, but I didn’t think about it until I was way up on the hand and had a thought that either this mitten was going to have to be for someone of very unusual hand anatomy or I had to “tink” those 3 inches off the mitten. (Note: tink is knit spelled backwards – a knitting friend of mine introduced me to that charming way of referring to the process of unknitting.). I wish I’d thought to take a photo of that monstrosity, but you’ll just have to imagine it.

Progress was made.

One down, three to go! I’ll use a different yarn for the next pair, though.

In other artsy news, I had a dream recently in which someone was giving a series of 2-word imperatives. The only one I remembered when I woke up was “encourage chickadees.” Strange, I know. I’m not sure what this means, but one thing was clear: this must not be ignored.

Can t-shirts and mugs with this motto be far behind? It’s probably going to become all the rage and you guys can say that you were here at the beginning.

There you have it – Watercolor Wednesday!

I’ll probably delete this in the morning, whilst encouraging the wee little chickadees in our yard. They must really need it.

January 27, 2020 Puffin Post

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I think it’s time for the puffin post (should I call this a puffin piece?). At the beginning of the year, I decided to enroll in a course of my own making, called “Learning How to Draw Real Animals by Looking at Real Photos of Them.” This was to correct my lazy tendency to try to draw things from memory. When my sister got married, I was in college and decided that what she and her new husband really needed was an oil painting of a peacock done by yours truly. That’s wrong on so many levels, it’s hard to know where to start.

First of all, I’d never EVER painted using oils. With the careless abandon of youth, I forged ahead. Second of all, I didn’t even bother to look at a photograph of a peacock. I just fudged my way through it and came up with something that I’m not sure anyone would have been able to identify as a peacock, although I think it did look like a bird of some sort. Thirdly, nobody needs this kind of item as a wedding gift. At least it was a small painting. Fourthly, I’m sure it presented quite a social conundrum for them as to how and where to display this little monstrosity when I was visiting so as to reassure me that it was appreciated. As I recall, they found a little space on a wall between their refrigerator and some other large item – more space than it deserved, actually.

And so it has continued. When I want to draw something I haven’t wanted to hamper myself with the details. My speciality is stick figures, but this doesn’t tend to work well for animals. You may ask why I’m even bothering with this. Go ahead and ask. I don’t have an answer.

I started with owls and after a few weeks of that, moved onto puffins, penguins and pelicans. Here’s the puffin page:

I have no idea where to go with all of this, but it was worth it all just to find out that a baby puffin is called a puffling. Come on, you’ve gotta admit – that’s pretty darn cute.

I’ll probably delete this in the morning.

April 25, 2018 The Right Sort of Bird

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Full disclosure: this is my copy of something I found on Pinterest, a way to practice watercolor painting.

Edmund: “But have you realized what we’re doing?”

“What?” Said Peter, lowering his voice to a whisper.

“We’re following a guide we know nothing about. How do we know which side that bird is on? Why shouldn’t it be leading us into a trap?”

“That’s a nasty idea. Still – a robin, you know. They’re good birds in all the stories I’ve ever read. I’m sure a robin wouldn’t be on the wrong side.”

C.S. Lewis, The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe

I’m just as sure that this bird wouldn’t be on the wrong side and wish I had a story to tell you about it.

I’ll probably delete this in the morning.

April 23, 2018 Stay Long…

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Having trouble with my arm (tendinitis – I’ve had it for 7 years), which makes typing painful, so I’m going to keep the chatter short this week and post on here some of my instagram posts from this year. I was experimenting with simple watercolor paintings or primitive sketches along with pithy commentary. I didn’t make up the “stay long, talk much, laugh often” part – but it came to me after I painted the cheery little house. Hospitality goals.

I’ll probably delete this in the morning.