Today was Phaedra's 5th birthday party. I made a strawberry cake with a Chowder decoration. I also made a Schnitzel pinata. Chowder is a cartoon on Cartoon Network for those who don't know.

Just a sketch... Chowder (from CN)

Here's Chowder from Cartoon Network. Phaedra wants a Chowder themed party, and this will be the cake design. More on that later....

close up of old self portrait

yeah, it's lazy of me... Promises of new things in the coming week. This is my favorite drawing from my second year in high school art.

My parents have my stash of old art in their basement. Early next year I'll have them to photograph. That'll be fun.

Pirate room decorations

Here are the aforementioned drawings I did for one of the rooms at work.

Fuwa... Finally!

It's been a busy week/weekend. Teacher work day was on Friday. I actually got the last Fuwa done on Wednesday (I think), and Miss Eilene hung them up for me. Then I had to deep clean the kitchen... That took me two days.

I also took pictures of a ship I drew (it's very large) and a rules poster intro I "drew" calligraphy for. It'd be cool if I could actually write calligraphy. I'll post those tomorrow.

Side note: Everyone's frustrated/pissed at work about this assessor that was supposed to be there today... she called at literally the last minute to say she couldn't make it. Now, they have to send someone else when the new school year starts and everyone has new kids moving up... I feel bad for them... all I had to deal with is extra baking and having to make meatloaf for lunch tomorrow. I got up there an hour early as did a lot of people just for this assessor. She "hurt her back". Whatever. Miss Sherry (my boss) said she had a dream the night before that a teacher and I were being arrested for "over consumption of pizza" LOL and her husband, Jay, was fighting/cussing at the police all while the assessor was there. Obviously stressful times.

Fuwa Project continued

I ended up only doing the heads because of time constraints (ie. I didn't properly manage my time). Pics of them hanging up tomorrow.

colored Fuwa sketch

Felt they needed the colorings :) I'm working on the head of Huanhuan (the red one) tonight. His head and headdress alone measures 2'6" hehe. It's gonna be huge! And then when the olympics are over, these are coming home with me and into the girls' bedrooms.

Fuwa Project

I took a little break over the weekend. Today I took on a large project for work. I'm making 4' drawings of the Beijing Olympic mascots known as the Fuwa. They're very cute; don't ya think? I just sketched them out tonight, and the final drawings will be up by next Monday.

"Small OJ" day 6

Well, kids, It's late... and I sketched somethin'. Then I colored it in... that's about it. Yet another glass (kid sized) from the 99 cents Only store.

Prismacolor & graphite on my sketch pad

6"x8"

"Peach Tea" day 5

Well, this was more complex than I thought. I may revisit it another day because there really is so much detail that I cut out of the glass. I really like this glass. Gotta love the 99 cents Only store.



Prismacolor pencils and graphite on my sketch pad

8"x6"

"Peaches" day 4

Here's the final product... lot of glare on the pit shading.... the pit was frustrating to draw tonight.

Prismacolor pencils on my sketch book

6"x8"

"Peaches" (wip)

Okay... Day 3 and I just couldn't finish it (cause I waited too long to start). I'll make it purdy for ya tomorrow. Joe goes to her bed now.

"Granny Smith" day 2

I found my old Prismacolors...



Prismacolor pencils on my sketch pad

8"x6"

"Snail Shell" Day 1

The subtle contrast in a pencil drawing is apparently difficult to capture on digital camera.



6"x8"

Graphite & Charcoal on my Canson sketch pad

Second Wind

So. My first blog. Here goes....

After perusing many options for working out of the home for extra money and eventually sole income, I stumbled across a few articles about artists' blogs and daily paintings. It's been years since I've been confident in my artistic ability, but recently others have commented on things I've drawn for the upcoming school year decorations. I just thought, eh, whatever. It's just something I can do.

I'm still very proud of the graphite self portrait I did way back in high school. So much that it's my profile pic on MySpace. The past several years have been kind of a artistic doldrum for me. Maybe it's the fact that I didn't get into a designing job straight out of college. My family grew by one instead. I ended up working in restaurants: fast food, full service, pizza delivery, bakery. I was good at it, but it really isn't good enough for me. I love cooking, and my second choice of major in school was culinary arts, but this just wasn't what I had in mind. I always quickly made management, but never really felt a level of achievement. I'm currently a daycare cook where my girls can attend a nice school free of charge. It seemed okay for the moment... I had my one year anniversary a few weeks ago.

What I really think was the hold-up, was my living situation. I'm messy. Gross messy. Don't-have-people-over-to-the-apartment messy. This stems from hating most apartments. Well, this is the second weekend in my new and first house. I'm officially "house proud". I don't like anything on the floor, and when I see dishes in the sink, I don't just whine and ignore them. I actually wash the dishes! I know... many may think, "So what?" but unless you've been a procrastinating, lazy, lump for the past ten or so years (I'm sure my mom would say it's been longer than that), you don't know how hard it is to get out of that slump. Thanks daddy for buying me a house :) And for those who don't know me personally, no, I'm not a spoiled brat. I'm just a lucky only daughter. And at the ripe age of 27, I can say I feel somewhat grown up.

So with room to spare and a van load of clothes and stuff gone to Goodwill, I feel I have space to draw and eventually (with new supplies) paint. Huge windows, tall ceilings, and no carpet remind me of studios I used to paint in while in school and pre-college. So hopefully I can get back into drawing every day. Maybe I can make up for blowing off all the portfolio and academic scholarships I had to turn down. Maybe someday I can be a real artist.

Cheers.