Birthday girl

This little baby turned eight this month and she had a lot of fun on her birthday.

Summer bouquet

Another random sketch straight with the brush.

Shoes

I have been on a search for good, comfortable and affordable shoes recently. As I did not have much of a success I decided to paint the ones I liked from

Joules.I am just dying for the pair of those milk-and-coffee colored canvas shoes with the pink shoe laces.

Fashion girls

Here you can see some more random sketches.This time I used some fashion catalogs for inspiration-JCPenney and Joules.I painted them straight with the
brush but in the first one I used colored
pencils for the fine details.

The parade

I don't know about you but I love to watch parades.Maybe because I can stare at people without embarrassing myself or making them feel embarrassed.I like to observe people and then try to use the observations in my art.I take tons of pictures to keep the atmosphere and the images fresh in my mind.

I watched this parade with my daughter and my mother -in-law.My favourite part of the parades are the marching bends.I love their uniforms,their shiny instruments and their lovely music.

A hamburger and fries,anybody?

Another random sketch inspired by a magazine.Country living US edition.Watercolor in my sketchbook.

Random sketches

I've been sketching recently random things with watercolors straight with the brush.Everything that attracts my attention or inspires me with something.It could be from life or from a magazine.These two sketches have been inspired from Country living magazine the US edition.

New project-my crazy afghan

Inspired by the book I wrote about in the previous post I started a new project,an afghan I would make with the leftover yarn I have lying around the house.I don't know when I will finish it but I love the freedom of experimenting with colors,texture and patterns.You can see the beginning in this picture.

I think I will get rid of some loose ends but I will keep some of them for more interest and texture.

Something cool

I bought this old craft book at a sale for used books several months ago.It cost me only a couple of dollars.I bought it just for the idea of the afghan in these pictures.It is crazy cool ,isn't it ?
The colors,the pattern, the arrangement of the squares.There are some more interesting ideas in the book too which I can share in another post.
I started a project inspired by this afghan.I am going to use my leftover yarn on it. But I am going to post about it the next time.

Starry night

Last night my step daughter,my daughter and I went outside to watch the meteor shower.The night sky was just gorgeous.Not even a cloud, just huge bright stars and the song of the crickets.
I could see one shooting star,my step daughter saw a couple only my little one could not see any.
She was sad but she still needs to learn a lot about patience.Anyway she saw a lot of interesting things this night-The Big Dipper,several aeroplane lights,the light of a satellite and a baby frog.
This sketch is an attempt to draw my daughter drawing in her sketchbook.The resemblance is a little bit off.Here she looks older than she is actually.Watercolor pencils.

Summer sketches-trees

Watercolor pencils in my sketchbook.

Summer sketches-animals

Watercolor pencils in my sketchbook.
Used pictures from newspapers
and magazines for inspiration.

Some summer sketches-flowers.

Both sketches were completed with watercolor pencils.For the first one I was inspired by a photo in Country Living magazine the British edition.For the second one I used my own picture as a reference.

Pencil sketches

I sketched these bunnies about 10 days ago .Early in the morning I noticed
three little rabbits jumping around in my front garden.They were fun
to watch and sketch.
Two of them had some kind
of problem-fighting
and jumping at each other.
Then they withdrew
at a safe distance and
went on with
their breakfast.
The third of them got
so brave that he tried
to climb on our porch
but then he got scared
and went back to
the grass.

Thank you,Anna Emilia!

Yesterday when I went to the Post Office there was a brown package awaiting for me.All the way from Finland,from Anna Emilia.She was sending me the watercolor painting I won from her give-away.Inside the brown package there was another pale green package and a small print of another of Anna Emilia's watercolors .It was wrapped so beautifully that I did not dear to open it right away. Eventually I did it and there it was -her wonderful delicately painted watercolor Midsummer Meadow .
It is so beautiful I can't take my eyes away from it.Thank you,Anna Emilia!

Hats

Looking through my photo archive I noticed this picture of baby hats.I made them as presents for two of my coworkers who were going to have baby boys in March.
Didn't they turn out really cute?
I was going to post about them
but then decided against it . To keep
it a surprise.
I should make some more of them for my Etsy shop.

One of the many joys of summer

Growing my own vegetables is one of the many joys that summer brings to me.I have a small veggie garden in my back yard that I love to tend

to.And now here comes the rewarding part of the gardening-harvesting your own vegetables.

These are the first veggies I picked up the other day.

Besides the pleasure it has an educational element into it.It teaches my little daughter where the food comes from.She likes to help with the garden and her favourite part is watering the plants.

One Belated Post

I promised to post about the ACEO I bought at the art fest in the park a couple or tree weeks ago but I am kind of late.Sorry about that.I have a serious reason for that.I have some health problems and at the moment I am recovering after surgery but let's not talk about that.I am doing really good.

The name of the local artist I bought the little watercolor painting from was Hannah C. Heyer.I fell in love with her delicate and fine brush stroke.It takes a lot of talent and fine skills to paint these tiny details in the small painting.And of course it was a winter landscape because I have something special about winter.I think I mentioned many times how much I love winter.

For the people who wonder how big the painting is I just would like to let you know that ACEO paintings are of the size of a trading card.Hannah Heyer has a blog- http://ambitioussnail.blogspot.com/ and an Etsy shop with the same name.You can visit them and admire her work yourself.

Happy 4 of July

Happy 4th of July to everybody.I hope all you have a wonderful weekend.

Keeping myself going-pencil drawings

Sometimes one feels like doing something creative but does not have any ideas or does not want to start too big of a project so she looks around and sees her daughter's math textbook with wonderful bright pictures.The faces of the little kids are so cute and expressive.Yea,why not?She grabs the regular #2 pencil and draws them in her sketchbook. So simple and a lot of fun.
That's what happened to me last week.The textbook is Math for second grade,Harcourt publisher.