Another Morning Ritual…

Another of my routines in the morning is my morning pages. I have spoken of this before in previous posts. I have a sketchbook that I use for a daily routine of writing, sketching, writing what I am grateful for and setting an intention.

I start off the day with two sketches. One in my morning pages and one on my doodle page. This way, it is my routine to draw every day. I don’t always get to do it first thing, sometimes we get up and hit the ground running and I end up doing it in an airport or the car. Once in a blue moon I miss a day but that’s rare. I never make excuses, I just do it.

For the last 100 days of 2019, my morning pages have been Chihuahuas. Since I was doing cats on the postcards, I needed a break. Plus in order to get better at drawing something, I need to practice at it so I used Chloe & Mack as models, but I also used Sktchy for reference photos, too.

For the uninitiated: Chihuahuas come in several versions. Long coat (Mack), smooth coat (Chloe), deer head, apple head (Chloe & Mack), short and compact, taller and streamlined, curly tail (Chloe & Mack) and straight tails All versions are “correct” except the compact version seems to show up in dog shows more.

Chloe and Mack’s tails get curled really tight when they are waiting for food and treats or when they are happy.

Here are some of the Chihuahuas from that 100 + day practice….

Happy New Year!

2019 has ended. John and I have been scurrying around through the holidays. We unpacked the house only to have to repack things to put Christmas decorations out. Now we are in the flip flop stage of putting Christmas away and pulling the everyday stuff back out.

I am still using the garage as my temporary studio. We are still debating on using the garage vs a “she” shed. The garage is contained within the house and easier to climate control but there are no windows so it’s like a tomb when the door is closed. Plus it needs lighting, a screen door to keep the bugs and lizards out and it can only be opened when the weather is nice. When the sun hits the front of the house I have to close the door a bit because the sun is not kind to art materials. It’s open right now but it is chilly today so I am a little cold. I have long sleeves and jeans on, so whoever thinks it is always hot in Florida, that is incorrect thinking. It gets down in the 40’s some nights. Good thing I still have my parka.

I have plenty of “doodle” pages to share which, instead of posting them all at once, I’ll stagger them over a few posts.

In the meantime, Happy New Year and I wish you joy, happiness and lots of luck in the New Year.

Editorial art

We are slowly getting things more settled and my temporary studio in the garage is looking much more organized. During the move, I had been taking a Lilla Rogers class for artists looking to fine tune their skills and build a portfolio for illustration.

It was tough moving and working on assignments for the class, which ended this week. I never took one of these classes before and I didn’t know what to expect or what was expected of the students. I liked how the class was formatted and I learned a lot.

The portfolio building assignment was based on illustrating a song by Lizzo called “Truth Hurts.” One part of her lyrics refer to Lizzo going to her hair stylist to getting a man washed out of her hair which made me think of “South Pacific” and the scene where the nurse wants to wash “that man right out of her hair.” That stuck out in my head so here’s my illustration, done entirely in Procreate on my iPad because my art supplies were packed….

Last 3 weeks of dailies

Well we survived the drive South to Florida. It was an exhausting adventure. The packing was the worst. Right now I am sitting in our garage as a temp studio. I still have a lot of unpacking to do and I am not sure if I want to unpack and just move it all later when the studio is ready, or just leave it in boxes.

The boxes annoy me.

Plus I need my books….especially my cookbooks since the holidays are coming.

Mack is on the carpet near me. Chloe is snoring in the chair with my father-in-law, in the living room. Our house is smaller than the one on Long Island but I don’t mind that at all. I set up the kitchen for living and cooking instead of snow bird mode. The lanai is now an outdoor living space instead of just a dining area.

I actually don’t mind the garage being my studio when the door is open. There’s nothing across the road except two undeveloped lots. Occasionally there are critters that visit, mostly of the lizard persuasion. There’s a turtle that comes around to graze on the lawn and tropical birds. Once in a while we hear riff riff raccoons knocking over trash cans or squabbling in one of the lots across the road.

Catching up, here are the past 3 weeks of daily “‘toons” I have done but didn’t post yet…..

Enjoy!

Happy Halloween!🎃

Inktober ends today! And there was joy in Mudville.

Here is today’s Little Witch & friends plus all the ones from 10/22 to yesterday.

I followed the prompts this year and using them gave me ideas that I would not have thought of on my own. It gave me ideas for introducing new characters. I’ll have to use prompt generators more often.

This weekend I’ll be closing the studio to pack. John and I are moving to Florida. It’s a bittersweet move and one that was caused by a job reduction for John. It wasn’t planned but we sensed it was coming and prepared. We’ll miss some things here, but we are looking forward to new adventures. At least we had one more October here before we moved.

Enjoy!