I assure you, I will soon post something besides my very quick sketches. Last week was a whirlwind around here… excited to share lots soon. Maybe I can get a start during naptime today. Anyway, happy Saturday!
Sketch prompt #150: Click. Thinking of the drum click during high school marching band days. I always wished I was in the drumline… oh, to play the quads. ;)
Sketch prompt #151: Coffee. I’m like, three weeks behind or something. But I just got to draw “coffee” on a Saturday morning! A perfect word for this moment. I had just a tiny bit of time so I decided to be free and go for gesture only on this one. Tried to capture the feeling of one of my favorite places to drink a cuppa… this is an outdoor seating space. And remember, gesture only (I don’t know if you can even see it, but I definitely have a Jeep floating in the air)!!!
Sketch prompt #148: Blanket. Eek, and one from this morning that I really don’t like. Like the blanket idea.. No time to really focus and do a good job. Embarrassed to even post it…
Sketch prompt #143: Large. Sometimes small things seem large. In this case, my two-year-old’s chubby feet.
Sketch #144: Set. I used to play volleyball, and I played setter a lot. This is not supposed to be me, but I did put my old number on the jersey (hmm, that may have just been my number in soccer… boy, do I miss playing sports).
Sketch prompt #145: Signal. Now that my six-year-old son is in school and all of his friends talk about video games, he craves them all of the time. I got so tired of him asking me if he could play computer games (and saying no most of the time… I am fighting them off as hard as I can!!), we made up hand signals. This means, “Can I please play computer games?” (See the rectangle computer screen?!) But the nonverbal didn’t help much. I’m as tired of the question and giving the answer as I was before!
Lots of breakfasts in bed prepared this morning I expect. This was mine.
My kids did it for me all on their own because Andy leaves for work early on Sundays. They found a cookie sheet for the tray, dropped raspberries in my cereal just the way I like it, and E even cut the tops off the strawberries. C poured the milk and got the water.
(The flower I added to the drawing because my brother is taking my mom to pick out some Mother’s Day mums today.)
When I woke up, I saw all kinds of precious drawings and notes in a row next to me on the bed while my crew of four came through the doorway with my breakfast tray.
Andy was going to make me a tasty Mother’s Day brunch when he came home, but my kids trumped him by secretly planning to take me out for lunch.
I hope when they’re grown, they’ll come home on Mother’s Day Eve so they can still make me breakfast in bed and give me some art and notes. They will, right? ;)
Standing and watching bus after bus pull into the National Cattle Congress parking lot through gates armed with I.C.E. agents and canines was one of the most horrifying things I have ever seen. My sister and sister-in-law both volunteered to translate for immigration attorneys through Catholic Charities, but because the U.S. Government used now-illegal methods to carry out this task, the people detained never saw immigration attorneys. Read the grim details (I’m sure I’ve linked to this before here; it is astounding).
I could fill pages with my memories and feelings from this moment in time, but with that background information I will finally explain my sketch! Phew. While my sister and sister-in-law were inside the National Cattle Congress gates waiting to interpret, I loaded a stroller, a wagon, and my three kids (at the time) in our car to meet a friend and her mom at the NCC where together we walked the sidewalks. It was the only thing we could think of to do. (A wink and a hug to you, friend.) When we came home, I corralled the kids into the house. And I saw the wagon sitting on our porch. So I snapped a photo. This is it:
We took turns pulling my two oldest in this wagon and pushing my baby in the stroller… back and forth and back and forth and back and forth. I knew I wanted to draw this for “security,” and after checking some things I posted before about this time I realized today is the four-year anniversary of the raid. Crazy. I posted this two years ago (includes a video telling some stories and just touches the surface of the raid’s implications). And this is a must-see documentary: abUSed. Each at different times, my sister-in-law, my husband, and I drove to the Fayette County jail to meet Mike, one of the most compassionate men I know, and with him visit some of the Guatemalan men detained after the raid. Some of the same men appear in these videos.
Remembering this time stirs so much up inside me, but I’ll leave it here for now.
(FYI, my totally-rad dad works for the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security… doing flood mitigation work. And THAT is a good, good thing. :)
***** EDIT: My four-year-old who was the baby in the stroller that day looked at this drawing and told me I scribble. :) *****
Sketch prompt # 141: Storybook. I’d like to completely rework this sometime because a G. K. Chesterton quote like this deserves a thousand times better. Brilliant. But a sketch is a sketch I guess.
The context:
My first and last philosophy … I learnt in the nursery… The things I believed then, the things I believe most now, are the things called fairy tales… They are not fantasies: compared with them other things are fantastic… Fairyland is nothing but the sunny country of common sense. It is not earth that judges heaven, but heaven that judges earth … I knew the magic beanstalk before I tasted beans; I was sure of the Man in the Moon before I was certain of the moon.
I am concerned with a certain way of looking at life, which was created in me by the fairy tales, but has since been meekly ratified by the mere facts.
- G. K. Chesterton
(Did you know Chesterton first went to school to become an artist? I just learned that today.)
Sketch prompt #139: Favorite. This is our favorite place to grab food – a taco truck just down the street from us. The #1 best steak quesadillas I have ever had (and somehow they do it without the cheese!). It just opened up for the season and we are THERE! If you are local, find your new favorite tacos on Fridays and Saturdays only (I think) on 9th Street in Waterloo where it meets up with Hwy 218. Mmm, mm.
Mr. Maurice Sendak died today. This is interview from just a little over a year ago is beautiful. Take five minutes and watch. I think you’ll be happy you did.
Maribeth Boelts’ new book, Happy Like Soccer was released today. It was illustrated by Lauren Castillo, an artist whose work I admire and started following since the day I found out she was the illustrator for this book.
Several years ago, Maribeth brought together all kinds of elementary school kids, teachers, coaches, and volunteers to take part in some soccer. My first two children were born during this time (I remember running around on the field with a pregnant belly!), and the fruit from those few seasons of soccer continues to grow in the lives of many.
Read more here about the story behind Happy Like Soccer and Maribeth’s writing process in a beautiful interview she gave about the book. You can also enter to win your very own copy!
Sketch prompt #138: Texture. I’ve never been all that stylish. If you know me, you know I don’t spend much time on clothes, etc. One time a few years ago, a friend noticed I always have bits of texture in whatever style I do have (in what I put in my hair or my jewelry, etc.). Most of my jewelry comes from my sister who always brought a necklace or something home for me from Central and South America where she worked. This is one of my favorites… and I can’t remember where she got it! Nicaragua? Anyway, texture.
Hope your day is good. I’m trying some new things and today is Day #1. If I find some success, I’ll share.
In the meantime, you might remember seeing this photo and drawing of the crochet bunting that hangs over my kitchen sink. Now you can get one for yourself if you like. You can find two just like mine and two that are twice as long at Plaid Peacock. (7 flags and approx. 5 1/2’ long or 14 flags and approx. 10 3/4’ long)
If you aren’t local, keep your eyes open. I’m (slowly) working on more for my shop. For now Plaid Peacock is the only place to go!
I am a graphic designer, married to the best man in all the world, and mother of one girl and three boys in Waterloo, Iowa. I blog about art & design, the handmade, and my musings on life & creativity.
