Trying to get back outside more to sketch. I started this post last Thursday evening but as I was typing it, my daughter sent us a text
“I feel like there’s no way you guys didn’t hear that explosion? I just saw it on FB”
So, I didn’t finish this because we sort of were a little distracted…lol…
We had scooped up the dog children and put them in their car seats and drove over to the water. The city has been redoing the waterfront and it’s starting to come together. The trees still look like they are having bad hair day.
We parked a few spots down from a tiny car and I decided to sketch a car butt. Hey, it was there, ya know. It beats sketching just the landscape.
We left around 8:20-ish. Give or take. If we had sat there for another half hour or so, we would have see the New Glenn rocket explosion. The irony of this? We have cat 5 rated windows and slider installed at our house. Which makes the interior of our house sound proofed. When our daughter sent us a text, I was typing this and hubby was watching TV.
We drove down to the riverfront but by the time we got there, it was a low fire so we came home.
Nothing to see here.
A week later, today, apparently not everything was ruined so they may be back up and launching by the end of the year.
Over the past couple of days, I have been working on some Valentine’s Day art. I was given 5 prompts to post over the past few days, and today. The prompts came from a small group of artists that I have been working with on line. The leader of the group, Flori Fama, posted 5 prompts for Valentine’s Day and we each came up with our own interpretations.
Squirrels have been on our minds lately here at the house since there seems to be a sudden absence of them. We don’t know if the raptors are eating them but there has been some accidents with cars and falling out of tall trees lately. Our neighbors have all commented on the lack of squirrels but it has been cold here. I imagine the squirrels aren’t used to the severe cold, either.
The squirrels became the subject of this one.
I tried some different ways of doing my mailbox prompt, which included pulling in other work and to redo as Valentine’s Day. I love that I can do this in Procreate without having to reinvent the wheel. I even pulled in the painted background that was done with acryl-gouache on wood panel.
I was able to redo previous pieces like the cake and cookies below, that were originally done for Halloween, and recreated a whole new version for Valentine’s Day.
Some objects, like the teapot and teacup, were sketched from actual items in my house that I made up all new pieces for this prompt.
I had a ball with the carousel horse below. I found a whole new way to do horses in Procreate!
Lovestruck Carousel
And I also recolored the squirrels into monotone colors. I had to stop myself because it was becoming too addicting and I could have played with values all night!
There was a 5th prompt but unfortunately, I am not finished it yet so I will be posting that one later on our group board. I may add that as a Note later in Substack. Not sure if I can do notes here on WordPress. Something to play with, I guess.
Over the summer of 2025, I attended a virtual week long event hosted by Peggy Dean. One of the artists contributing to the event was Jessica Mack. She presented a Bullet Journal (aka BUJO) spread that she makes every year in her BUJO to track the books she read during that year. I use Goodreads for tracking my reading, but this is waaaaayyyyy more fun. Now I do both.
These are not meant to be a masterpiece. Just a creative and functional page (or spread) to track the books you read. I gave it a try in 2025. It was very satisfying to write my finished titles on one of the randomly colored books on the shelf. Not to mention that it looks so adorable in my bullet journal!
So far I have read 5 books in January. I am currently reading another that I am two-thirds of the way through. I mostly do my reading at night before bed, but I also try to squeeze it in at others times of the day. I have a goal to read at least 20 minutes a day.
New Genre for me
During December, I wanted to read more Christmas type of books. I found a bunch of authors I never read before. I became addicted to reading them, so I still have a bunch in my Kindle queue. I can’t believe I never knew that L Frank Baum wrote a Christmas book! I read that, too!
I like to read books in both the real version and the digital version. I mostly download the digital versions from the library and if I can’t find what I am looking for there, I head over to Kindle. I much prefer the physical book, but reading the digital versions that I only want to borrow saves money, too. Books I actually want to keep, I usually purchase the physical version.
Making the BUJO book page
Jessica Mack makes the page simple and easy to do. Measure out and make shelves, add books and then add plants and decor. And of course, the pet children. I did this mine with black ink and Tombow Dual Brush pens.
In 2025, I forgot to add Cleo to both my Christmas card and the book shelf. My daughter pointed that out so you’ll see that there is also a frame with Cleo for 2026. If you have been following me a while, you’ll remember Cleo as the black kitty who was running in and out of my sketches. She left us for the rainbow bridge in 2020.
Try it for yourself, your way. It doesn’t need to be perfect. Just have fun. You might find yourself reading more, too.
