Conga Players - Mill Creek Park

Conga Players - Mill Creek Park
Originally uploaded by SideShowMom.

Yesterday was the 24th Worldwide Sketchcrawl! We were a little busy, being the day before my son's 7th Birthday party, but we managed a little time enjoying our city! After dropping R and her friend and mom off at the Plaza theater, we drove around a bit and settled on playing at Mill Creek Park. This 6 block-long park along Broadway/Nichols Parkway on the Eastern border of the Country Club Plaza and is home to the JC Nichols Fountain, a most recognizeable landmark. About half-way up the green, we found a pair of conga-players enjoying their rhythms and the mild air. As an amateur hand-drummer, myself, I could appreciate their complexity, stamina and joy in playing. My son enjoyed them, also, playing nearby and dancing for a while. The painted one was done in Photoshop with my new pen tablet, trying out different paintbrushes and blending modes. The text was "painted" on the page, also, using a calligraphy brush. Wonderful evening!

Cheers to all other sketchers!

Old Westport

Old Westport
Originally uploaded by SideShowMom.

This morning, after putting the kidlets on their bus, I went to the new drive-up coffee shop (there's in/outdoor seating, too) to wait for Blockbuster to open. Coffee and a rich blueberry muffin and some sketching and I was happy! And the pampas grass isn't too awful!

OH BOY!!!!

This post had a photo from Flickr imbedded in it. 

Cowboy, you'd better have that girth and hat on tight, 'cuz this ride's gonna be ... OMG!!!

HEEEEE HAAAAWWWW!!!!!

A Day Up North

Usually, in our neck of the country, Labor Day is a bit warm and sultry.  What a perfect day it was, 80ish, comfortable, slight breezes, foggy morning to start…perfect!  (Did I mention, perfect?)

The kids & I rode up to Smithville with Grandpa to use the car, but Ron wasn’t ready for us to fetch him, yet.  So, we headed up to the lake for some sketching and play!

We went to the Jerry Litton Visitor’s Center and I settled in at a picnic table to sketch while the kids played with the frisbee and ball they had gotten inside and looked for bugs & interesting things on the ground.  We found lots of “fairy handkerchiefs” and my aging camera caught the occupant of one.  Rianna also managed to find a grasshopper that sat still for her and a toad that they both got to hold!

If you can’t see this master of disguise, click the photo to go to Flickr and I’ll give you a hint!

 

Some other critters we found…

 

 

Next, we headed back into Smithville and played at Rotary Park.  I let the kids climb on the caboose…then saw the words painted on the caboose. “Do not climb or play on caboose.”  Oops!  So we went to the playground.  Playing, being hard work, pleas for food soon followed.

Next stop, town square.  Fritos and bananas and playing on the stage were good.  Fortunately, it was too early for any of the antique shops to be open!

By then, Ron was ready to be rescued from his laptop, so we fetched him and headed over to Weston.

 

Weston Bend State Park, scene of many adventures in our family, including the dramatic 3 hour wait for my sister to come up from the city to fetch us when the Weltemobile-at-the-time broke near the beaver pond, set in lush Platte County, was our destination.  For some reason, the playground there has particular appeal to the kids…don’t know why, it’s a typical modern playground.  So, we did that for a while.  Geordan brought me a Cottonwood leaf to draw.  Cranky kids forced a scene change, so we went to explore the tobacco barn.

Tobacco is still grown in northern Missouri and sold in Weston every year.  Not for the cigarette companies, though, I think for pipe tobacco.  There were a few plants growing next to the barn and the door is open to see the framework inside for hanging the stakes the plants are dried (cured) on.  Someone was busily eating the 4-foot plants and I managed to photograph some eggs under a leaf.

After a tour ‘round the campground to pick a likely spot for a future trip, we headed back to town. 

EDM #168 - My News

EDM #168 - My News
Originally uploaded by SideShowMom.

