RIP Nora Ephron

I have to admit... I'm not much of a 'rom-com' person.  I think even the term sounds silly.  In fact, I make fun of my sweetie for loving sappy movies like Love Actually, The Holiday, P.S. I Love You, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. 

HOWEVER, pretty much anything that Nora Ephron touched was the exception to the rule for me.  I'm not sure why... maybe because her characters always seemed a little more quirky than the one-dimensional characters found in most formulaic romantic comedies.  Maybe because all her films-- even though they were set in modern day-- had a nostalgic feel to them.  Whatever the reason, I rooted for Harry and Sally to get together. I was devasted when The Shop Around the Corner closed because the big, bad Fox Books moved in.  I was sure that in some small hotel in the midwest, Michael the Archangel was adjusting his wings, drinking his milk right from the cereal bowl and smelling like cookies.

I was saddened to hear that Nora Ephron passed away this week.  I will miss her and her charming characters.  There was no one quite like her.  RIP.

Linking up with Paint Party Friday-- always a great place to find lots of inspiration!

Baseball nut

We're halfway through the Summer of Color2 Challenge and this week's "flavor" was baseball nut:

In keeping with the theme, I decided to go with something a little nutty and used the colors to capture an old Disney favorite. Of course, despite the uniform colors, I'm sure he's rooting for the Yankees!

Hope everyone's week is off to a great start! Don't forget to check out how others are interpreting this nutty flavor over at Twinkle, Twinkle!

Wonderful

Motto for the week:

Linking up with Sunday Sketches-- check things out over there.  You won't be disappointed!

Summer of Color Continues

As I mentioned last week, Kristin at Twinkle, Twinkle is hosting a fun challenge focused on the colors of summer.  This year's theme is ice cream colors-- with different ice cream colors each week. Now I ask you:  What's better inspiration than ice cream, especially on these hot summer days?  There were almost 115 artists who linked up last week!  It was so much fun to see how everyone interpreted the rainbow sherbet theme using different mediums and color palettes.

This week's colors are mint chocolate chip (another of my favorite flavors!) and since I spent some time at the beach over the last few weeks, I decided to do a quick sketch of the beach, complete with the resort's mint green beach umbrellas!  (Wasn't that lucky?  Well, maybe they were a bit more lime green, but I took some creative license.)

This was an attempt to loosen up and put something down on paper very quickly. I tried to use fairly broad strokes and then fill in the color quickly with just hints of color.  It's a style I love seeing when I look at the art of urban sketchers who capture the essence of outdoor scenes so quickly and seemingly effortlessly.  I need to allow myself to be more free and loose.  That's something I'm going to keep working on as opportunities arise. In the meantime, here is my mint chocolate chip beach scene:

Playing with new programs

This week, I discovered a new program that is kind of fun.  I especially like it for manipulating doodles that I'm not that crazy about into potentially more interesting pieces. 

Recently, I got some Copic markers.  Everyone seems to RAVE about these markers and I was swayed by how others used them to create gorgeously blended works of art.  But... these markers seem to be an industry unto themselves.  There are many classes out there taught by certified instructors, etc.  I have not taken any of them.  So, I've been a little disappointed that my own attempts to blend with them are not quite ready to hang in the Louvre (heck, they're not ready to hang in the local Motel 6). Perhaps I'm giving up too soon, but I think I prefer my paints and pencils.

Anyhow... I've been on a bit of a daffodil kick lately and so I attempted a lone daffodil with these new markers and, alas, found it quite one dimensional and cartoony (to be clear-- this was my deficit, not the markers!):

In an attempt to add something to it, I doodled up a few words from Wordsworth (off the top of my head, so I don't think they're quite right) and was equally unhappy with the uneven mess my pen created there, as well. 

That's where this cool little app came into play.  It's called Superimpose and it's for the iPad.  Some of the articles about it lead you to believe that its best use is for things like putting your dog's head on your grandmother's body, but it has some cool features that allow you to manipulate your work digitally-- something new to me.

Originally, the words I wrote were in solid black pen, but they were clunky and uneven.  With this program, I was able to create an outline view of the letters:

Still uneven, but not quite as clunky since they're not as dark.

And then I overlaid them on the daffodil:

Still not a great work of art... and I think I should have made the writing slightly less transparent and not stretched out the flower so much, but this tool might have some interesting potential for other projects.

Linking up to Paint Party Friday.  Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

Rainbow Sherbet Daisy Days

I am excited about participating in the Summer of Color Love Challenge this summer hosted by Kristin at Twinkle, Twinkle. For this first week, the challenge colors/favors are Rainbow Sherbet. What a great, colorful way to kick things off, with pinks, oranges, yellows and white. Look for this weeks Linky Widget at the link above and come join in the fun! I started in simple pen and ink, which I kinda liked for its simplicity: But in keeping with the theme, I used my Inktense pencils in my favorite oranges, pinks and yellows to bring some summery colors to the scene. Of course, I couldn't put it away without adding some lettering, which I think ended up being a bit too heavy handed for daisies. But, another great learning moment. Here's the end result: Hope everyone's week is off to a great start!

Light of my life...

I've been very excited about the fact that I can now upload directly from my iPad.  Although it is not always easy and not completely intuitive-- it takes a bit of futzing to move things from one program to the next in the steady progression toward actually getting it to upload to the blog.  I no longer see the picture itself in the draft, but just the html code for it where it sits.  And making things fit on the page correctly is whole other ball of wax.  But I'm learning and surely it will all be second nature soon.  It's also given me the opportunity to play a little bit with borders.  I'm not sure I really like adding the artificial borders, but it is fun trying them out.

I created this one on a particularly sunny day at the beach... the inspiration for all the yellows and oranges.  Alas, the writing is a bit wonky, but it's a learning process... :-) Linking up with Sunday Sketches for some great inspiration on this beautiful weekend!

Making the world go round

My sweetie says it does make the world go round, but I'm not so sure.  I think it takes a lot of ingredients to keep this big blue marble spinning.  But, love is definitely what makes it fun! Linking to Paint Party Friday! Check out what everyone's been up to this week... And don't forget to sign up for Kat Sloma's Liberate Your Art Postcard Swap! Have a great weekend!

Making it count...

This message really resonated with me.  So often we're just getting through the day to day and not really thinking at all about the bigger picture.  Maybe there's nothing wrong with that.  Maybe, making the most out of the day-to-day is what's inspiring. 

Deep Thoughts by Jack Handy... :-)

Sunshine

Lots of new Copic markers to play with. Still trying to get the hang of them so I can understand their huge appeal.

Ashley, at The Creative Place, has a great little challenge for the month of June to create a 3x4 card a day.  It's a quick and easy way for me to spend at least a little time on spontaneous creativity.  I love it. 

Staying young...

Hope everyone has had a fabulous weekend. Linking to Sunday Sketches for a great start to the week!

Happy birthday!

This week, my wonderful sweetie, turned 40 and we had a grand old time celebrating his youth! He definitely helps keep me young... And this quote seems very apt this week! Although it's late in the day, I'm linking up to Paint Party Friday and can't wait to see what everyone's been up to this week!