The food came before I could draw the man she was talking to.
They learned the first two bars of a Beethoven piano concerto and played it over and over and over and OVER AND OVER again…. Ha. The great part was they were having a good time and were sitting in one place long enough to sketch. At one point, when I was sketching her hand, Lily made her doll play it. Another sketch done standing up.
It looks almost nothing like her, but I figure I don’t have enough color on this blog and I should post stuff even if it humbles me into sketching more and improving.
This is when she wanted to go home to get a pair of pants so she could do “upside-down things”.
I have been working a lot lately, and not drawing for fun as much as I probably should, oh well –for a guy who’s basically freelance, it’s good to be working! So night before last we all went out to the local Mexican restaurant and the girls wrote their names on the backs of their kid’s menus, then came over to my side of the table and asked me to draw them under their names.
I like how Jane had to give me a credit on the bottom of her drawing. It’s funny, too, how she had to use my full name, as opposed to “Dad”. Kids are funny. You can almost make out what’s written on the other side of the paper too. Hopefully I’ll have some time to do some proper sketching here soon.
As we were cleaning out the garage a little while ago I stumbled upon these paintings we had done for Joan as a mother’s day gift about four years ago. (Note how much younger the kids look.) Anyway, I had bought four of those little nine-inch pre-stretched, pre-primed canvasses and asked the kids to paint her pictures while I painted them painting. Mine is really more of a sketch than a painting. I just drew with a fine point Sharpie directly on the canvass and colored it with the craft acrylics we had (you can see the bottles of paint on the table). I know this isn’t recent, but when I saw them I thought it would be fun to post.
I like this abstract one Lily painted 🙂
Today Jack and I went to our local barbershop. The only problem is that this is an old fashioned place, and my barber is well into his 80s, and Jack was not prepared for the amount of hair the kind gentleman would remove (despite my asking for a “trim”, etc). I like getting all that stuff out of my eyes, but to a 12-year-old it’s an entirely different deal. Oh well. Live and learn.
I have been inspired by Laura of Laurelines to do more color sketching, so I bought one of those little 3″ x 4″ moleskine cold-press watercolor sketchbooks. For years I’ve avoided cold-press paper, not liking the “bumpy” texture; but I think my drawing style is evolving to a place less controlled and more into accidents. I like cold-press now.
Here’s how Jack’s costume turned out (click to see more shots & details)
I was able to get off work a little early to take him and his sisters around to do the trick-or-treating. Lots of fun.
Anthony Zierhut 