I Draw and Paint Stories
Day 8 came to me after a bit of writing on and entirely different subject. I wrote a quick story about Christmas Eve with my husband’s family and sat in bed thinking of what I could do for Mistletoe and I pulled out my ipad and sketched this idea. When I got up, this is what came of that sketch. I find that straddling different forms of creative expression can help pollinate another form of creative expression to come up with ideas that would not have happened otherwise.
Today’s prompt is snowflake. For this prompt I actually cut out a snowflake from paper, scanned it into my digital program and then went from there. I made a bunch of snowflakes before I decided on which one I liked best and this one is the winner.
Today is St Nicholas Day. I celebrated St Nicholas Day with my kids as they were growing up when a friend told me that he and his wife celebrated St Nicholas’ Day with their children. They were Italian and apparently their family brought the tradition with them from Italy.
When my son was around three, I started the tradition for him. He would wake up to find something in his shoes. When I had my daughter, I continued with her and as we had grandchildren, we used to pop over secretly to leave something on their porches, but since we now live over 1200 miles away, we have to ship their surprises. Their parent’s received the small gifts and they will be out for the kids tomorrow. My husband’s family didn’t celebrate St Nicholas Day so my step daughters didn’t know what it was and I had to explain it to them. I am surprised because one of them has a father-in-law who’s family is still in Italy. I guess it depended on what part of Italy they came from? I don’t know but it was fun to secretly drive over to drop gifts off on the porches. It made us feel like we really were St Nick in a small way.
Today’s prompt is Nutcracker. We have a bunch of these guys. My husband loves them. He sets up a Winter Wonderland every year and we are currently getting the house prepped for it. I’ll post photos when they are done.
I started out by drawing the garland and wound up adding the door and the kitty. This way I could mail it to my mom as a postcard. My mom has a black tuxedo kitty with white paws named Barney. Barney is an outgoing kitty who is very adaptable. I put him in front of the door.
The door was inspired by a photo I took in Old City Philadelphia many years ago. I used to go to a cemetery there to paint because it is a beautiful place in the Spring. It’s just off of South Street. I haven’t been there in a long time.
The historic district of Philly is probably my most favorite place in Philly. There’s something really awe inspiring when you walk where the history of our country started, knowing that Ben Franklin and John Adams were there and these places still exist. I occasionally walked by Ben Franklin’s grave when I took my lunch time strolls. Amazing. anyway, this door is a nod to history and that part of the city.
One thing I miss about living in Florida is the Winter activities. When I lived up North, I was trying to get out more to do things outside. One thing about Long Island is that they would get snow there and it would last a while. One Sunday, John and I put our hiking boots on and hiked through a local state park in the snow. We really enjoyed it except that snowshoes or cross county skis would have been been better and we wanted to do more of that but life has a mind of it’s own and here we are in Florida. Not that we are complaining. It went down into the 40’s last night and we remembered why we don’t miss the cold.
I still have my ice skates, though.
Here is day 3. I tried doing a few things differently with this guy. I really like how he came out. All of these Christmas Countdown pieces all start with a pen and ink sketch and then I scan them in to my digital program to add color. I have been having fun with these.
Day 2 of the Christmas Art Countdown. If I still lived in the snow belt I would have to consider getting a sweater like this. I had fun designing it.
Some playful images coming up this month for you to enjoy while you prepare for Christmas (or other holidays) during the month of December…
For Day 1, we have a chubby penguin. He overindulged a bit on some nice fat juicy fish. He’s debating on taking a walk to burn off some of what he ate. I have occasionally felt that way myself, and found that walking actually does help after a big meal, like Thanksgiving.
This chubby penguin started out as a pen and ink drawing in a little book that I made just for the purpose of doing posts for this month and I may turn some of these images into a Zine that I have been wanting to make. I may also color these in another media which means there may be a “round 2” of posts coming.
I haven’t posted anything for the week because of the holiday. Even when I am busy with holiday activities, I still create every day. I have also added writing to my routine. Nothing earth shattering, but I am learning some tricks and plan to add that to my daily routine. I have been doing it for a week now and I may incorporate into my blog as well.
To catch up with my AEDM in one post….here are the daily portraits that I do every morning. These are in a new journal and I don’t remember where it came from. I originally tried to use it for International Fake Journal month but the paper sucks for drawing/watercolor and ink so I had put it aside. I am on a mission now to fill every sketchbook I had abandoned and this was one of them. It’s being used for my daily portraits and my writing to expedite filling it.
The one above, Ethan S, I had posted on Sktchy when I completed it but never got around to posting on my blog.
A little over a week ago I posted the pug sketch. Here is another sketch done with watercolor. I am basically auditioning various media to see which one works the best. I have an acrylic one started, on my desk. So far the watercolor version is winning but we’ll see tomorrow if I feel the same way about it.
Gina Lento: Fine Art and Illustration
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