Unfinished sketch

Rough pencil sketch. I'm torn on whether to clean it up and then finish it up by shading it with charcoal pencils or whether to clean it up and try to work it in colored pencils.


This by the way, is Gwilminawyn, who's character history is what I've been posting this week.

Finished Sketch

The part to celebrate: I finished the sketch and I'm happy with it.
The part to improve: This is the first sketch I've *completed* in two years. I've started other projects, but haven't seen them through to completion.

Making Memories: Gift Exchange

I know the holidays are over BUT that's part of the point of posting this now.

Each year, we get together with a small group of friends sometime in January, well after the holiday season is over. During the holidays, we're usually pretty swamped, and its difficult to squeeze another activity onto the calendar. After the holidays, we can get together and spend the better part of an afternoon and evening sharing a pot-luck meal, playing games, and exchanging gifts.

Yep, that's right. Exchanging gifts.

Now, before you groan, thinking that we just got finished with trying to get gifts assembled for everyone on a big long list....let me tell you that this gift exchange is no ordinary gift exchange. (We originally called our gift exchange a Christmas Consortium.....but we no longer hold this at Christmas, half of the participants are Muslim, and Gift Consortium just doesn't have the right ring to it.)

Here are the rules to our gift exchange:

1. You may not buy anyone a present.
2. You should try to give something to each person.
3. You may make a gift, re-gift something of your own, or gift another item you previously owned. (Baked goods and other consumable items are welcome.)
4. You may buy some materials to make a gift with, but we set a limit on how much money you can spend on supplies (we've usually gone with around $2-$5 per present on total supplies).

That's it!

We've had, through the years, many fun and memorable gifts following this system. When we were in college (yes, that's how long we've been doing this), gifts ranged from ziplock baggies full of Arby's sauce packets to large sheets of bubble wrap to painted coffee mugs. One year the Jedi made a favorite dessert for everyone in the Consortium. I was eating triple chocolate cake for a week. Now that we are older, the adults exchange presents, and the kids exchange presents.

This year, I totally took advantage of the fact that we are homeschoolers, and encorporated making our gifts into our school curriculum. Did you know that tie-dye is a fabric art form that flourishes in West Africa from Cameroon to Nigeria to Liberta? We were, co-incidentally, just finishing up our unit on Africa so.....

Sweetling made hajibs for the two girls in the Consortium.

Toa of Boy made t-shirts for the two boys.

We had also just read Galimoto and discussed the art of making things out of found objects. It wasn't a galimoto, but we made duct tape wallets for the other kids as well. (I sent out an email to the other mother and asked for her kids' favorite colors. We used that information to plan the colors for the both the tie-dye and the  duct tape wallets.)

In return, Sweetling and Toa received books picked from some of the other childrens' favorites (Toa of Boy got "The Activity Handbook" which he is already picking activities from. Sweetling got a larger collection of favorite novels, which I'm sure she'll devour.) They also got some fun items, like a watermelon-scented pencil made from 100% recycled newspaper, a squishy monkey, and a plush monkey as "bigger than Peach Boy!"

Books were a theme amoung the adults too, since I gave out some books from my bookshelf, along with bookmarks for each person done in chalk pastels. (I realized on the way to the party that I hadn't photographed them yet, so the following photos were taken with the bookmarks on my hat, on my lap, in a moving car, with a flash that reflected off the plastic laminate I used to try to protect the chalk pastels. I made 5 beautiful bookmarks, but only 2 of the photos are any good.)

The Gentle Giant gave out artwork as well...here is the recipient of that art.

Other adult gifts included pocket knifes, still in their original boxes, given from the collection of a father who had passed away several years ago. The Jedi made "Absolutely Deep Dark" Chocolate Cookies from the Death by Chocolate cookbook.  I received a lovely angel statue for my collection and a beautiful warm wrap that I am snuggled in right now.

So how about you? Do you have a group of friend that you just didn't have the time, or the money, to get together with over the holidays? It's not too late for a Winter Gift Consortium! (And, it might be just the thing to chase away the dreary, cold days of winter.)

Work in Progress

Not that I have a history of leaving art projects unfinished or anything. No, no. Nothing like that.

So here are the stages of my elven cleric. I'm looking for some constructive criticism and some helpful input on what to do next.

Here she is without a nose, because I was afraid I'd mess it up:

And now with the nose, eyelashes, and lips

Remember, its still in progress. Then I did the hand and rest of her skin, but was feeling good so didn't stop to take a picture. I did the hair, which I love filling in, then moved on to the magic and the dress and the background....

But after I added the background, she looked a little washed out. So I went back in and reworked some of the shadows and contrasts.