I broke down and bought a Watercolor Moleskine - pocket-sized. I was frustrated that I don't have room to tear down full sheets of watercolor paper to make a new sketchbook and missed drawing! So...

Here's where I get my news, KCUR, the local NPR affiliate. I can't stand to watch local news on TV and newsprint makes my hands feel awful. It's not complete local coverage, but it's pretty good! Love Walt Bodine!

Birmingham Child Care Examiner: Share this poem with preschool parents: nothing in my bag today

Birmingham Child Care Examiner: Share this poem with preschool parents: nothing in my bag today

Posted using ShareThis

I have an account on a site called morgueFile that I share my photographs on. A morgue file is a place where publications keep photographs and other related resources they used or may yet use in articles or for publication. The site is a photo-reference bank for artists, authors, journalists and others looking for just the right image without breaking the bank to pay for it. I have about 1,200 photos listed and catalogued there and, someday, I will add the references I've gotten there to my portfolio. It's neat to see my work used to illustrate articles on childcare, charity, women's shelters, books for increasing happiness in your life. I feel useful and like I have contributed to Society with my photographs. This columnist emailed me her article link this morning!

A Bottle of Ink

My favorite inks are Noodler's Bulletproof Black and Lexington Grey...it's a love-hate relationship, though.  I bought myself some Lamy Safari fountain pens last year for my birthday (?) and the inks were highly regarded by other sketchers and Moleskine enthusiasts.  They are waterproof on cellulose materials and wash off of others, making them good for mailing addresses, checks, important signatures and pen and ink sketches...if you're patient.  Those who know me know that "patience" isn't my strong suit.  If the conditions are humid, it takes a while to dry enough not to smear or run when painted over.  I love to write and draw with it and the pens, so, I wait.

At the top of the label in this tiny sketch, you can see where the ink smeared when I tried to wash a tiny bit of blue over it.  It had been drying for an hour. 

Last night, I got out my bundle of Sakura Pigma Micron pens, my first favorite pens before I got the Lamys.  I'll carry them around for a back-up when I'm out and don't want to wait for the ink to dry.  In the meantime, I'm going to check out my sketchbook papers, maybe the sizing is interfering with the ink absorption?  Maybe some of the paper isn't cellulose?  I used two new types in this sketchbook, made for Utrecht by Canson, I think.  In the process of testing my pens (there were some older ones in the bunch), my kids decided they liked them, too, my daughter wants her own, to buy with her Christmas money.  We'll make a pilgrimage to Utrecht this weekend...and maybe stop off at Creative for a tube of Daniel Smith watercolor along the way!

EDM #7 - Draw a Container From Your Kitchen

Glass jars are fun to find in different shapes, sizes and colors. I have picked up interesting ones since I started getting allowances. I don't say I collect them, I don't buy them for any particular reason other than they're pretty or I have something that needs a jar...but I do have a few. These (I have four) are just small, 8 oz or so, clear jars with plastic gasketed lids for bulk spices & herbs, this one has parsley, another has thyme. There's a World Market store up the street that carries them for about $1 each.

Art and Trains

We finally got to see Art in the Age of Steam at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art!  Wonderfully represented works in different periods of art and stages of steam travel development!  When my money order finally gets to Flickr, I'll organize my albums a bit and you can see some of the wonders of modern rail equipment that I've captured over the years.  In the meantime, enjoy my rendition in miniature (about 1 1/2 x 1 inch) of Monet's Gare d'Argenteuil in pencil and ink. 

Claude Monet, French, 1840-1926
Gare d'Argenteuil, 1872

Oil on canvas
Unframed: 18 3/4 x 28 inches (47.63 x 71.12 cm) Framed: 34 3/4 x 36 1/2 x 3 3/8 inches (88.27 x 92.71 x 8.59 cm)

Musée de Luzarches, Conseil Général du Val d'Oise, Cergy-Pontoise, 106.2008

Argenteuil was about eight miles northwest of Paris. By train it was only a short journey from the city center. Monet lived at Argenteuil from 1871 to 1878, and this is the first of several views he made of the station. He painted it not long after dawn, probably in one sitting, and applied the paint in broad and vigorous brushstrokes.

