Quietly Creating

As I say goodbye to 2012 and wait eagerly for 2013 to commence, I am doing what I enjoy most--quietly creating. I think it's a fitting way to end one year and begin another.

I've been drinking a lot of tea, and saving the bags for future projects.

I deconstructed a number of books written in languages I cannot read, and dyed them in the kitchen using foodstuff. These were done with beets.

And these with blackberries.

I made a little tea cup and saucer to hold tiny books made from tea bags and altered book pages. These pages were dyed with onion skins.

I used the scraps left over from the tea cup and saucer to start a paper art quilt. I just love the beautiful shades of yellow made from the onion skins.

This is what I've been quietly creating as I contemplate all the wonder, joy, adventure, and creativity that I hope 2013 will bring our way. Thank you for coming along on my art adventures and for your comments, enthusiasm, and inspiration throughout the year.

Happy New Year my friends!

The Slowest Sketcher in the Midwest

That's me. My second watercolor Moleskine is finally complete. It was started in September 2010 and is a bit of a hodge podge that includes pages for sketchcrawls, Illustration Friday, List It Tuesday, and a few quotes and random pages of notes.

We started a small sketching group at work, and we try to meet at lunchtime once a week to sketch together and share other art interests.

I rarely (make that ever!) complete a sketch during one lunch hour. I will often spread it out over several sittings--sketching in pencil first, then inking the sketch, then adding color, and finally adding text. Quite often, the last three steps are not even done on site.

Sometimes, many, many months elapse between the steps.

Sometimes longer. This sketch took about a year to go from a pencil sketch to an inked one. I did go back to the statue to ink it on site. It was interesting to note the subtle differences in how I "saw" the statue the second time.

On this day I tried really hard to choose a subject that I thought I could complete in one sitting. It didn't happen. I still had to finish it at home.

There are even a few sketches in the book that I've deemed "abandoned." I'm pretty sure they will forever remain unfinished. That's OK. It will remind me to be grateful for the many moments I was able to capture and hold forever between the pages of my sketchbook.