“Like mushrooms in Spring”

I often mis-remember/combine/ or translate idiomatic phrases, much to the puzzlement and amusement of those around me.
I cleaned up my studio on Sunday, sat down at my drawing table, and couldn’t think of anything to draw or paint. Sometimes if I paint a background, I get inspired so I mixed up a bright, spring-green color. The color made me think of the expression, “like mushrooms in Spring.” Afterwards I realized that expression doesn’t exist — I had confused the phrasing of “springing up like mushroom after rain.” Oy.
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Looking forward

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Daily sketch
Acrylic on mixed-media vellum

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Tangled: Sketch

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Berries: Sketch

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Heart

Tangle Heart

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Hide

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Apple

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This is a little composition experiment I painted as I’m thinking through this month’s journal quilt… (I know… only days to go in March and I’m still in the planning phase… but I have a really, really, really good excuse this time).

The spring-like weather drew me out into the garden last week so the first two garden beds are off and running — peas and radishes are all poking their noses of the ground. Spring is coming.

More importantly, I’ve finally started on my next writing project. I’ve got 40 3×5 note cards of ideas for scenes so the project seems to be coming along as nicely as my garden.

Have to protect those little sprouts, carefully. And those fledgeling ideas.

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WIP Wednesday: February Journal Quilt, part 1

Ok… I know it’s Thursday, not Wednesday but I have a REALLY good excuse this week — I hit a tree while skiing on Sunday and that threw the whole timing of my week off. And it also hurt a bit.

I’ve started some preliminary sketches for this month’s journal quilt.
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And started dyeing some fabric. I was going for chocolate brown, but added too much red so I ended up with this beautiful deep maroon:
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So back to the dyeing drawing board for another round of dyeing.

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Thinking of spring

The theme of this month’s Sketchbook Challenge is doodling — that feels like cheating because I already spend most of my drawing time doodling.

When I started drawing a year ago, I was really intimidated by a blank page and the need to be perfect. I would erase and re-draw lines until I put down my sketch in disgust. I couldn’t get my drawings to come out right. One morning I couldn’t find my pencil so I grabbed an ink pen… and now I mostly doodle in ink. I can’t fix an ink doodle so I’m free to be messy and explore.

In January the gardening catalogs arrive and I start planning spring:
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Keeping those resolutions

This was exactly the kind of week I wrote about in my post on resolutions — my youngest had an emergency appendectomy on Monday throwing our lives into a swirl of stress and chaos. Luckily we caught it in time and he is already up and about and chipper as can be. I am incredibly grateful to our Peds practice that caught it and sent him to the ER.
Last year I would have not even bothered trying to do any art this week, writing off the whole week as a loss. Instead I grabbed my sketchpad and a sharpie and did a little doodling while I sat next to him and we watched TV together. It felt good to do a little something arty and he has fun making requests:
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