Days 153-154

Hi everyone,

Today's update is all about art!  So What have I been doing?  Well, In April I participated in Live & Local Raleigh, where I had a booth showing my art as part of the street festival.  It was a fun day, there was live music, and plenty of friendly folks stopped by my booth too.  I look forward to being part of the event next year as well!  Here's a shot of my booth thanks to Groucho's Deli via Facebook.

Additionally April 8th was Draw a Bird day, so while I drew my bird that day I'm just now getting around to posting it!  I looked some of my older reference photos and selected one of a Brown-Headed Nuthatch at the feeders from our old apartment.  I drew it on watercolor paper with various colored pencils and it ended up having a nice soft look to it.

I think I'll try to find a nice sketchbook next time.  Speaking of which I'm thinking I really should start to keep a regular one and hopefully share some bits of things in future entries.  I poked around my studio a bit and found a tiny sketchbook that isn't made of watercolor paper...I think I might need to go shopping though.  Hehe  If so I think I will get something similar to a Moleskin style book since I will soon be getting an Imbue creative tool thanks to my friend Stephen Hughett and his collaborative partner Igor Zemskov's fantastic Kickstarter!  The tool will be very useful for my Irish inspired pieces or really any pattern based art I work on.

In other news I finally have a new camera!  A friend of mine was looking to sell hers and the timing was just right for things to work out.  I'm so incredibly thankful too!  I now have a Canon T3i DSLR, which I have been having a great time getting used to over the past two weeks.  So, here are a few bits of what I've been up to with it.  First there were test shots, of which the following two were lovely.

Then we went to one of our relative's 1st birthday party.  They had the nicest spread of ice cream sundaes and toppings set out, and of course the birthday princess was adorable!

I've also been keeping an eye on the creatures in our yard, birds and bunnies, there are squirrels too, but they're just annoying buggers.  The feeder is just outside our kitchen window, but the rabbits are used to us enough that I could walk just off the porch to take this picture, the Tufted Titmouse didn't mind either.  Then while I was writing the beginning of this post I kept hearing at least one fledgling Carolina Wren, and soon after had one come and investigate what I was doing on the porch!

I also took a few shots during our Memorial Day board games.  We were playing Tzolk'in, The Mayan Calendar game, which is why there are little crystal skulls involved.  A young relative was arranging the extra pieces while her dad played with us.  The lighting made it irresistible, and I went to grab my camera partway through the game.

                           

                           

                           

                           

Lastly, today I was working on my first Pinterest style project.  It's inspired by this pin of a chalkboard cheese plate!  I had given one of my brothers-in-law a beer sampling paddle, and during the party I realized it would be perfect to add a chalkboard paint finish to, so I'm doing that, plus painting some lettering on the back for him too.  I'll be going through the steps of how I make it as part of my next post.  Here's a teaser shot of all the items I'll be using to put it together.

Enjoy your last day of May and I will see you all in June.  Thanks!

Love, Lydia