So, here is where I am right now. She doesn't look quite finished. Suggestions????

edit to add--Thanks Nora! I want that hand to look illuminated, so I was afraid to add much color to it. I'll rework that area tomorrow. In the meantime, left to my own devices, I tried to make her face a bit more symmetrical, and I darkened the shadows on her far arm.

Weekly Wrap-Up: Gardening!

The good news is, my children do NOT hate gardening.

I decided that we were going to take an extra week of spring break to get some gardening done. I envisioned this time as a happy, wholesome, family bonding time. In the middle of Monday morning, after an hour or so cleaning up the dead material left through the winter, I realized the only thing I was accomplishing was to instill a lifelong dread of gardening in my children.

So, I broke the tasks up into smaller chunks, and made sure the kids got lots of breaks to play on the swingset. Everyone's mood was much improved. We got the garden cleaned up, weeded, and some of the soil turned over before lunch. After an afternoon of some housework and some free time, I made hearty hamburgers, fries, and zucchini chips for dinner. (If anyone has a great recipe for zucchini, I'd love to have it. Toa of Boy and I love zucchini, but I'm still looking for the perfect way to prepare it.)

Tuesday, we took a break from gardening and went to my women's small group. We also spent a couple hours working in our church's food pantry. We followed that up with a treat of lunch from Wendy's before hitting the library. That afternoon, a box of plants, which had been ordered back in February arrived. This spurred on my garden fever. (That evening, I smashed out the taillights in the van backing into a pole in the walmart parking lot. I also denting the bumper. The Jedi fixed the big smash in the bumper as soon as I got home. The next day he bought a new housing for the tail lights and replace that in less than ten minutes before our Wednesday night church activities. Today he's going to buy touch up paint to coverup the scratches I made all over the corner of the rear bumper.)

Wednesday it was back to the garden. But, as I told the kids, today was going to be much more fun. We did the hard work on Monday, so now we were ready to put the plants in. The kids had each picked out the plants they wanted when we placed our orders, so that helped them care more about the process. Toa of Boy is especially excited about his blueberry bush. (He was less thrilled to learn that it would be a couple  before the 8 inch twig actually produced any blueberries.) Again, lots of swingset breaks happened.

The access path through the strawberry patch had been covered with weeds. So, after having the kids help me pull off the stepping stones to be piled on the side, I covered the path with cardboard, since I had a stack of boxes ready to be broken down in the garage. I put a layer of pine bark nuggets over the cardboard, and then placed my stepping stones back along the path. It looks really great and it should be a weed free solution for this year. The area on the right is where the strawberries are going, the wall along the garage has some tomato cages, and the corner on the left has some perennials (sedum autumn joy, purple coneflower, and hibiscus). In that corner I also planted five asparagus plants, and filled the front of that area in with a few more spinach plants.

I did the same thing for the corner that cuts from the patio to the mulched swingset area. (My daffodils are past their bloom already, boo hoo.)

After a lunch of noodles and stirfry veggies, Sweetling and I went back out to plant our square-foot vegetable garden. We don't have a lot of sun in our yard, so our veggie garden is a two foot deep strip underneath my bedroom window. In that tiny space, we have three zucchini bush plants, two cucumber vines, 16 carrots, 9 spinach plants, and 12 or 16 lettuce plants. We've used logs to edge the raised bed, and straight sticks to mark off our grid, cause both those materials were free from windfall from all the tress we have on our wooded slope. I did move the tomato cages to the side of the garage wall, cause they were too tall to fit nicely under my bedroom window, and last year I got tired of the view out my bedroom window being the top of ugly tomato cages. Before we put the seeds in, I dug in some leaf mulch, some peat moss, some compost, and a couple handfuls of bonemeal. Sweetling did a great job of measuring out how many seeds should go in each square and planting them to the correct depth. We left a little space near the edge of the vegetable garden for some marigolds in every square. I'm hoping the marigolds deter the snacking critters who were the primary beneficiaries of our vegetable garden last year.


Thursday, Tia smurf was over. We made a delicious lunch of rice, son-in-law eggs, and stirfry chicken and asparagus in a brown shallot sauce. And when I say "we", I mostly mean the smurf. I did the complicated tasks of chopping asparagus, defrosting chicken, and peeling the hardboiled eggs (with help from Toa of Boy.)

After our wonderful meal, we had an art day. We all painted paver stones, which will be used in our sundial we'll be making in the front yard in June. I'll post about that when we do it, so that I can include pictures of the process. We need 12 pavers all together, to mark the 12 hours of the day. We decided to paint each paver with something that would correspond with the 12 months of the year as well....even though our sundial will only roughly mark the time through the day, and has nothing to do with the calendar year. But it looks cool, and that's what's important.

