EDM #76 & 94

After a bit of a hiatus from my puter room, I felt I should get some of my sketches posted.
I have been doing some water color sketches, and not feeling too comfy with it yet.
Here is one I really am pleased with though.
This started out as a blob of paint that landed on a scrap piece of paper while I was attempting to paint another picture. (Go figure)

Danny had just bought me some flowers at the market the day before, and I just started to move the paint around and as I looked up it kind of looked like one of the flowers, so I played.
And this is the result.

This one I'm not too overly pleased with, but at least it looks like wooden spoons, so I am happy about that. LOL

The Mother's Day Project

This is Sgt Denise A. Lannaman from Bayside N.Y. She was assigned to the Army National Guard's 1569th Transporttation Company, Newburgh, N. Y.

DoD Identifies Army Casualty

The Department of Defence announced on Oct 4th, 2006

Sgt Denise A. Lannaman, 46, of Bayside, N.Y., died Oct 1 at Camp Arifjan, Kuwait.

TheMother'sDay Project http://mothersdayproject.wordpress.com
started by Anne http://threadingwater.wordpress.com ,
Remembers all the women who lost their lives in the course of the Iraq War.
The project involves 2 totes, one with 79 names of these women, and the second, 79 more plus one more woman that died after this project began.
Volunteers (of which I am proud to be one of) will stitch each name on a piece of muslin, ( I just finished stitching Denise's name) Anne will then make the totes wth all the names on them. When this is complete, the totes will be passed among the volunteers that took part, each will have the tote for a week or two, then pass it on to another volunteer.

Before I started to stitch her name I went to http://icasualties.org/oif/female.aspx , and read about Denise, and many others listed there. I felt saddened at unnessesary countless loss of lives.

It is my fervent wish that one day, as the song states "THE WORLD WILL LIVE AS ONE".

EDM #37 & 120

These are the first few sketches I did in the small book I made.

#37
Draw keys

#120
Flashlight

Kelly Girl

I did this sketch to practise my shading. I used a light source this time, (something I don't usually do), to my right, to try and capture the right tone.
I think I might have it down a bit better this time.
It seems to have scanned a bit too light, as it is a lot darker IRL.
I used my graphite pencil, and watercolored pencils for the slight tint on the eyes, hair and mouth (although I don't know if you can see that in this scan).

EDM #35

#35 is to draw a bike or part of one.
I did start to draw a bike that was propped up against a house across the street, then I was visiting Dianne's Blog http://magpiesenvy.blogspot.com and she had a picture that she had taken of a Penny-Farthing while out one day and though it would be fun to sketch that instead.
I will post my pretty poor original attempt later, If I can get it right. lol
Oh, and I was going to use this as my draw something round challenge, but as you can no doubt see, (Is it ROUND? NOT!!!!!!!!.)

But of course the more I attempted to make it round, the bigger the tires got. Alas...... I just might have give this another try.
I used my new graphite pencil only, then my blending stump.

Face It Mister...

I have been playing around with faces, and although I do like doing them, they never really look as they should.
I also posted the before and after simply because I personally always seem to like the before sketch.

EDM #102

This challenge is to draw a plug. So here's my attempt.

3 cards

Here's a few cards I've made lately. They've all been sent out and recieved now so I can show them.

Everyone Meet Justin

I have been getting a bit behinde in my challenges, because I have been trying to get my faces
to look better.
I have not been sleeping too great, so I have been practising while the house is quiet.
I did this sketch from one of his school pics, and it's my third attempt, so I'm not going to mess with it anymore.
I find I tend to make boys look more like girls, but Justin really did look like a sweet little girl. lol
He was about 6 in this, and although he is 11yrs. old now he still has the longest eyelashes and huge curls that any girl would just die for.
He is my first grandchild, and the only boy.
So everyone, meet Justin

Painting A memory

My mother was doing a spring cleaning awhile back and was calling all of us kids to come get whatever we wanted before she sent it to some charity or threw it out.
Dianne and I had planned to visit her anyway, so off we went to see just what treasures we could find.
We had a great visit and went home with our goodies.
Dianne called me a few days later and told me that in the box of frames her had gotten from my mom there were two oil paintings that my Grandmother had painted, and did I want them.