<a href="http://www.nelson-atkins.org/art/Exhibitions/AgeSteam/CollectionDatabase.cfm?id=55012&amp;theme=Exhibition">www.nelson-atkins.org/art/Exhibitions/AgeSteam/Collection...</a>

New Year

My first drawing of the year!  Let's see if I can get back in the habit!

5 1/2 x 7 1/2 inches, cp wc, 4 x 4 grid, pigma micron &amp; noodler's in my hand-bound sketchbook.

I grew up around rodeos.  My parents kept their horses at and my dad worked at Benjamin Stables in KC.  As a kid, I went to the Kansas City Rodeo, state fairs &amp; the American Royal.  Usually during the event, there would be some cowboy or rodeo clown riding a trained Brahma bull (that's BRAY-mah), similar to riding zebras or other wild animals, completely a novelty.  Brahman cattle, natives of the Indian sub-continent, are used to cross with beef cattle for leaner meat (correct me if this is wrong!) and for their ability to withstand drought conditions.  This fellow (properly, a BRAH-mah) is a Schleich toy, about 3 inches tall at the hump, waiting for his new brown coat on top of my monitor.

Noodler's Lexington Grey in my Lamy Vista on cold-pressed wc paper, gridded.

Catch-Up!

Whoops!  I've been busy with the model horses and other stuff and not blogging, again!

I have remembered to draw something every once in a while!

Excelsior arrived this week from Kim Ford Hoffman in Tennessee.  He's a Breyer Mini Whinny Stock horse who's been repainted as a Leopard Appaloosa with peacock spots (they have a slight halo around them).  This little gelding is only 1 inch tall and packed with details!!  I'm in love with him already!  Look at that face!  There are also loads of photos of him if you click on the journal page to go to my Flickr!  This sketch of him was done in pencil first (I wanted him to look like him!) and then inked and painted, except that I got impatient with my ink and smeared it erasing the pencil lines on his croup...silly mom!  He has a wee parade saddle Kim started and I'm to finish, so you may see bits of that here or on my other blog, Beneath The Mothertree. 

Last week, we spent some of the cool weather playing outside.  One day, after viewing the ArtsKC exhibit, art/work, Creativity from the Cube (which includes the works of several of my husband's coworkers and bosses) inside Union Station, we went out in front, the kids wanted to play on the large bronze plaques commemorating the restoration of the building.  They are raised slightly on granite risers and at an angle that is fun to walk on and jump off of and not dangerously high.  They played nicely enough for me to capture lots of the scene in front of me, the Bloch fountain on Pershing, the Liberty Memorial and it's parkway, the trees lining Main Street, an office building (an Advertising agency, I believe), and the old Channel 5 tower, now used by KCTV, the public television station.

The day before that, we played in Washington Park, across from Crown Center and Union Station.  There is a statue of General Washington on his mount at Valley Forge, looking very regal and cold!  The horse is massive and very muscular, as a warhorse should be, and could be either Old Nelson or Blueskin, the two the General rode in the war.  Blueskin was the less favored of the two, however, as he wasn't as tolerant of cannonfire as Old Nelson.  Breed? 

Washington’s horses included Arabian, Andalusian, and Chincoteague ponies, but, since few formal breeds were established in colonial times, most were noted in records simply as “plow horse,” or “carriage horse.”

  -http://www.mountvernon.org

A little less time to draw inside, two days before. because the kidlets decided they needed to do all the dangerous things they weren't supposed to do while I tried to draw the chandeliers in the main hall at Union Station.  Some days are just like that!

