Running in Circles

I didn't run in the Chicago Marathon (or any marathon for that matter!) but I did do some sketches. These were done at mile four on October 10. I post them now because I feel like I've been running around in circles getting ready for vacation.

The sketchbook and watercolors are ready to be packed for the road. My intention is to sketch daily. Well, you know what they say about good intentions and the road… Wish me luck!

Happy Halloween!

Monday, Monday

Yes, I know it's Wednesday. This sketch was done on Monday at our sketch group's meeting at Millennium Park in Chicago. It turned out to be a beautiful day. I'm not thrilled with the buildings in the background but I am happy that at least I attempted them.

This was our last meeting until January. I'm going to try to still put aside the time on Monday to sketch by myself. The weekly outings have made me braver (still not BRAVE) about sketching in public.

The Plan Not Followed

Last Monday our sketch group went to the Shedd Aquarium. I always go with a plan of attack in mind but rarely follow it. Monday was no exception. The plan was to work in Ebony pencil and do value sketches. Ha! The colors were so glorious I don't think I gave pencils a second thought and the watercolors came out immediately. The lesson I learned was it's hard to paint in the dark!

The Chicago weather is getting unpredictable so we're beginning our fall-winter schedule and we'll meet only once a month until late spring. Where did the summer go?!

A Page for December

What a beautiful day! Our Monday sketch group met at Belmont Harbor. It was the first time in several weeks that I've been able to be there so I did a lot of catching up - chatting. I did get these quick captures done. Just enough for a visual respite come December!

Still Plugging Away!

Two more assignments done! I rarely use backgrounds in my journals. I like my "white space". But I had fun doing these samples and will work on adding more backgrounds in the future. In the second assignment I played with the enlarging the stripes idea and the plaid border from a previous assignment. That led me to play with the different points of view with the cherries. I should have planned better for the text. I ended up cutting and pasting over the original since there was a misspelling. The blank squares were left that way on purpose. I wanted a little breathing room, that "white space" thing maybe.

It's funny how looking at a scanned image can help you see things that you don't see at first. The double cherries would be more effective if I had the shadow cross over on to the background border.

I'm Late, I'm Late! Reprise

This week has been as crazy as the Mad Hatter's tea party! That's my excuse for being so late with my assignments and I'm sticking to it.

When I opened a box of Bonkers Tea the tag on the tea bag reminded me of one of the borders that I did for the first half of this lesson. Tonight, I finally sat down with a cup of the tea and went to work. This is the second half of assignment 7 on borders.