We took Tia Smurf home, doing some measurements in her front yard for a planting design I promised her at Christmas. We had dinner, and then while Sweetling was at Tae Kwon Do, Toa and I engaged in another art project. We each got our sketchbooks, and I got my oil pastels and Toa got his crayons. Then we set a timer (we buy our timers at the dollar store). For 6 minutes, we each drew in our own sketchbook. At the end of 6 minutes, when the timer went off, we traded sketchbooks and each of us worked on the drawing the other person had started. Toa decided ahead of time that we would each be drawing gardens. So, after many many trades, we each had a bright colorful, fantastical garden in our sketchbooks. Each garden drawing was a combination of mediums and artists, so they each turned out really cool and unique.

On Friday, we had our friends the Incredibles over, so that Mrs. Incredible could go to the Cincinnati Home School Convention. Sweetling was an AWESOME babysitter for the boys. I sat at my computer downstairs and got us caught up on logging OHVA attendance, which hadn't been done since February. (Sweetling said, "that has nothing to do with you being you or anything.") Sweetling was the Queen of the Wii, and kept the boys entertained and monitored and under control. At one point, while the Equestrian was trying to get Sweetling past some big boss in a Mario game, I heard Sweetling tell the audience of little boys, "Ok, we're going to play the quiet game now....and whoever wins gets a Hershey kiss!"

The one instruction Mrs Incredible (aka Mango) gave me before leaving was to make sure Jack-Jack, who was not in a pull-up, stayed dry. I failed at that three times. But, I have access to a washer and dryer, so Mango never need know. No one tell her. It will be our little secret. (Really, I only failed once...the second time he just had trouble wiping himself and the underwear needed changed as a result. I also, cleaning him up, realized that friendship often means wiping the poopy bottom of your friend's child while he tells you all about the two lazers he has in his garage, one on each side of his garage, in fact. The third accident was just an aiming accident while he was at or on the toilett. See, I'm not completely irresponsible.)

That afternoon, we loaded the car seats into the van and went to Blockbuster. Before we left I gave a nice talk about how the democratic process and majority rule was going to come into play when it came time to select a movie. This talk proved usless, because there, bold as life, in the Blockbuster window, was a poster for the second Chipmunks movie. Consequently, we burst into Blockbuster with a whirlwind of five excited children who were all squealing "The Squeakquel!!!" Mercifully, the Squeakquel was close to the front door, so we were in and out of there before the employees could truly hate me.

Friday night, the Jedi decided we needed a family activity. It turns out that the family activity was taking the last of the gift cards the Jedi had received for Christmas and making the half hour drive to the nearest Cold Stone for ice cream. If we ever were in a position to buy a franchise, I'd want a Cold Stone Creamery. We tried to get Vaya to get a job at ColdStone, back when they were in a nearby mall, but Vaya knew we were just trying to take advantage of her for free ice cream, and she wasn't having any of it. I'm still scarred by her refusal.

After we got home, I finished up my awesome, awesome week by getting a school schedule together that I hope will be a decent hybrid of the k-12 curriculum we need to finish up this year and the new approach to schooling I want to initiate next year.  I am as happy as I can be with the hybrid. (Thursdays are our co-op days, so they didn't need to go on the schedule. Tuesday morning we're at church for my women's group. Toa watches a movie and plays, and Sweetling can use the time as a study hall to do co-op work, or she can take her netbook and be online, or she can watch a movie with the other kids.)

Check out what others have done this week on Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers.

Art and Facebook

Toa of Boy likes to look at artwork produced by other young children. When he finds a piece he especially likes, he loves to sit and paint something similar. I figure that for centuries, art students have been learning by making copies of the works of other artists, so Toa of Boy is following along a time-honored tradition.

Yesterday we found this awesome gallery of elementary art. Its produced by the Bellevue School District, and Toa of Boy really liked several of their pieces. Here's the painting he made inspired by some of the gallery pieces.

Before we did K-12, and I was teaching my brother the dude, I always struggled with what to do for art on a regular basis. (And I personally love art). So, I thought I'd share the gallery so that other homeschooling moms could look through the projects and maybe get inspired.

In other news, its been a month of Sundays since I've put up a Facebook Friday. Its not Friday, its Tuesday, but you know I'm not going to let that stop me. On second thought, I think I'll do my Facebook in a separate post, so that I can submit this one to Works for Me Wednesday.

To Fill Flash or Not to Fill Flash?

Not that I have a fill flash, just my built in flash. Anyway, here's some pics from our art museum outing and our lunch at Twin Lakes in Eden Park. If I can figure out where the aperature settings and such are stored, I'll post that with the pic.

The first pic, and the next couple pics, are all outside the museum. I think Mango lied to me. She claims that the aperature settings and all that razmajaz is saved with the jpg file somehow, but darned if I can find it.