EDM #069 - Draw a Beverage

EDM #069 - Draw a Beverage
Originally uploaded by SideShowMom.

I like coffee and tea. I tried Mom's cup when I was young and found just the right ratios of sugar, milk, creamer and honey to make each kind palatable and enjoyable. This week I wandered into a shop that sells Chinese teas. The owner let me have some samples and told me what kinds they were and where they were grown. The next day I went back and bought some. This is White Peony King whole leaf tea--without sugar, cream, milk or honey! The cup's a bone china with a wheat stalk design on the other side (not sure why the cup was turned backwards, I'm right-handed mostly) and very shiny. We found a set of four at our old recycling center. They had a table for "treasures" that we donated to and found new additions at. Better than a garage sale!

Watercolor and Noodler's ink.

Getting Ready & Getting Old

We leave for Ramsey, Minnesota in the morning.  It's the third Welte Family Reunion since 2002 at Uncle Carroll's house.  I bet Aunt Fran cringed at the thought of 100+ people & kids trampling her yard and carpets again...we're not that bad, really!  Everyone pitches in to help with dishes and meals and cleans up after ourselves.  Donations to cover expenses get taken and everyone loves her house!  She has a huge yard and woods and a lovely house with a park and playground across the street.  There's a links-style public golf course that Ron likes to have a round at during the weekend (I would, too, if I'd get off my butt and get to the driving range once in a while.  The kids'd love driving and putting!).  We won't get to go visit Midwest, the big Arabian horse farm across the way, they'll be at their family reunion, too, this weekend, but they were sorry they'd miss us!  I have my fingers crossed that Sunday we can go to St Paul and be-bop around a bit.  Wet Paint is open 12-5 and not too far from Como Park.  We won't go to the zoo this time, but will go to the Lock and Dam on the Mississippi River near the old Ford Plant.  Ron had gone there to work on the conveyer some years ago and I went up to visit and watched boats locking through there.  The kids'll love that!  Also, we'll try to get to Ft Snelling and the park along the river near there.  We'll try to see what else is close.  As much as I would love to, I know I won't be able to "schedule" a time to meet with Roz, if she should be available.  Time has to be flexible around the kids and the DH (who's very unpredictable whims can throw off a whole weekend!).

So, the glasses.  I'll be 43 this year.  About 2 months ago, I noticed that I couldn't focus on things closer than 12-14 inches from my eyes.  So, I had these glasses from when I had eyestrain issues at work and school.  They get used a lot, but they are just a touch too weak for me now.  When we get back from our trip, I'll get the eye exam done.

Drawing People - I Don't Stink

As a reply to a thread on Everyday Matters, I said that I stink at drawing people, so I'd end up drawing things around my Aunt's house next weekend at the Reunion.  Well, Ms Kate set me in my place about that!  I went back through the sketches of my kids and did one of my Cub last night.  I don't stink, I just need more practice!

19th Worldwide Sketchcrawl - Our Second!

The kids and I set out yesterday at midday and pointed the car toward Ward Parkway.  I got to the Plaza and turned to go through and the kids said they wanted to go to the Cancer Survivors Park on the Western edge of the shopping district.  The kids played a bit, letting me draw the view from my bench of the sculpture and the new building across the street.  We moved up the park to the front and it's new sculpture, a symbolic flame of hope.  I'll get a photo of it to get the colors in it.  It's really beautiful!

I didn't get to sketch this one as long, little attention spans grow shorter, so I'll add color another day.  I did manage a quick 'nother sketch of the kidlets checkin' out the acoustical properties of the parking garage that abutted the park!

We wandered into the Unity Temple on the Plaza, a church in the Beaux Arts (or is it Arts & Crafts?) style that I had attended once upon a time with my mother.  On around the corner, I took them into the McDonald's in the lower level of Seville Square and showed them the Bas Relief Mural of Seville Spain that my husband helped design while he worked for Art Works in Chillicothe.  I have an original ink on illustration board scale model of the final piece that he drew that I plan to frame when we get into a bigger place. 

