Toad in a Boat

A little Weedy Seadragon for Paint Party Friday. Aren’t they weirdly wonderful? It’s 4:50am and I haven’t had any sleep and can’t think of anything else to say so I’m just going to post the little guy and then go raid the kitchen.

Carla Sonheim’s Silly 1 Redux starts today. I hope to see you there!

So are you all sick to death of my silly found creatures yet? Believe it or not, I only show you about half of them. I do try to show some restraint! But this guy cracks me up. He looks so utterly morose, like he is having”one of those days.” I found him in some scribbles yesterday and right after setting the book down my son dragged in from college looking exactly like this! Well, not blue and no beak but the same posture and expression.  He looked at it and said, “That is how I feel right now.” Poor kid, but I fed him and listened to his complaints and he went off feeling a little better.

I’m having trouble with procrastination and lack of focus. Well, I always have trouble with these things but it seems worse lately.  I went into my art room earlier to fetch something, then couldn’t remember what. I sat down at the desk,  trying to remember. I got distracted by some eyeballs that were laying there. What? You don’t keep loose eyeballs on your desk? You never know when you will need an eyeball.  Anyway, I decided to make  a quick critter and give him one or more of these eyeballs.   I was craving a dark chocolate Snickers bar so I gave him a sweet tooth, too. I glued down a couple of other scraps that were on the desk and there you go. Kind of creepy and kind of cute at the same time. Did I remember what I went in there after? No.

Then I decided to waste a little more time by posting him to my blog, even though I’ve already posted today. Because I love you guys and I thought maybe a creepy little critter with a Snickers bar and lolly might be just what you needed today. Yeah, I’ll go do something productive now. Really.

I’m posting a bit early for Creative Tuesdays so I don’t forget. The theme is morning. Around here, the wild morning glories have been blooming everywhere. They are filling the ditches, climbing fences, and turning the road signs into interesting but unreadable topiaries. They only bloom for a few hours each morning but oh how glorious they are for those few hours.

I got a new sketchbook this week but I don’t think I’m going to like it. The paper is very soft and a weird yellowish color. It doesn’t like watercolor. It might work better for colored pencil but I had intended  to carry it with me  to sketch in when I’m out and I can’t carry a bunch of colored pencils everywhere I go, especially if I am trying to be inconspicuous. Anyway, this is a little monkey that I knit, standing next to my big wooden @ sign. My husband thought the monkey was a cow. He told me my cow was glaring at him when he went into the living room at 3am to get ready for work and I had no idea what he was talking about.  I frequently have no idea what he is talking about, so that was nothing new. Please join me in making the Sunday Sketches rounds to see what everyone has been up to this week!

I still haven’t touched my canvas but I didn’t want to miss Paint Party Friday this week so I decided on a little self portrait practice in watercolor today. This isn’t a partial image. I painted it in my little 5″x8″ watercolor book and didn’t paint all the way to the gutter so this is 4 1/2″ x 8″. I didn’t want to try to get my whole head in 4″ so I painted a cropped version. Yes, I really do have a freakishly long space between my nose and upper lip. It runs in the family.

When I sketched it, I just couldn’t get something right and I thought it was the cheek/jaw line. Finally I decided to scan it because I always see glaring errors when I look at my drawings on the monitor even when I can’t see them in the drawing itself. Turns out, the mouth wasn’t nearly wide enough. I saw it as soon as it came up on screen. Isn’t that weird how things show up like that on the monitor? And isn’t it weird how one part being wrong makes other things look wrong that aren’t?

There was a flaw in this paper, like a piece of gray fiber that was raised but also embedded. It ended up being right in the eye. That would have been really irritating if this hadn’t been a practice piece.  Anyway, it isn’t really finished and it isn’t great but it was good practice and  it gets me into the party, LOL.

Have I touched my canvas yet this week? No. But I’m looking and thinking and trying to decide what I want to work on. The piece I have started is mostly blues and browns (it’s a realistic piece and needs to be those colors)  and I think that is why I haven’t felt like working on it. I’m still in the mood for orange and red and pink. So it might look, to my husband for example, like I’m doing nothing. But the wheels are turning.