Project 365 - January 29-February 4

Tuesday, Jan. 29 - A kitchen flop. I've made this recipe for cowboy cookies many times, but for some reason, they just didn't turn out well this time. At least they still tasted good.
Wednesday, Jan. 30 - I brought home two books from the library that I'm very excited about. One is about cooking meals to stock in the freezer and the other is the sequel to Divergent, the book voted #1 on the Teen Top Ten List of 2012 and all around awesome book - dare I say better than Hunger Games?
Thursday, Jan. 31 - One of my goals this year is to do more freezer cooking. Today, I made two gallon bags full of chili, two sandwich-size bags of taco meat, and two balls of dough for pizza crusts to go in the freezer for days I don't want to cook or when my husband is home alone.
Friday, Feb. 1 - I got my foreshortening assignment back from Art Instruction Schools with a B+ grade.
Saturday, Feb. 2 - Value sketches for the Arabian stallion portrait I plan to do. Still trying to decide which one I like best.
Sunday, Feb. 3 - My mom's cat Bummer provided quite the entertainment during the Superbowl.
Monday, Feb. 4 - Food and library books seemed to be common in my life this week. This Amish cookbook has to be back to the library later this week, so I went through and made copies of the recipes I want to try.

First Project 365 post - January 1-7

I'd debated doing Project 365 this year, but I had not really committed to it due to the fact that I did make quite a few other mini-resolutions and decided I had enough on my plate already. But about 8:00 on the evening of Jan. 1, I decided to go for it. Nothing like last minute decisions!

I decided to go with a collage format, but if you would rather see my photos full-size, let me know, and I can do them that way instead.

So here we go - the first week of Project 365, 2013:

Jan. 1 - Playing dominos with my family.
Jan. 2 - Putting the finishing touches on the portrait I gave my mom for Christmas of her cat, Bummer.
Jan. 3 - Freshly baked bread and burger buns. I've been baking my own bread for over a year now and have gradually started baking most other bread-related things as well - buns, pitas, pizza crust, etc.
Jan. 4 - Pieper, my dog. This is her confused face wondering why the heck I'm kneeling on the floor pointing a black box at her and telling her to stay where she is.
Jan. 5 - My show tack from my 4-H days. This is set up at the library where I work for our western-themed adult winter reading program. I thought this was an appropriate day for this photo as it was 9 years ago today that I lost my precious horse, Sugar, who wore this saddle and bridle.
Jan. 6 - A self-portrait. We got back from playing games with friends from church at about 11:30, and I realized I hadn't taken my daily photo yet, so this is what you get.
Jan. 7 - Working our 2012 beef calves. They got shots to keep them from getting certain diseases (much like humans are vaccinated against measles and mumps and even chicken pox and the flu) as well as a solution poured on their backs that kills parasites. The boys were also castrated at this point and we took a closer look at the girls to see who might be good future cows.


Now that I've started, I'm very glad I decided to do this. I think it'll give you a look at my real life that I don't share much of simply because I don't know what and how much to talk about without boring you.

Sketchbook Sunday - January 6

Back at it this week. Sorry for the lack of posts the last couple weeks. The only thing I had to show I couldn't for fear of ruining a Christmas surprise. I showed a photo of him earlier, but here's the signed, finished scan.

Sketching from a model horse on my desk.

The finished assignment for my foreshortening lesson. I have the crappiest scanner known to man, so it's very light, but you get the idea.

And working on the next lesson - portraits. Going to be drawing lots of eyes, noses, and lips this week.

On a side note, I decided the evening of Jan. 1 to join in on Project 365 this year, so you'll be seeing weekly posts of my photos of the previous week. If anyone else is joining in this year and blogging about it, post a link to your blog in the comments - I'd love to follow you!

I wasn't entirely honest...

I have a confession... When I said I was taking a break from drawing for the month of December, I was lying. This is what I was actually doing:

The reason for the deceitfulness was that this is a portrait of my mom's cat, Bummer; this was her Christmas gift, and I could not post progress photos for fear that she'd take a peek at my blog.

Sketchbook Sunday - December 2

You won't be seeing any actual drawings that I'm working on for a little while. I've decided to take a little break after the last two projects. I'll probably start up again after Christmas.

In the meantime though, I'll still be working on my Art Instruction Schools lessons. Here's the current state of the assignment for the foreshortening lesson:

The hand and arm on the left are close to finished. The rest is just shadows and highlights blocked in.

And a sketch I did of my mom's cat, Bummer. She keeps nagging me to draw him for her. The black patch is just a test to see how he'd look against a dark background. With the white fur on his chin, I'm thinking that's what I'll have to do even though I don't look forward to it.

Animal, vegetable... fruit?

This past weekend I went to Wisconsin for a cousin's wedding and got to visit my grandpa while I was there. One of my favorite parts of going there is seeing the horses, of course.

But there were also two adorable half-grown kittens following us around.

We also spent a lot of time in Grandpa's vegetable garden.

While everyone else dug potatoes, carrots and radishes, I took photos...

... harassed a bee or two...

.... and saw my first real life swiss chard!

Grandpa also has a grape vine.

Raspberry bushes.

And apple trees so full of apples that he had to prop boards under the branches to keep them from breaking off under the weight!

Oh, so many apples!

We also made plans to go back in October when it's time to squeeze the apples for cider. If you've never had fresh squeezed apple juice, it's unlike anything you could possibly imagine - I can't wait!

I was having a bit too much fun with Picnik today!

So there you go - animals, vegetables, no minerals, but fruit is more fun to photograph than minerals anyway!