They both look so thrilled to be sitting still while I tried to figure out how to adjust camera settings. Of course, I only posted one of each pose, in reality, I snapped several pics of each shot....to compare how different settings looked. All of that does me no good now, cause I can't figure out which setting got used for which shot. Next time, I'll make them hold up a white board with the settings written on it for each shot.

Its good to be the Mommy, cause you get to make the rules.

Lunch was at Twin Lakes, which over looks the Ohio River.
Toa of Boy proudly displays his mango. Once with a flash.....

And once without. His face is much more visible with the flash, but does the lighting look unnatural?

Without the face, the details of his face are lost, but the element of natural light directionality is retained.

What do others think? What should I do with these?

And my Sweetling
being contemplative. No flash used here either.

Back inside the museum, where the children finally get to do what they really wanted to....just sit and draw the art.

Again, no flash, because I liked the color of the light and the wood as it was, but I think I went with the absolute wrong camera setting.

 And Toa of Boy.....

I like this one. The natural colors of the wood makes Toa in the foreground really visible. The figures in the background are blurred, since they were walking, but I think that helps to keep the importance on Toa.

Plus, on a non-photography related note, let me state how amazing it is that Toa is SO focused on his work that he remains pretty clear, despite the slow shutter speed. For someone who is a living illustration of Heisenburg's Uncertainty Principle....that is an amazing, rarely duplicated feat.

The Path

It's my Birthday and I'll play if I want to.....

The Jedi knows me well.

Every night, after prayers have been said and kisses have been given, each of my children ask, "Mommy, what are we doing tomorrow?" I think it has something to do with being "J"s. Neither of my children can relax and drift off to sleep unless they know what the schedule for tomorrow holds. Being a "P", I don't have this issue, so I'm only speculating.

Last night, Toa of Boy asked "What we doing tomorrow, Mommy?"

And the Jedi, who knows me so well, replied, "Tomorrow is Mommy's birthday, so its probably going to be like an all day party."

Other, responsible adults go to work and do chores and such on their birthday. Either I'm not responsible or I'm not an adult. Or both. It might just be both. Cause its my birthday. That's automatically a day off school, a day off cooking, a day off cleaning, a trip out to lunch, and a trip to the Krohn Conservatory....with sketchbooks and cameras in tow of course.





And...here we go!

1. Why do we have to_go to work on our birthdays? I think a person's birthday should be an automatic holiday.

2. _Sadly, I can think of next to nothing to go in this blank. I throw the covers up over the bed when I get out of it. That's about it, the only behavior that are now habits.

3. I have _a deep fryer and I'm not afraid to use it!

4. I had never heard the phrase "live like you mean it" and it puzzles me. Does it mean play hard or work hard?

5. Still have unrealistic spring garden plans the way I always do.

6. How was I to know rug burns could bleed? I fell trying to execute several reverse side-hooks. My kicking foot skidded across the rough floor. It wasn't really bleeding till I followed it up with a long series of speed round-house kicks into the big pad. Then I looked down and had blood all over my foot. I got home and the Jedi said "that's not a rug burn, that's a rug bleed."

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to dinner from Panda Garden and deep fried twinkies, tomorrow my plans include testing for my green belt in Tae Kwon Do and Sunday, I want to watch more Star Trek:Enterprise!

Unfinished Business

I got tired of having the unfinished Richard and Fawn sketch as my wallpaper. So I took a few minutes and made this instead.

Saved image

I went back to an earlier saved image and started working on hair instead. I wasn't happy with the freckles, or the lips, or the eyes.

Still Freckleless

The key words here are "work in progress."

Freckleless Fawn

Some evil, evil person (smurf) convinced me that I could "totally do freckles." The evil person lied to me. Deceived me. Lured me with false hope only to laugh when my fragile little spirit was crushed.

Freckles are HARD.

The good news is ... a) I'm feeling more like a human being and less like a miserable zombie, and b) I have new *tablet* PC cause the Jedi *loves* me.

The pox.

My freckles look like the pox. This entry could also be titled "I should take some cold meds and go to bed".

too much?

I think I need to finish coloring fawn and both hair. then i can go back and tweak shading values. otherwise its rather difficult to judge relative darkness and lightness.

Now?

Comment. You know who you are.

Getting worse before it gets better

I could also title this "it can only get better from here." I tried editing before reading Smurf's suggestions. Now its worse. Why am i sharing? for *sympathy* and *encouragement.* Did you hear that? Only sympathetic and encouraging comments need to be made.

Background

Wooly Willy

I was working hard on getting the hint of a mustache and a beard on Richard. Not full growth..but a pencil line mustache and a little scruff on the chin. I'm zoomed up at 300% and am nearly editing by pixels. I zoom back out to see what I've got. And I immediately recognize the effect. Its just like Wooly Willy.

In progress...still...

Trying to give Richard a more 'rugged' look as I'm working on his skin tones.