Home for some rest and refreshment as the temperature climbed to about 85, then off to meet Daddy at Union Station for ice cream after work!  Some wriggly squiggles later, we headed out to Washington Park to run some outside and watch trains.  I worked on my perspective with the balustrade and park lamps.  Home, exhausted and sleepy!!

Still Drawing!

Really!  I did this today while the kids were playing at the Loose Park Spray Park.  The sun came out right after we were done with our other adventures and warmed the day up just enough for them to enjoy the water and me to enjoy drawing without sweating too much!  There was a red tail circling, scribbled him in, too.

 

Over previous weeks, I did a few sketches here and there.  The sketchbook's full and I need to make another, but have other things demanding my attention.  I committed to spending less time on the computer and more time with kids' activities, so we're doing stuff together, more than we used to.  Last week, we enlarged our model horse stable.  I built box stalls out of foam board and the kids each have room for over 100 small models now.  This week, Rianna and I are making leather halters for our larger models.  She's seeing how they are constructed and learning to handle glues, wire, and a craft knife.

 

EDM #019 - Handmade Tack

EDM #019 - Handmade Tack
Originally uploaded by SideShowMom.

Poor Gisa! This is the worst drawing of a horse I've ever done!! I'm posting her anyway...to remind myself, it can only get better!! She's a wee thing, an inch at the withers, and the tiny Native Show halter I made is extra-tiny! The headstall is a four-strand braid and the throatlatch is three strands, braided into the four at the poll, of cotton embroidery floss. So is the lead rope.

My eyes are normal, middle-aged and not as good as they used to be for close work like this, so, yes, I used a magnifying lamp and reading glasses for the details. The braiding - I have an idea that people think I braid tiny, short lengths of floss. That would be daunting...even to me! No, I use about 14-18 inch lengths, folded in half, and braid about half of it. I tie a knot at the end of the braid, so I can lengthen it if I want, and can make lots of halters out of one four-strand braided piece. I didn't learn to do the four-strand flat braid this small...I started with crochet cotton, just a little meatier and I have gobs of it. I got good with that, nice and even, then went smaller. So, with learning a new braid and scaling it down and trials...this took about 6 months to make, off and on.

Native Arab Show Halter
Originally uploaded by SideShowMom.

I'm still tweaking it, though. The tiny "jewels" are Balger blending filament French knots and one is pulling out already (I gave it to Rianna on Tuesday last week), so some Super Glue Gel is in order for those and the tassle knots. Halter number two will take about a day, using the pre-braided floss.

Slide

Slide
Originally uploaded by SideShowMom.

This was all I got to draw yesterday, having sliced a thumb open fixing my daughter's bike (it's minor and the bike got fixed!) and witnessing her riding without training wheels for the first time!!! While my DH was helping her, my son needed my help with the monkey bars and they both made lots of progress in playground skills! She fell, of course, and skinned a knee and bruised her little self. We got home and iced and cleaned and stung and kissed and had celebratory cheesecake!
BTW, this is the only time I've ever changed the date on a post. I'm posting a drawing a day in May and wanted the drawing on the date I made it...such as it is!!

Enreina & Eight Belles

Enreina & Eight Belles
Originally uploaded by SideShowMom.

One of our Stablemate foals. The horse racing world lost another filly today. Eight Belles broke down after finishing second in the Kentucky Derby. She had broken both of her front ankles and was put down on the track. We are all deeply saddened by the recent deaths there and at the Rolex Three Day Event last weekend.

Friday at School

Friday at School
Originally uploaded by SideShowMom.

I'm jumping on the Everyday in May bandwagon, drawing something everyday this month. A bench and a Black Locust tree getting it's new leaves at my son's school in Noodler's Lexington Grey ink and Prismacolor & Graphitint watercolor pencils in my sketchbook.