National Chihuahua Appreciation Day

collage of painted tiny chihuahua sketches

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.

Chihuahuas painted on wooden hearts

Painting Floral Arrangements on Heart-Shaped Wood

2 Bouquets of flowers in round vases painted on heart shaped wood. One leans towards shades of pink and one leads towards coral.
Wooden floral hearts

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!

Inktober Day 2

Arteza brush pens and Carbon Ink Jack O'Lantern with 2 Chihuahuas and a bird outside examining the lit pumpkin

The prompt for today is “discover.” Lucy and Mack have “discovered” live Halloween decorations.

Carved pumpkins seem to attract all sorts of creatures. When we lived up North. the local squirrels would eat the Jack O’Lantern every year. They would also eat the uncarved pumpkins, too.

Here in Florida, we found out the hard way that you don’t put the pumpkins out as decorations until the actual day of Halloween, or you’ll wind up with a mushy hot mess in front of the house.

For Inktober…I am back to using color. I am using a Lamy Safari Fountain pen filled with Carbon Ink and I am using Arteza brush pens. I have a specific color palette that I work with when I use these pens which means all the other ones I bought in the set aren’t being used. All of these little vignettes are being created in a 5×7 sketchbook that I made using Arches Text Wove paper.

I may have to use the other ones in another application.

Inktober 2024 Day 1

So much to do and so little time.

I debated on whether or not I wanted to do Inktober this year.

I also debated what I wanted to draw. Did I want to follow the suggested prompts, do my own thing or follow other lists. Or just pick and choose daily from various lists.

Did I want to commit to anything this year?

Halloween and my mom were a thing. They went hand in hand. My mom loved Halloween. We gave her Halloween gifts for Christmas. She decorated her house and dressed as a witch every year. Now, she’s not here for Halloween for the first time in my life and it’s abnormal. At least when she was living with dementia I could get excited about telling her things or picking up little Halloween themed stuff for her.

It won’t be the same without her.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ll still love and celebrate Halloween. That won’t change because like my mom, I love this time of year.

I will miss sharing it with her.

Oh well.

Moving on…My Little Witch series started back in 2018. I used the prompt “backpack” for this one.

I used a fountain pen and brush pens in a handmade sketchbook.

Summer Painting #8

It has already been a warm summer so far, so I thought that I would do a painting of a “cool” item from the suggested list. “Popsicle” is one of the suggestions on the list, though I am not sure why “ice cream cone” isn’t, but just as well, they are both a ton of Weight Watcher points.

( Side note: We were in Costo yesterday and for the heck of it, I checked out the Weight Watchers points for the Costco Chocolate and Strawberry sundaes. Yeah, they might be cheap but they are over 35 points each!!! Damn. You have to eat 0 points all week to eat one of those!)

The orange creamsicle is my husband’s favorite popsicle. I always liked those Good Humor popsicles with the solid piece of fudge in the middle. Even when I was young, I preferred anything chocolate. Although I wouldn’t turn down an orange creamsicle. Just recently, we went to visit the grandkids in South Jersey and my grandson and his friends were eating those push pops that are long sticks of colored/flavored water in a plastic sleeve. Kids love those. I used to keep them in the freezer for my kids.

When we used to go down the Shore (Philadelphians and South Jersey folks do NOT call it “Jersey Shore” ((that’s ssoooo NY) we called it going “down the Shore.”), we would sit on the beach and they had guys with coolers and that would yell “Ice Cream! Fudgie Wudgies!” That had the same effect as an ice cream truck driving through the neighborhood. The guys would get swamped with folks wanting ice cream. I remember the ice cream sandwiches….YUM.

Well here is the orange creamsicle painted on a 4×4 wood panel using Acryl Gouache.

Enjoy!

Small painting done on 4x4 cradled wood panel using acrylic gouache. Orange Creamsicle popsicle with a pale green background.

Summer Painting #7

Here is painting #7. One of my favorite flowers to grow and I am surprised I don’t have any here in my garden. I used to plant seeds every year when I lived in NJ and I would watch the goldfinches hang upside down to pull the yummy seeds out. I found one of those photos and there were bees and goldfinches in my sunflowers..

We were up in NJ recently to visit family and we drove by my former house up there. I was dismayed to see that it wasn’t cared for and the once beautiful majestic maple out in front of the house was a dried up dead skeleton. Equally dismaying was our much loved Colorado Blue Spruce had been cut down. My kids used to play under that tree. That tree was home to many creatures. How terribly sad.

My lilacs have also been cut down. Seriously? They hated lilacs?

When you sells a family home, you hope that the next family moving in would treat it with love and take care of it. We thought that we had sold it to people who would love it and the trees. The lilacs smelled so pretty in the Spring.

That house was brand new when we moved into it. I even picked where I wanted it on the property so that the trees could stay.

Ah, such is life.

This sunflower is reminiscent of the ones from that house. Another small 4×4 painting on wood panel.

Small painting done on 4x4 cradled wood panel using acrylic gouache. Subject is a solo sunflowers standing proudly as indicated by just the sky in the background. There is a bee headed toward the sunflower to load up on some pollen.