Live Critter Sunday

| Gina Lento

This Sunday I have another of our feathered friends. I was out for my morning walk and spotted this raptor. He/she was perched on a fence and let me get close enough for a photo. It hangs out in the area and we frequently see him/her hunting and often hear them calling to each other. There is plenty to eat here with lots of squirrels and bunnies. I think they eat the lizards, too. Many of our neighbors marvel about how close these birds are perching near humans. I sometimes wonder if we are the ones being studied.

As I am typing this, I can hear roosters already competing on who can crow the loudest and I have the door closed and AC on so it is surprising how loud they can be, plus they aren’t in my development but in the surrounding area. There is also a mockingbird making angry chatter about something which isn’t surprising. They seem to be annoyed about everything this time of year.

Enjoy your Sunday.

Moon And Stars Kittie

| Gina Lento

This is another pattern that I created on my IPad from the sketch I did for the other stuffed kitty. I changed the kitty to have a hat and swapped the pumpkin for a moon. However, I had to changed some things on the fly and and I still may have to tweak the next one.

Lemons and….

| Gina Lento

I belong to an illustrator’s group and a couple of times a month we get together to draw or learn a cool trick or tip.

The guest this week was Jennifer Orkin Lewis and we were working in our sketchbooks, drawing a collection of objects that she had assembled.

I drew mine directly from gouache and I didn’t screen shot the images so I had to wing it once the camera was directed at Jennifer’s sketchbook.

The lemon had a sticker but I forgot what was on it so I let it go. This whole sketch was unplanned, or I would have placed flowers a little lower and I couldn’t remember the flowers so I winged it.

Overall, I did find that since I had to wing it anyway, I was less stressed about the exercise and just enjoyed the “play.”

Flower lady

| Gina Lento

Not everything I “find” on a page is an animal. The other day I found a rose, and on this page, I found a lady with flowers, her expression showing us that maybe stopping to smell the flowers and taking that moment for a quick meditation, just may be what the “doctor” ordered.

Kitty-ween

| Gina Lento

I like to make felt creatures and dabble a bit with textiles. Creating patterns and seeing how they turn out is fun. I also see what needs tweaking for the next one, but just seeing the outcome and whether or not the pattern was successful is pretty amazing. This is a nice relaxing exercise that helps me think of even more ideas. I never imagined being someone who sews but these are basic stitches that even I can master.

This pattern started out as a sketch in my sketchbook, that I pulled into Procreate and then created my pattern from the sketch. I kept it simple but I wanted to do so much more lol.

I may make a bunch of these and sell them. At the least, I’ll probably mail one to my mom.

Live Critter Sunday – Bald Eagle

| Gina Lento

Labor Day, (last Monday), John and I went on one of our “tiny adventures” and we passed by a pond and John said he saw an eagle. So we turned around and went back and I took these photos and sure enough, it was. It’s not the first time we’ve seen eagles. They are in many parts of Florida, but it’s always awesome to see one.

Long beaked Cardinal

| Gina Lento

Another Imaginary Creature pulled out from the page. I drew the beak long and almost erased it, but left it because it isn’t supposed to be representational anyway.

There’s a lot of angles to this guy. He uses them to hide in oak and elm trees.

I also included what the page looked like before I painted him so you can see where I got the idea for him.