Pumpkin Latte

The favorite beverage of the season isn’t just plain jane old coffee and tea. No. It has to be dressed up with frills, flavors and a lot of calories. Every time I go to Starbucks, or I go to the app to do an order for coffee, I think of Tom Hanks in “You’ve Got Mail:”

“The whole purpose of places like Starbucks is for people with no decision-making ability whatsoever to make six decisions just to buy one cup of coffee. Short, tall, light, dark, caf, decaf, low-fat, non-fat, etc. So people who don’t know what the hell they’re doing or who on earth they are can, for only $2.95, get not just a cup of coffee but an absolutely defining sense of self: Tall. Decaf. Cappuccino.” – Joe Fox” 
― Nora Ephron

Only, I don’t think it’s $2.95 anymore and thanks to the more vegan non-dairy options, there are more decisions to make.

Today THEYDRAWTOBER’s prompt is “Pumpkin Latte.”

I have to say, now I have a craving for pumpkin pie.

Oh, I like mine with Oat Milk and was using OATLY long before Starbucks discovered it.

Inktober, Drawtober, Artober, TheyDrawtober, Drawlloween…whatever

It’s October…again…and that must mean it’s time to do art! Ink, pencil, paint, digital. You name it, you’ll see it this month. I am not sure who really started the whole October challenge. Inktober was started as a way for one artist, Jake Parker, to challenge himself and his friends. Drawlloween was a way Mab Graves challenged herself and her followers. The THEY DRAW websites of Salli Swindell and Nate Padavick, also have their own challenge and lists split between the three themes.

You can do one, all or none. Or go rogue and do your own thing. I actually prefer the going rogue route. Although the lists can be quite handy when you are stuck for an idea.

This year, I’ll be surfing the lists to see what I want to do. This is my favorite time of year, I love fall and Halloween so creating Halloween and autumn art is my favorite thing to do. I am usually not at a loss for ideas in October. I’ll be experimenting this month. Maybe trying some different things. But then, I do that all year long.

Today’s prompt was started as a sketch that I pulled into Procreate. The prompt is “caramel apple” from Nate & Salli’s They Draw and Cook’s list of THEYDRAWTOBER. I love caramel apples with peanuts (which I haven’t seen down here in Florida) so it was a no brainer for me.

Live Critter Sunday

The “posse” came up to my desk and gave me the “eye.” They also smacked my legs. I have no idea what they wanted because they already had their dinner. I got down on the floor beside them to play with them. Then John and I took them for a walk which seemed to make them happy. They came into the house and took a nap after that.

P is for Pretzel

I belong to an illustrator’s group and we recently had an A-Z challenge. I played with all sorts of lettering… I thought of all sorts of ideas, notes jotted, ideas written out…. but couldn’t get anything on paper until we did a Zoom last week and a pretzel was one of the objects for us to draw. Many of the illustrators commented about drawing pretzels and where you could get the best pretzels or whose bagged pretzels were the best. (I kept quiet, knowing that the Philly Pretzel is the best soft pretzel, especially right out of the oven.)

I sketched a bunch of Pretzels. Tried different versions. Tried pastels, tried gouache….

Until finally, my finished piece.

P is for Pretzels

I separated the different types, soft, hard, candy covered and I just had to add a pretzel bun.

Live Critter Sunday

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.

Lemons and….

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

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.