My Grandmother is no longer with us, and it's such a treat to to have something that she painted.

To give you just a brief history on my gran, She had never touched a paint brush in her life till she got very ill and was pretty much confined to her bed. She also had lost a lot of her vision due to advanced diabietes.
Now if memory serve, I believe it was either my mom or one of my uncles that went to visit her, and she out of the blue asked them to get her a set of brushes, paints and some small canvases because she was watching some of the other seniors painting and she wanted to try it too.
I remember my mother bringing some of her work home and we were all so amazed how great they were for her never haveing done anything like that before.
These are even more special to me now because I only had a set of lamps she had also made during this period, that got broken beyong repair.
I feel it was a divine intervention that we were there at the right time, and that that box had not gone to a charity shop.

I've been tagged 2x's

Ok, here's the scoop.................. I was tagged by Diane- www.magpiesenvy.blogspot.com , and I was in an instant panic. Not because I think I'm above it all, but because I really thought who would want to know about me. Long story short...... I begged her not to tag me.
END OF STORY? Nope
Miss Luci www.loocheeta.blogspot.com e-mailed me and wanted to tag me too. LOL
I just adore these two people and after a long struggle with myself I decided to do it, but, with the stipulation that I not tag 7 others. I
So here goes people:
#1 Edited
LOL, (ROFL!!!!) I guess I should have gone on a bit further on this one.
I took a course called NON TRADITIONAL JOBS FOR WOMEN, and I took the two year under water welding course. While I did pass this course There were several more years of training to be a certified a deep sea welder.
1: I took a deep sea welding course when I was in my mid to late 20's. Although I never did get to actually weld out at sea, hehehe, I did weld in a huge tank that we trained in. To my surprise, I passed with honors.

2: I can take a 10 speed bike apart and rebuild it.
2a: I used to make bycicle wheel wall hangings. (sounds odd, but they are quite stunning)

3: I worked at the Firestone tire plant. I was in the dept. where they make tires the size of rooms. ( that was loud, very dirty and truely amazing). There is actually a pic of me standing inside of one somewhere here in Hamilton that my mentor and trainer took.

4: When I was in High School I wanted to become a medical Lab Tech.

5: I never got my driver's license till I was in my late 30's.

6: I'm deathly afraid of snakes, worms, and centipeeds.

7: I absolutly love music, I love to dance , I read everything I get my hands on.
7a: I have 2 beautiful daughter's and 4 great grandchildren
7b: I firmly believe you should do unto other what you would have done unto you.

Not too shabby for someone who didn't think they had 7 things to write.

Sequine's Galore!!!!!!!!

OMG!!!! I was just catching up on everything I've missed for the past few days, and while on Juj's blog, her blog is on the right (everything is contextual), I visited her friends site. Now for all of you who love to sew, and love sequines you've got to check this out.
www.kristinmorland.com the cakes and eggs, yes eggs, are amazing, and all as you guessed done with sequines.

Another site I visit regularly is an amazing artist, Audrey Kawasaki. She does absolutely stunning work, and all on wood. check her out at
www.audrey-kawasaki.com , you won't regret it.
(BTW, some of her work is a bit erotic, for those of you who may not choose to view)

EDM #44

I started this cat sketch last week. As a laugh I should have shown you the bottom half, but, I thought better of that. If I ever get it close to looking like a cat I will post it at a later date. LOL

This first one is of course my first attempt, I wasn't happy with it although I think I should have left well enough alone.

I then tried to enhance it's features and royally messed up the unseen bottom half.

