drAnn's Art

The Old Chalk Board Makes a Comeback

 
  It has been so long since I posted anything here that you must think I shriveled up and died.  Actually, it was quite the opposite. I've been taking a lot of trips and just haven't had time to check in at the drafting table.

But one of my New Year's resolutions is to put together some portable drawing tool kits and start taking them places.  That should be an incentive to get back into the habit of drawing at least something every day. In line with that, the 99 cents store had some cute little slate boards with colorful frames and a hanging string.  I bought one to doodle on:

 

  
                                                                                                                                  

Figs

While looking for a recipe for fig pasta, I found this awesome site:

 

They Draw and Cook What a wonderful way to combine art and food. My fig trees are not big enough to bear fruit, but I am getting bumper crops from two different friends who have wonderful trees and do not eat figs. Lucky me!

Duke's Steakhouse

In line with my philosopy that artists have to eat, here is a work of art from our favorite Hemet restaurant, Duke's Steakhouse:

Yes, this yellow sweet potato is 9" across and slathered with butter and brown sugar.   I looked at it while I ate a bowl of clam chowder and a fraction of their scrumptious filet mignon.  Dessert was a non-alcoholic strawberry colada.

Oh, they served awesome onion rings, too.

Usually I order rack of lamb when we go to Duke's because it really is phenomenal, both spiced and cooked to perfection.  Of course, I always choose their sweet potato, and last night's steak was exceptional.

Needless to say, the high point of the evening was when June-na came by to greet us.  Other terrific servers have waited our tables the last several times we ate at Duke's, but she was our first and always remembers us and stops to say hello.  This, in addition to the wonderful food, keeps us coming back.

 

Excessive Heatwatch

When Wunderground posts an excessive heatwatch warning in red, what do I do?  I go out and watch the heat...me and my Samsung Moment " Google" Phone.

  This self-portrait was taken yesterday in Southwestern Arizona where it was over 100F already in the early morning, without a trace of wind and not a cloud in the sky.

Today it was partly cloudy, with a lovely breeze, but much hotter: 

Inviting Tiles

  I haven't "done" any art lately.  Life got in the way.  What is life without art?  Good point, but not doing it isn't the same as not seeing it.  Art is everywhere, including this tile in front of the railroad tracks

More Fish

I've been busier over at my gardening blog and haven't taken the time to draw anything lately, so today I sat down at my drafting table and said, "OK, I will draw something, anything, just to start getting back in the groove."

So here it is, something, a fish:

  and here it is in color:   

A New Avatar

I brought my drafting table down to the new place, but haven't set it up yet. 

  

 AVATAR KAT
 

An Example of How I Use my Wacom

I have a Wacom Intuos 3 graphics pad and people who hear I am an artist often think that I use it to draw.

Well, not exactly.  I use it more for playing online computer games than for drawing!

But it's real function in my life is for retouching line art and photos.  Generally when cartooning I start with a soft pencil on newsprint and then transfer the image by hand to white paper where I ink over the pencil.  Next I take a picture of my drawing with a digital camera.  My Canon Powershot has a 1Gb multimedia card that I can insert into my laptop's card reader.  I open the file with Paintshop Pro (the last version before JASC was bought out includes PSP and Animation Shop) and that is when I start using the graphics pad.

Here is an editing sequence showing how I got from the hand drawn cartoon to a drawing I posted previously:

 

Happy Holidays

Here is a toast to all of you:

  I took the original photo (on the left) to illustrate an article I wrote about Amaranth Tea:

A Pretty and Nutritious Tea

Then my photographer brother enhanced it to make this holiday toast.  I like it!

A New Avatar

 


Got my shiny new Google Wave invite and had to play! Should be riding the bike instead, huh?