(Oh, if the ink smears a bit. That’s ok, too. Just make sure the black ink you use is permanent to lessen that issue.)
What I am reading….
Here is the finished page from my 2025 Bullet Journal.
The last 6 holiday sketches and saying good-bye to 2025
I am closing out 2025 with my last holiday sketches of 2025. Plus how this year went….
2025 as the new year
At the beginning of 2025, I sat down with my Bullet Journal and various artists’ suggestions on how to plan out your year; setting goals and scheduling target dates, and so on.
“Yeah, I GOT this,” I was thinking as I planned out the year. I diligently mapped out each month and quarter. I thought I planned and accounted for everything, including my daughter’s wedding, expected travel plans, holiday weekends and activities during the Thanksgiving/Christmas season.
The wedding plans absorbed more time than I originally thought I’d need but I happily chugged along with the planning assistance and creative tasks. The wedding was beautiful and we had a great time in St Augustine. A happy beginning to the year.
After the wedding…..
Dickens, our 6 month old kitten, had a routine kitten checkup where a potential dental issue turned into a trip to Gainesville to a dental specialist.
In the meantime, Mack, our geriatric Chihuahua became ill and eventually left to go to the rainbow bridge. There was a post back in June about Mack.
Summer
Dickens’ dental issues, turned out to be self inflicted. Not the brightest bulb in the box, but at least we know it wasn’t serious.
We up drove up to the grandkids in NJ & NY. It was good to see everyone. We took Lucy, our other Chihuahua, and left Dickens with our daughter.
Lucy had her first Cape May Ferry ride and she flew for the first time. At the airport, she tried to take on the airport security dog, who got in hot water with his handler for letting a tiny chihuahua distract him from his duties.
Around the end of summer, I found Flori Fama from one of my artist groups. She was so excited about Halloween that she started a group to start sketching for Halloween. I joined her group and I awaited September.
Autumn
Flori’s Halloween Challenge started and was so much fun. I didn’t do Inktober this year because they don’t do Halloween prompts and I love Halloween so that was a no brainer.
Holidays
A new addition to the family
While we were Christmas shopping in November….a little black fur ball came into our lives. We came across a long haired black chihuahua that we named Teddy. Where Mack had a heavy thick coat, Teddy has a very fine coat and he feels the cold, unlike Mack, who used to play in the snow and have snow dingles hanging from him.
After Halloween, the Holiday prompts
When Halloween ended, we all wanted to keep going with Flori and the group. Flori came up with prompts for December and we had a blast doing them..
I posted the first 6 in last week’s news for December. Here are the final 6.
Day 7 – North Pole bound – I interpreted this as letters to Santa..featuring Teddy because Flori’s holiday group wanted to see Teddy in my illustrations
Day 8 – Snow Kissed Village
Day 9 – Chimney Jam – featuring Teddy
Day 10 – Sugar Cookies by the fire. My Christmas card was used as a springboard for this one. I already had the cookies and milk. I moved the whole scene over to add the fireplace, which was our fireplace when we used to live on Long Island.
Day 11 – A gingerbread tail (tale) – I used my past characters from #drawcatsformom to create this scene.
Day 12 – Flori suggested Summer Christmas since she was originally from Argentina and it is summer there right now. I went with Tropical Christmas because I live in Florida.
Christmas and December were nice. I had fun doing the Christmas prompts. I also managed to get some reading done. I can’t complain about 2025, even though we lost Mack. And I found out some things about myself that helped me realize where I was chasing my own tail and what it is I really like doing.
Here’s a peek at what I have been creating this month
Aside from the usual mayhem that December brings…I have also been working with a small group to do a Christmas Challenge. You can read more about it on my Substack at this link:
Revisiting an old “friend” that has been frequently used in the past. A Pier One Stocking we purchased many years ago because of its quirkiness. I have drawn this several times in many ways and settings….I had it sitting on my desk and drew it again.
I did two color versions:
Day 2 – Rudolph where’s your nose?
A reindeer character I have been working on….
Day 3 – Snow Globe Wonderland
I was pressed for time and I have been hitting the sketchbooks and old work….this is a new and improved Snow Globe
Day 4 – Dyker Heights Teasures
My version using a summer plein air painting of Patchogue, NY, as a reference…I believe I also used it as a Christmas card several years ago….IIt was when I was doing my postcards – #drawcatsformom art to mail to my mom. took my current Procreate skills to tweak this for a new and improved version.
