Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Snow Bear!

The snow today was horrible for shoveling...heavy, wet, packed really easy.  But it was GREAT for making a SNOW BEAR!  Years ago, when my daughters were young, I had made a Polar Bear out of snow standing on all four legs.  I thought it would be fun to try again.  Well after about 3 hours, I finished this huge monstrosity!  It's about 5 foot tall, even though sitting down.  Decided to name her "Joy"...'cause that's what I felt the whole time I was making her!  (Well...that and feeling exhausted.)
Wide Load!!  Keeping an eye on my neighbors house.


More Snow

Nice to have these boys help me with my driveway and broken limb after the SECOND snow storm in a week.  Below is what it looked like this morning.  :)

Saturday, February 23, 2013

SKETCHBOOK: "Snowbound"

On Thursday, Kansas City got hit with a rather substantial snow storm.  I turned a "snow day" into a nice four-day weekend (using vacation days of course).  Decided to try to sketch a lot while I was home.  The drawing of the apple tree above was done while I was all bundled up, sitting on my back porch this morning.  It was nippy, but so nice and quiet.

Several months ago, I decided to plan for a rainy day (or a snowy one), and took my camera to CABELA'S and a BASS PRO SHOP...both huge sporting goods stores in the area. While I have mixed feelings about taxidermy, I have to admit that the animals stay still a lot longer than in the wild.  Both stores are filled with dramatically posed animals, and I took gobs of photos.  Since I love going to sketch in Natural History museums, this seemed very similar.  So, yesterday and today, I pulled up some of the pics on my computer, and started drawing and painting...in a nice warm house!
By the way...that sketch above is of a wolverine...not a red badger...in case you were wondering.

The happy little snapping turtle, I'm pleased to report, was NOT stuffed.  I took several photos of him while he was swimming in the huge aquarium tanks they have at Cabela's. Okay...that's it for this time!!