Fall Festival Weekend

I love this time of year! Almost every weekend in October and most of November, the small towns of NE Texas have some kind of fall festival! Every year, on the last weekend of October, Omaha has a Country Fair and Art Show. I have participated in this small show for 3 years now. It offers no money for prizes but they give beautiful ribbons made especially for this show, and it's very enjoyable to get out and talk with the artists and townfolk! This year I won 2 First Place and 2 Second Place Ribbons, but will never top the first year when I received the Sweepstakes Ribbon!

It was a BEAUTIFUL day to be outdoors, too--no rain! The drive to Omaha is very pretty and I saw more interesting things! First, I saw a cow lying (laying?) on a big pile of hay (was the ground too wet for him or was he saying "all mine!"); then down the road a ways, at my cat groomer's place, in fact, I saw two llamas stacked up, whoa!, took me a minute to realize what was going on! Then, over on the right, there is a miniature horse farm, I always love looking at those little animals. Finally, a few miles later, over on the left, is a herd of buffalo--yes, buffalo, something you don't see everyday! Is this what is meant by "stopping to smell the roses"?

Next Saturday, I hope to attend the Winnsboro Art Fest. More about that later!

Some More Winners and a New Start

I started this new piece a couple of days ago, and already have made so many changes that I may need to start over. It's also larger than the scanner so you only see part of it (but the largest part)! It's approximately 11x14 on Fabriano Artistico, a mid grey. As you can see, I'm having the most trouble with the face. I really could use some lessons in portraits!!!

And, a photo of fellow artists, Mary Liles, Ronnie Slavodnik, and Martha Jordan, all winners in the Mixed Media category at our art show this month. I also didn't identify my fellow winner in the previous photo, Cari Brown.

Great News for Me!

There hasn't been much time for drawing the last couple of days as there was so much to do getting ready for our annual Membership Show which is held at the Texarkana Regional Arts and Humanities Council. Tonight was reception night and I'm thrilled to tell you that my "At the Market" turnips drawing won 1st Place in the Graphics Division. I also received the 3rd Place for "Travelin' Man". (That drawing got me a lot of ribbons this year--and to think I almost passed it over! ) It was a very nice evening and I thoroughly enjoyed visiting with everyone who attended.

More Catnapping!

After a couple of days of adding and fixing, I'm not sure this is going anywhere! The scan is much more yellow than IRL. I'm having a tough time deciding what pencils are best for the flowers on the cushion. The real flowers are reddish but there is already so much red inthe cushion and bright red just doesn't seem right. Sure wish I could find this ref. photo. I think it was on the old computer so I need to get out my backup drive. Still have a lot of details to fix.

Cat Napping

This is what's going on now! This drawing was started probably six years ago! While looking through some of my old drawings, I picked this and one other cat drawing to do some additional work on. I can't believe at the time that I thought I couldn't get any more pencil down. This is probably on Bristol 300 which I don't use any more. It already looks 100% better than it did, and I have a ways to go. I didn't really finish it in all areas--wow, I think I have learned lots in six years!

Rounding the Turnips

More color has been added to the turnips to give them a more rounded look--I hope it worked, I have a tendency to go either too little or too far, so I chose to go a little at a time!! All my photos have been taken with a digital camera on cloudy days, so today I have a second photo. I scanned the drawing so it is only the portion that fits on the scanner, but I think it shows truer color. Let me know what you think! (The top photo is scanned).

Down to the Tweaks

FINISHED! All but a few tweaks here and there! But the way I work, I'll tweaked it to death, so it's good I have a day or two before I can get to the framer's. I'd love to hear any suggestions that would help make it look it's best. If you see a spot I missed please let me know. I will have one final post as soon as it's "tweaked to death" and has a proper title!