Day 5 – Silent Santa Night
Another Pastel painting inspired piece. I have been playing with this one off and on and tried some new composition ideas.
Yesterday, John and I had to make the tough decision to say good-bye to a member of our family. He was a long haired Chihuahua who came into our lives March 2 of 2011. Mack was born at Christmastime, and Christmas was one of his favorite times of year. He was especially fond of unwrapping gifts, even if they didn’t belong to him. Christmas will be really sad without him. He was just like a child, but in fur. We looked forward to seeing Christmas through his eyes every year.
Mack’s nickname was MR GQ, because he was always posing for the camera. He was such a handsome little dude. Lucy would be all over the place and Mack would patiently hold his pose.
Mack was a happy little guy. He was such a good boy, even with all of the vet visits. He didn’t care, as long as he got his dog cookie. He didn’t like children at first until he realized that they were walking food dispensers. He had an angle for everything.
I could go on and on about Mack. Our daughters wanted to call him Mac n Cheese or something like it. He got his name after he pushed the puppy gate that fell on him during the naming discussion, he just kept right on going, and my husband said he was like a Mack truck. So Mack became his name.
We loved him so much. He was our Buddy. He went out peacefully yesterday morning in John’s lap with me scratching his head. Our vet gave him a peaceful transition. He was a good boy even up until the end.
I am grateful that this little guy came into our family. He was a little sparkle of sunshine. Everyday with him, especially these last few years, was a gift that I always thanked God for everyday.
Ever since Chloe was taken from us 2 years ago, with no warning or inkling of a problem, I answer the following question when asked; “was it worth it; having them in your life, knowing what was to come?”
Yes, the joy and devotion that both Mack and Chloe gave us? Yes Yes Yes. It was worth every minute.
Good-bye little Buddy. You were such a GOOD BOY. I will miss you.
I have so many Chihuahuas that I have sketched or painted that I had a bit of a tough time choosing which ones to post. I decided to repost some of my Tiny Dogs from my Tin Dog series of 2020. These tiny dogs were painted in a tiny sketchbook that was provided by the (sadly now defunct) Sketchbook Project. Many of these tiny dogs were Mack and Chloe, but I also used reference photos from the Museum App (formerly the Sktchy app).
I played around with Canva this morning to present some of these in a fun format. All of the photos were taken of me holding the sketchbook so that readers can have an idea how tiny this sketchbook is. I was told that this was one of the more popular sketchbooks when folks used to go to the Sketchbook Project Library. When they announced their closing, I immediately went to retrieve my sketchbooks. I am so glad I did because this one out of all of them is one my favorite treasures.
To give credit to the creator of the Canva template, I used NassyArt’s “Beige and Black Scrapbook Film Photo Collage Portrait Instagram Post” template.
The second image is some recent Chihuahua paintings done on 4×4 wooden hearts.
I am a member of a Pattern Club called Pattern & Process. It used to be Photoshop Club but it has evolved. We had a Zoom session today and we sketched some reference photos. It was interesting to see how people used the photos.
Quick 4×6 sketch using Viviva Colors…more or less experimenting with the concept of color cards instead of paint and or tubes. It was a stormy day today and the neighborhood frogs loved it.
These floral arrangements are two little paintings completed on 4 x 4 wooden hearts. I purchased the wooden hearts around Valentine’s Day. These hearts are only available around the holiday, so I purchased several packs before they disappeared until next year.
Last year, when a friend asked me to paint a portrait of her cat on one of these heart, I was very lucky that I had one left! I went to get more to ensure I had some backups, but the store was sold out for the season. I did many detailed sketches for her approval before I did the final on the heart. She was very happy with her kitty on painted on the heart.
Having learned that lesson, I made sure that I bought plenty of the hearts this year.
The floral arrangements that I painted on the hearts were inspired by this huge, blue glass vase that we inherited from a house that we purchased several years ago. The previous owner had left everything, including the decor. My husband and I really like this vase so we purchased some artificial flowers for it. We bought flowers for everyday, then an arrangement for autumn and we also have a Christmas arrangement for this vase as well. It stays out all year.
It’s always in my view when we sit at the kitchen table and one day I thought, “why haven’t I ever painted this?” I picked up the hearts and decided to do a couple of versions of the vase painted on the them, playing with different color ideas. Looking at the little heart paintings today and writing about them, I am getting more ideas for playing with the vase, so don’t be surprised to see more. They are cute and fun to do!
Gina Lento: Fine Art and Illustration 
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