This appears to be another one of those keep trying attempts, which I surely will do.
I am at least happy it looks like a feline, which of course it is.

I have been quite busy in the last few days, and have a few challenges done, well at least in one stage or another and will post them later today.

Paper fun

A few days ago Dianne http://magpiesenvy.blogspot.com came to my house, and we had a ball just slapping paint on paper towels and generally just makeing a mess.

The end results were quite good, so I decided to do up a small sketch book for my purse useing some of these sheets.

First I podged the painted paper towels and let them dry, then I added more podge (Matte) and before it was completely dry I added some luminex powder in spots and some water color to add a bit more pizazz. I was going to add more, but it was looking and feeling really good at this point so I left it.

We had made books in a challenge last year so it was quite simple to put together, and now I have a great little book to try sketching something in while at all those long boreing hospital visits, and I just might be able to get ones that are in the EDM challenges while I'm at it.

The colors are really much more vivid then they appear here.

Another year come and gone

Well I've just celebrated another birthday on Monday, and I'd like to thank all my family and friends for makeing it so special as always. I'd also like to thank all the people that e-mailed me and left well wishes here on my blog.

The day turned out absolutely gorgeous, so warm FINALLY!, so that was the icing on the cake, no pun intended. wink

Speaking of cake, up top is the cute butterfly my girls had made for me, It's for mom's day and my birthday, since they are always just days apart and in my fave color blue. Too sweet eh?

Well hope you all enjoyed your weekend, and that the week ahead brings something special to you all.

Thanks for stopping by.

Tonniece

EDM #108

Another bright ideal.
Well I must say this was a dozzy because at first I tried to do a regular light bulb, need I say more?
Clear glass and me are still arch enemies. What a bugger to sketch, Well for me that is, SOOOOO, I got this brilliant idea to do the energy savers in the frontroom lamp.
I see now that I've posted this sketch that I didn't quite finish shadeing the blue one in, but that's ok, we can just pretend that the light part is broken, and just look at the bottom.

EDM #26

Today the old finger landed on n0. 26 challenge, Draw a vegatable, and since I now have a sketch book to draw in and a few great pencils I thought I'd give it a stab.
I went to the fridge and gathered the tomatoe, then thought why not do a few things today. SOOOOO after a few tries I came up with this my final try.
I had no garlic but there was the makeings for a salsa on the cutting board so I added that in at the last min.

Boy I can't wait till I can just do one without useing a pencil first, and all the rubbing out. LOL

EDM #17 A Musical Instrument

I decided to stop doing the challenges in order and just pick one randomly from now on and this is the one my finger landed on.
I am really haveing fun with these challenges because I am actually learning to do things I've never tried before. Never haveing had any training in art, as I'm sure is very evident, and only doodling in the past, I find it very relaxing and I want to learn all I can to improve.

Playing with faces

Just playing around. As was sugested to me, I thought I'd browse Danny's magazines and draw the first pic I saw. This was on the very back cover. It was a full page, but I just wanted to do the face as a practise.

Sorry that the scan isn't that great.

All in all I really like this one, although I think I should darken it a bit.

My nose and eyes are a bit wonky, but all my noses and eyes are. LOL

A small wooden door

I did this door from another challenge, and I'm not too sure why it's showing a purple tint, because I did it in pencil then put a slight brown coloring over it with my water pencil.

Challenge #15

Draw a tree or trees.
I thought I'd and color this scene in.
The original pic I found on google, and the colors are so brilliant. I tried to capture the same tones.
Oh well, Rome wasn't built in one day. Maybe next time.

Challenge tester box

This a box I did to test the waters so to speak. Just to see. It's a drop spine box.
But in the end I didn't do this type of box for the challenge.
It was a challenge to say the least, but now I do know how to make a box from scratch.
I must have been in a pink mood because both boxes are done in tht color.

box challenge

So here is my box for the challenge with Sue, Dianne, Sandy, and Luci.
I opted to do just a very simple box.