Girl in Red

I knew I had been neglecting the blogs but time does fly, didn' realize is was eight days. I apologize to my regular readers ( both of them.) I'll use the last minute tax season and a touch of stomach flu as excuses.

This girl was with others in a old postcard, all looked like sisters and all had thier hair cut the same. Nothing written on it so just guessing it was sisters but looked like a family thing.

Angel

Drawing Angels yesterday, maybe in honor of Easter although it wasn't an intentional thought.

Wasn't that happy with any of them but to post something you get to see this one. Angels are good as with other like things nobody knows exactly what they look like so this good be an exact likeness. I did actually get outside and draw a little today, benifits of spring time. Just the trees and daffodils though which I have already posted. I was doing it in between raking leaves, alien leaves at that as we don't have that kind of tree. Also last years leaves which we raked up before the winter set but somehow someone snuck over and dropped another ton or so on the yard. I think it was my neighbor who also happens to be my brother in law. He has that kind of tree so they are HIS leaves to start with and what I figure instead of raking them he took a leaf blower and just swooshed them over into my yard. That's not even the worst because he doesn't even have a leaf blower so he must have used mine. Trying to remember if he borrowed it last fall but not sure.

Anyway my grandson was over and my wife said she would pay him to rake the leaves and he went out, maybe three, four minutes before coming back and saying he was done. Not sure if she paid him or not but I got mad about it and figured I would go and rake the leaves myself before he comes back and wants to get paid again to do the same job. I don't mind raking but my system is to take about a half hour break for every ten minutes of work. I got a big waste can full of the leaves up but after it didn't look like I had done anything so my grandson will probably still get the job again.

Face Neocolor II

Harbour Lighthouse

The drawing today is the lighthouse in Chicago Harbour, done from pictures and memory and made up.

Nice quiet day today, the wife gone to Peru (Ill) with family to have a brunch with Aunts who live there. Actually they went to the lodge at Starved Rock and Illinois State Park. I've been to Starved Rock a few times, nice there but the wife doesn't recommend the brunch. Her report is that for 19.00 a person the food was pretty bad. The last time we went there together we had a cabin with another couple and it was good to get out and hike around, some really nice and pretty stuff if you look for it. That was some time ago and pretty sure neither one of us would be up to much hiking anymore.

Girl with flowers

As often the case my model is from a photo in my vintage collection. They work for cheap and rarely complain. I change them enough they wouldn't recognize themselves even if they do follow blogs at the really old folks home.

I have a lot of things to draw from now, yesterday uploading pics from my digital camera, something I hadn't done in awhile, 280 pics being awhile. Not sure why I let it go that long except to say prograstination is an art form and I am a master at it. Lot's of family stuff of course, holloween pics and baseball pics from two years ago but also pics I took with the thought that it would make a great drawing or even a painting. My wife also has a digital camera that she relies on me to upload but she'll have to wait. Only printed out a select "few" of mine and used up all the ink and photo paper in my budget until payday.

Green Man

A detail from a work in progress. Part ink and watercolor pencils The Green man a symbol in my mind of spring but sure not like that around here today again. No snow but pretty cold and rainy again, saw the sun a couple of times but pretty much it stayed hidden. Baseball goes on like the postal service once did rain or shine though so we went to our grandsons practice today. My wife was smarter then many of the people there dressing in a warm winter coat while many of the spectators were wearing light jackets or no jackets at all, at least one person wearing shorts. That happened to be my grandsons father who I wont say much about but never gave him credit for much sense.

Me? I dressed light, just a light jacket shirt thing but I watched from the car with my sketchbook and was quite comfy thank you.

Victorian Gal

A sketch of a victoian type woman, pen and ink with a little watercolor pencil for accents and the background. A lot of my heroes are illustrators from the turn of the century (20th). There were so many really good ones but of course they had a much larger market then today with all the magazines, advertisements, etc, etc. Anytime I see a woman with her hair piled up like this I think of course of Charles Dana Gibson, one of the best. I have bought more then one old magazine just because it had one of his drawings in it.

Rainy here today, not April yet so I guess this rain wont bring May flowers as the saying goes. All it does is make the dogs feet mudy so I have to play manservant and wipe them off when he comes in from his potty walks. At least the snow is gone.

A few days ago I was writing about the newspapers and today word came out that the Chicago Sun-Times parent company is declaring bankruptcy. I usually read the Tribune so no loss to me but again I hate to see the newspapers go away.

Ink drawing cars

I've been posting car pics in the other blog and started drawing this today from an old picture of a car ( the one in side view, the rest made up). It was a hectic day to sit and draw anything. Two of our grandkids were over plus the son of my daughters boyfriend. Not that they bother me that much but they run my wife ragged, asking for this and that and squabbling etc. etc. . I, in turn have to go intercede or her frustrations will soon turn on me. I do love having them over but maybe only because it makes me appreciate the quiet so much when they go home.

They'll be back tomorrow along with more, my granddaughters birthday April 1st so we are having a little party for her here.

Weather here today could be summed up by the weather man as it "sucks", all gray and rain and sometimes freezing rain, like winter fighting it, not wanting to let go. I'm real jealous of people smart enough to live somewhere like Florida (Mike).

Daffydills

Even in the Chicago area spring comes, although signs of it can be slow to appear. The first flowers we get around the house are the daffodills (sp?) out front. There also has been a pair of robins hanging around the front yard. For some reason they don't frequent the feeders, guess we don't have the right food there for them. I would suppose they are after worms or insects but I never see them around back and pretty sure we have worms and insects there. We did in the past have grubs in the front which attracted skunks who showed up at night and dug many, many holes to get at them. I didn't know what grub infestation looked like until one year I dug around a tree and uncovered them. There were hundreds of the little grubby buggers all around this crabapple tree in front. I could see why the skunks were digging, plenty to eat for them. Since then we get this yard treatment stuff that has something for grubs in it but haven't done it this year yet. I did get some mothballs and spread them around the backyard (supposedly keeps the skunks away) I bought some exspensive stuff a couple years back that was supposedly "fox urine) which would scare the skunks and after using it didn't see any skunks. Reading the label though it said the contents were like .0001 % fox urine and 99% mothballs. I priced em and the mothballs are much cheaper then fox pee so since then I use just the mothballs from Walgreens.