Lone Pine Lodge

 Well that's that for another year.  Don't think I will not infilct more art on you  because if I do something I am proud of at Art class it will be put up on my journal.  For the last day I sketched the Siamese I made a hash of painting yesterday.  I think his head is a little big for his body but it does look as if it came from this planet rather than from outer space.

 Let's get the Rl part over first.  Today the news is good, and moderately good.
The good news is that A has passed the home visit and we are dashing off this afternoon to sign the adoption papers , pay the money over and bring Netty to her new home.
The moderately good news is the massive does of intravenous antibiotics have worked and Jill is coming home today.  It's only moderately good as it wasn't an infected cut but a bunion that became infected and unless it is removed it will happen again and again.  She has to go back in a week to see the orthopedic specalist to make sure the infection has cleared up properly and then she will have to go back in to have the bunion removed.  On Thursday the junior doctors who were checking her in were muttering about amputating the toe but the consultant told them they were talking nonsense last nigh and a bunion removal was all that was needed.  Hopefully she will be able to have a local or spinal anaesthetic because a full anaesthetic with her medical history is not a good thing to contomplate.

And now for the NaArt.
The original


My version

 Whilst looking for some thing completely different yesterday evening I rediscovered a children's library book I had rescued from pulping about 4 years ago.  It was the custom of the library system I worked for to allow the staff to grab any book from the discard piles up in the stack and take it home with them, books were discarded when they became to tatty to live, when a new edition was printed or when they had proved themselves unsuitable for purpose by not being issued for a year.  I've got a good few cookery, cross stitch and knitting books as well as a few fiction books from all those categories as books not fit for issue usually have a lifetime left in them with one careful owner  with  a roll of sticky tape and a lot of patience.  Children's picture books however are usually discarded because they  were too tatty to live and having no children of my own I rarely looked at those discards.  But passing this section of the stack one day in 2002 my eye was caught by a book lieing face up on top of a stack of baby books.
This one


I stopped and picked it up, in spite of being taken into stock in 1994 the cover was in good condition only needing wiping over with a disifectant to make it pleasant to touch and the inside oh that was in pristeen condition and the illustrations were superb.  It went home with me that night and has remained on my shelves along with a book called the Tale of the Harvest Mouse, rescued about a decade earlier, ever since.

Now why am I waffling on about this book you are probably asking?  well my NaArt for today is one of those illustrations and part of the poem(written out in my second best hand writing, I missed out an e in the first monastery and capitalised cat when I shouldn't have)  Below is my version of the ilo and a scan of the original page.

 An other portrait this time.  I'm hoping that at least half my friends will know this one.

 I missed my entries to my lj yesterday .  I went out to friends for lunch , friends who are very generous with both food and alcohol and came home sliughtly tipsy and feeling like I never wanted to eat again so what I did was very simple but might appear in  natures beauty. my first Cosmos blossom opened yesterday so I went and photographed it and shopped it a little. Then I posted both.  the background 'made' this photo for me.  the flowers behind  the Cosmos are my Astilbes gone to seed.

( There are four of them to day so they are under a cut. )

 On the premise that you don't improve if you don't practice here are a couple of portraits.  The first is of a very famous scientist, the upper one was drwn upside down as the book I was reading recommended and does look more like him that the second.  the second is a British artist possibley not so well known abroad.  It's a copy of a self portrait.  If no one guesses I'll post who they were supposed to be in my next post.  If some one does guess, I want them tested for telepathy as I don't think any one should be able torecognise them.

I tried my hand at a birthday card today, done in ink and rigger brush, it came out a little wobbly but it has encouraged me to do it again for my life long friend Jenny.
 

 After my very busy day yesterday I am too tired to think let alone draw so today's NaArt isn't very good.  I over did the holly and the lettering is bad but here it is.

 I got a bit tired of Christmas cards  and decided to do something else today.  If it didn't work I could always do a quick card.  From past experience with NaArMaMo it is impossible to do a proper wwater colour painting from initial sketch to final picture in one day because it took too long to dry between layers.  I decided to try watercolour pencils to see if they were quicker.  
( Read more... )

 I had a bout of insomnia last night and gave up and got up about 4:00 am. so I have my entry done before the post this morning. Again not a total success, I didn't leave room for the horse.  But I have learned that you can use Indian Ink with felt tip pens so long as you do the colouring first.