The Gurls

There is a party happening in my living room! Four full-sized, life-sized Red Hat Gurls are sitting in my living room having a chat.
One of the Red Hat groups I belong to is decorating a car for a PT Cruiser convention at the end of the month. They asked me to design them. I found some Styrofoam wig forms to use for the heads and painted them up. Members provided wigs, hats, clothing, and accessories. This morning 5 of us got together to assemble the gurls. We stuffed thermal underwear and pantyhose to make their bodies--including bras to make sure they were curvaceous. Then we dressed them up. Three of them will sit in the car and one will be hanging on to the roof.


They will sit in my living room for the next three weeks. Their next adventure is a ride to the convention. I can't wait to be driving down the road with these three lovelies riding along--properly seatbelted, of course.

Peek-a-Boo

While I have been working on the drawing course, I have gotten interested in doing more work in graphite. This little guy was at my friend's backyard feeding station one night along with another young raccoon. She was able to get some wonderful pictures. She said they were afraid, but not so afraid that they ran away. They were more curious about her. She sent me a number of the pictures and gave me permission to use them. This piece is about 2.5 x 2.5 inches. It is done in graphite pencil on white Bristol Plate paper.

Peek-a-Boo

More Baskets

I am really enjoying my basket classes. It is a different set of skills than painting and so it is just a fun relaxing activity. Here are some of my most recent baskets. These were each a single class about 3-4 hours long.


This one was an all day workshop. It was pretty difficult. The weavers were thicker than usual and the round material that runs along the handle and the top edge of the basket had a mind of its own. It is a beautiful basket, though.

Teapot

Sometimes we just have to try our hand at something different. On a recent visit to Baltimore, my friend and I went to one of those paint-your-own pottery places. She needed to pick up some items her children had done and I took the opportunity to paint a teapot. When you go to these shops, you purchase the bisque ware and for an additional fee (essentially, the price of the piece again) they provide glazes, paint brushes, and other tools so that you can paint your piece. When you are finished, they apply the glaze and fire the piece. It is ready to be picked up about a week later. My friend had to pick my piece up and mail it to me. I got it a few days ago.

My teapot has a sponged basecoat and then I drew my poppies on the sides with a pencil before I painted it. When you are working with glazes, you cannot be certain what it is going to look like until after it is fired. There is a certain element of surprise in the process and you don't have as much control as you do when painting with acrylics, oils, or even watercolor. Here is my teapot. It is a respectable effort, given that I was guessing at what the result might be.

Drawing Course

I have just started working through Ann Kullberg's Draw What You See course. The first step is to do a pre-lesson drawing of a portrait from a photo that is provided in the kit. After you work through the lessons, the last lesson (number 6) is to repeat the same drawing using the tools and techniques you have learned in the course. The before drawing is to be done in under 2 hours, with little or no erasing, and using no "helpers" like rulers or grids. Here is my before. Stay tuned to see the progress.