More 30 Day Drawing Challenge!

I'm a few days behind in the 30 Day Drawing Challenge, but not as far behind as I am at this blog! I told myself I was going to get back to it, and by gosh, I am!

So when we last spoke, I was on Day 4's challenge on Day 5. I did finish Day 5's challenge that evening, just didn't blog about it. Day 5 was "Best Friend", and I used a photograph of my honey as the model, as my actual husband was all scruffy-faced and Don-King-haired on his day off all day.

This is one of the few shots I have of my husband smiling. Not that he doesn't smile, he just doesn't do so on purpose for the camera. Cute puppy, Troy, appears courtesy of our daughter's boyfriend.

Day 6 was "Favorite Book", and I had a good amount of trouble thinking of one for this, too. I'm not exactly a bookworm, but not exactly illiterate; I was just having trouble with the superlative nature of the word "Favorite" again. Then, I thought, what book do I use, go back to and enjoy the most?

Yeah, I know, I'm a word nerd. Plus, sheesh! Two days in a row of pencil and shading! Seriously, ENOUGH, for a minute, anyway.

Day 7's Challenge was "Favorite Movie", and I won't bore you with how difficult a choice that was, but, again, I went with my heart, and not what I thought would make me look good or whatever, and picked the movie that still seems as good today as it did when I saw it on some fuzzy Baltimore station on a little Black & White TV.

I went back and watched some clips of "Yellow Submarine" on YouTube, to get an idea of some of the shapes and colors, and it was just as much fun to watch! I was dorkily quoting dialog the whole day, which, out of context, makes even less sense than in context.

I'm all caught up(ish) to yesterday's challenge, "Favorite Cartoon Character", which I'm putting the finishing touches on. I decided that, although color is bold and fun and all, shading is really what I'm better at. Plus, I thought it'd be fun to create a shaded cartoon character from a flat, outlined image. As soon as I finish that, I'll only be a day behind (which, as I mentioned, is better than I've been doing at blogging).

So, is anyone else out there doing this challenge? What other challenges are out there that people are participating in? I had found a fellow artist doing a 28 Days of Faces challenge for the month of February, which looked like a lot of fun, and, had I seen it first, I probably would have picked that one instead. I love creating faces!

Feel free to leave a comment and tell me all about your mid-winter creative endeavors!

New Christmas Card and Cleaning My Desk...

Not sure what the one thing has to do with the other, but they were the two subjects I took pictures of today. For years now I've thought that my electron micrograph (that's a photograph of something taken under an electron microscope) of crystallized stain reminds me of branches and the little globs in some places looked like berries, so I finally turned it into a Christmas card! Here's the original image: The original photograph was created on real film, creating this odd sized negative (something like 4" x 5") which wandered around the country with me for years and years before I finally got around to and found a place that could scan it and produce it in digital form. From the digital image, I was able to use The Gimp to colorize it a nice Christmas-y green, then I picked out some of the little clumps of dark areas and turned them into red berries. After printing it onto high quality photo paper, I mounted the photo onto a 5" x 7" card:

I have listed this item for sale in my Etsy Shop.

I have also been working on several other things today, even though it has been a relatively quiet day. I took a snapshot of my desk, because it was looking decidedly picturesque:

The picture shows the bunch of fall leaves that my friend sent me from Ohio, my Day Planner from an Artful Agenda, my buttercream scented, handmade soy candle in a hand-thrown pot from Mad Hatter Pottery, the return address labels I just got from Animal Humane of New Mexico (They spelled my last name right! I think I'll send them money!), my yummy, warm cup of coffee with sugar-free hazelnut creamer in it, and the drawing I've been working on, entitled "Miasmata." (For anyone too lazy to go to dictionary.com to look it up, miasmata is the plural of miasma, meaning the noxious exhalations from putrescent organic material, or a dangerous, foreboding or deathlike atmosphere.) I thought this photo made a nice little snapshot of my day, plus, I cleaned my studio the other day, so you can actually see the surface of my desk in places, which impressed the hell out of me, if no one else.

Oh yes, I took pictures of one more thing today, the adorable pile of mammals on the bed this morning--Mimi, Cassie and Sean: