•: liberate blog :•

[Andy took the kids to the park, so I made a quick made a cup of coffee and hope to write this post before they come home.]

I don’t usually post photos of us here, but this one feels right for today. That’s our family at the school Cinco de Mayo celebration where students performed songs they learned in Spanish, and where we ate tamales made in past years by one of the teachers and her mother. At every school event, they set up a photo booth for families, and we get the best (only?) family photos in this school hallway.

What this photo doesn’t show:

• On the way out of the gym after the performance, one of my children smacked the bottom of the woman in front of us. (Yes, he did.)
• While waiting in line for the tamales and during a somewhat emotional conversation with the best school principal on earth who is moving to another school, one of my children stood behind me lifting my bottom up and down (you read that right) while the child in my arms dove out to smack anyone who came near.

This is not normal behavior for my children, and I should have taken this as a sign that they were tired and it was time to ditch the Cinco de Mayo party. But we stood in line for our photo (another tragic family line experience), said cheese… and then pulled some wailing children right out the school’s front doors.

Seeing that Cinco de Mayo photo of me with my son on my lap, knowing all that was hidden behind those smiles, reminded me of photos like this:

Where’s the mother? I first saw these a couple years ago, I find them horrifying, and I think of them every Mother’s Day. (Click to see more.)

[I’m surely running out of quiet time now before everyone comes back from the park, so I’m going to try to wrap this up quickly.]

Mom, when life is confusing I still remember rocking with you. Thank you for everything you sacrificed for me… I’m sure you gave more than I know. I love you so much. Happy Mother’s Day!

And Happy Mother’s Day to all moms Today and Every Day. Peace.

[They’re back from the park. I’m going to go snuggle…]

Sooooo as it turns out, the nice people at fiftyfiftyme told me I should sign up even though I was quite sure I would not make it to 50 books by the end of 2013. So I did. I signed up. And I read more books than I did in January.

But I drew less. A lot less.

I’m going to keep reading, because it’s so good. I just have to refine the balance now. It’s going to be a good March.

My February book list:

3. The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith
4. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
5. State of Wonder by Ann Patchett
6. Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden

And February’s movie list:

6. Kahaani
7. Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope*
8. Silver Linings Playbook
9. Sound of My Voice
10. Argo

Reading now: A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway

Watching next: I don’t know! But I have a good list to choose from excellent set of suggestions I received last month (read the comments).

What are you reading/watching? Anything good? Bad? As always, I ♥ suggestions…

* I count Star Wars because I don’t remember them (gasp!), and because I’m watching them with my nine-year-old daughter which is about the coolest thing ever.

Andy sent me flowers all day yesterday:

He texted me pictures like this and I loved it.

We had a fun day, and I don’t think our family ever laughed so hard around the dinner table. My daughter was on the floor laughing at least once.

She and I are taking over the boys’ room for girls’ night tonight. We’re going to have snacks, watch Star Wars, and sleep on the floor in sleeping bags. No boys allowed. We’ve been planning this for months, and she’s completely giddy. I hope she makes it through the school day.

The Youth Art Team is about to reassemble.

After donating 25 acrylic canvases and raising $360 to help equip a school in Haiti (here)…

after painting a public mural for the community (here)…

after taking an out-of-town field trip and giving $85 to support the students at Freedom for Youth we met (here)…

after researching, writing, and performing an original play about the community and raising $490 for Waterloo’s African-American Historical and Cultural Museum (here and here)…

and after painting another – HUGE – public mural (pictured above, more here)…

this group of K-12 students is getting ready to take on a yearlong photography project.

And we need 30* cameras! Put your old digital camera to good use by donating it to the Youth Art Team. (We totally could have applied for a grant to purchase new cameras, but we’d rather reuse the cameras people have laying around at home.) If you have a working digital camera you’d like to donate, please contact me. I promise these young artists will do AMAZING things with it! You won’t even believe it…

Digital cameras must be working and 4 megapixels or higher. First session begins on March 3, so I hope to have all 30 cameras in hand by February 22.

*We already received 13 18 20, but we need 17 12 10 more! Spread the word…

As a freelance designer, mom to four who is trying to scratch out illustrations and my own artwork, hang out with the Youth Art Team, keep the house reasonably clean, and maintain my personal sanity, I cannot in good conscience sign up for fiftyfiftyme.

But I want to really bad.

I decided to see how January went. I only finished two books… and I started them both before 2013. But I could not have squeezed in another minute of reading.

I did watch five movies. Andy and I usually watch a movie over takeout on Sunday nights. Date nights! •: This is actually fabulous. He doesn’t want to run out for the food and I don’t want to do bedtime, so I pick up the food (aka alone time) while he puts the kids to bed. Then we feast. :• Ha, we do what we can.

So, it’s unlikely that I’ll read anywhere near 50 books this year – I’m shooting for 25. Either way, the challenge helps keep me from spending too much time looking at my phone and feeds my brain. So I’m going to follow along, but at my own pace.

Here’s my book list from January:

1. Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
2. The Odyssey by Homer

And my January movie list:

1. Looper
2. Beasts of the Southern Wild
3. Moonrise Kingdom
4. Arbitrage
5. End of Watch

Reading now: The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith

Watching next: Anything that sounds good over takeout on Sunday. ;)

Read any good books you think I should add to my stack or seen any movies I should watch? I ♥ suggestions.

Today is the last day to buy a 2013 Sketchbook Calendar.

Order by midnight tonight!

He who sleeps in continual noise is wakened by silence.
– William Dean Howells

It’s night while I write this. Andy’s at a rehearsal, and I’m sitting on my bed snuggled under my favorite blanket with a glass of red… and my blog.

But now that I found a little time to write, I can’t write anything that makes sense. My days are filled with so many voices. All I hear right now is noise.

I’m working on that.

In the meantime, I want to post photos I took in the hours right after the last of our family left, marking the end of our Christmas. Andy went to work that afternoon, and when the kids laid down for naps I found myself in unexpected, stunning silence.

I couldn’t believe it and snapped tons of photos because I didn’t want to forget. It was beautiful, almost sacred. When I look at these photos now, I can still feel it. One photo has a child in it just before nap, and somehow even then it was quiet.

This is what silence looked like that day:

The last photo of me makes me smile. I knew I would have some quiet time and planned to read one of my new Lionheart Magazines over coffee (I had been saving them in the unopened package all the way from Bristol until after Christmas). But that SILENCE was something else. I hardly read. I had to take a photo to remember that, too.

I finished updating my website late last night. I hardly talked to anyone for three nights while I worked on it, but it felt so good to see things come together.

My work was transitioning while I was discovering where I wanted to go with it, so when I redesigned the site around this time last year everything was sort of a jumble. This round of updates helped me see the progress I made in 2012… and that is a very good thing. Now I feel like my site represents me and my work much better than it did before, so check it out!

The blog is up next…

We have a fun weekend planned. Looking forward to getting out of my head and talking with people again. Have a great one!
 

Civil Rights March on Washington, D.C. [Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mathew Ahmann in a crowd.]
 

I hand lettered a sign in chalk. And I LOVED it. After hours of planning, I spent two nights while the rest of the house slept chalking this up.

For fun, here are photos from beginning to end:

Check these guys out. I’m particularly fond of one of them (xoxo).
 

I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the something that I can do. What I can do, I should do. And what I should do, by the grace of God, I will do.

– Edward Everett Hale
 

Introducing…

Heart: Sometimes it feels like it will just burst.

5x7s and 8x10s available online (printed on a yummy 100% cotton based paper with inks that resist fading for 100 years). And now also ON CANVAS! See the listing and contact me for canvas pricing.

It’s been pretty fun to put these together, wrap them all up, and ship them off to people again this year. They’re available online through the end of January.

Each month in the calendar features a pencil sketch from that year’s sketchbooks that I then color digitally. I print on a smooth sturdy paper with inks that resist fading for 100 years (same inks I use for my art prints)… and then I assemble and package each calendar by hand.

Check them out and find more specs in my shop: heidifuchtman.etsy.com.

Snow day here today! This was the view of the backyard out my window when I woke up this morning:

I was going a little stir crazy in the house with all four kids home (so much energy and noise for a lot of hours in a row). During nap/quiet time I decided I had to hide away and work on something of my own. So after I finished some design work, I plopped on my bed with my computer and came up with these “Polar” holiday gift tags:
 

I’ve wanted to post a free gift tag download… for a couple of years. Seriously. Today was the day. Click here to view/download/print “Polar” holiday gift tags. (You can print directly from Google in your browser, but I have better luck downloading the file and then printing it directly from my computer. If you have any trouble printing, feel free to contact me and I’ll be happy to email you the printable file.)

This cool guy, “Polar,” is December in my 2013 Sketchbook Calendar. You can find him and other fun things in my shops: heidifuchtman.etsy.com (art), liberate.etsy.com (handmade); or locally at Plaid Peacock.

Guys, Christmas is almost here…

Happy December!

Limited time 20% off sale on all newsboy hats and skinny scarves in my shop: liberate.etsy.com.

2013 Sketchbook Calendars available here: heidifuchtman.etsy.com.
 

I think I must have spent a lot of time in my own head during November, contemplating impossible things.

Like: Is it possible to be an artist and raise four children?

• My 2013 Sketchbook Calendar is the first thing I completed – of my own and not for a client – since I finished my 2012 Sketchbook Calendar.
• I last worked on these ladies in July and before that in January after doing a few initial sketches.
• This past Thursday was day 365 of the 365 Day Drawing Challenge and I only completed 285 (I know, wow that’s a lot of sketches though… but I didn’t finish… that’s a miss by 80 sketches).
• And the social media side of this might kill me. I finally started tweeting @HeidiFuchtman in my Twitter account that I set up… a long time ago. More utter insanity for my too-full heart.

But I was also doing the best sweet things like driving to Minneapolis with just my Andy for no reason but to get away together.

And thinking about how much I love my parents and about how much of their lives they have given – and still give – for me.

And reading Moo, Baa, La La La with my three-year-old son who truly makes the best “neigh” sound.

And watching my four-year-old son’s bright smile and wave to me while I sit in line to pick him up from preschool before he pushes past his teacher and into the van to give me a violent hug hello.

And reading the book my six-year-old son wrote and illustrated about Sponge Bob’s first Christmas.

And starting a penpal journal with my nine-year-old daughter that we exchange back and forth.

And coordinating a happy arrangement with one of my very favorite design clients that should benefit us both quite nicely (this is the thing I have been alluding to all fall).

But there was still a lot of contemplating impossible things. Links to things that have been on my mind this month:

1. He didn’t want to have children (and didn’t think artists even should), but I think he would have made an seriously excellent grandfather. I will read or watch any interview of him that I every come across. 
2. This looks like love.
3. And this made me want to go back to Berlin (I feel like I was at that coffee shop… not sure).
4. I think these two letters are just right.
5. Loved a bit of Beatrix Potter: “I think Miss Potter will go off to another publisher soon! She would rather make 2 or 3 little books costing 1/- each, than one big book costing 6/- because she thinks little rabbits cannot afford to spend 6 shillings on one book, and would never buy it.” (Did I get those shillings marks right?)
6. And this made me laugh and laugh and laugh (source of the photo above).
7. I think this might be true.
8. One mom wrote to her daughters about why she blogs.
9. There are more that I deleted because I’m scared to post them. ;)
10. But maybe the best is that last thing I read in November, just a couple hours ago. A mom on modeling impossible beauty.

If you clicked on any of them, I hope you clicked and read #1 and #10 (and then all of the rest).

Goodnight.
 

Sketch prompt #274: Gypsy. Sketch prompt #275: Time. Sketch Prompt #276: Grow. Sketch prompt #277: Cup. Sketch prompt #278: Portrait. Sketch prompt #279: Bag. Sketch prompt #280: Perfect. Sketch prompt #281: Snap. Sketch prompt #282: Bath. Sketch prompt #283: Knit. Sketch prompt #284: Hula. Sketch prompt #285: Rainy.

_______________________________________________________________________

2013 Sketchbook Calendar available here and here. 
Free offers through Monday! See my Facebook post for details.
 

Sketch prompt #262: Library. Sketch prompt #263: Ship. Sketch Prompt #264: Zodiac. Sketch prompt #265: Graduate. Sketch prompt #266: Color. Sketch prompt #267: Pirate. Sketch prompt #268: Print. Sketch prompt #269: Story. Sketch prompt #270: Forest. Sketch prompt #271: Buzz. Sketch prompt #272: Learn. Sketch prompt #273: Ride.

_______________________________________________________________________

2013 Sketchbook Calendar available here and here.
Free offers through Monday! See my Facebook post for details.
 

This fine gentleman announced my holiday shop updates on Facebook this morning – free offers, guys. Go check them out! And follow my page to receive announcements first.
 

I spent most of my day-after-Thanksgiving morning with Andy’s mom and sister – one of my favorite traditions with them. Our last stop was at Book Bums, and by the end of the morning, I had spent under $25 on a coffee and 17 used books to add to our family library.

I’d say my stack of post-holiday reading is set… with plenty left over to lend my dad!

With prayers for peace…
 

It’s done! At last. Find my 2013 Sketchbook Calendar here and here. Happy day.

I received this comment on last year’s calendar from a buyer in Pennsylvania, and I’d be lying if I told you it didn’t put (excellent) pressure on me while I was working on this year’s. I sincerely hope 2013 lives up to it:

My goodness, what a delight! I found this calendar by searching for “2011 calendar” and “illustrations,” and this one stood out for its originality and sincerity. Many young artists do fine work but it’s very “samey” — similar too-cute characters and simplistic drawings that look like they were done on computer. This one clearly came from the artist’s sketchbook and was what SHE was interested in at the moment rather than trying to reflect what everyone else seems interested in at the moment (owls, vintage trailers, etc). Such a great group of drawings, wonderfully packaged. Truly delighted with my purchase!

(P.S. First ten people to purchase a calendar receive one free 8x10! See the shop listing for details.)

Sooooo close. Finishing the final touches…

Drew all of these just from my mind – without referring to life or photos – and that is really hard for me. I was pleasantly surprised a few times, but overall… yikes. So don’t judge too harshly.

Sketch prompt #252: Yoga.

Sketch prompt #251: Captain. Embarrassing… I couldn’t think for the life of me what a pirate hat looked like! This is all I could conjure up without looking anything up. (Looks a little like a firefighter hat!)

Sketch prompt #252: Spring.

Sketch prompt #253: Day.

Sketch prompt #254: Circus. Do they have seals in the circus? I don’t know. Again, my brain…

Sketch prompt #255: Nerd. I think I accidentally drew my dad when he was in high school. Hehe. (Love you, Dad! I believe you were actually quite cool. It’s the flat top and glasses that got me thinking…)

Sketch prompt #256: Shy. I was shy growing up… never one to raise my hand in class!

Sketch prompt #257: Spooky. I did not capture him at all (drawing from memory again… you have my permission to laugh at this one), but I always thought Lord Voldemort was portrayed as creepy as anything in the Harry Potter movies… those slits for his nostrils were too much!

Sketch prompt #258: Glamour.

Sketch prompt #259: Prince. Wanted to do a prince riding a horse. Only sketched the horse!

Sketch prompt #260: Together. Really hard for me to do this from memory…

Sketch prompt #261: Create. Too bad I’ve been eating the cookie dough instead of creating cookies! :/

That’s me tonight, except instead of with a book I’m curled up on my bed under my favorite blanket with a laptop working on my 2013 Sketchbook Calendar.

Progress is slower than I’d like for obvious reasons like I’m a self-employed mother of four children. But I know it’s also because I feel the pressure of the first. I was really happy with how my 2012 Sketchbook Calendar turned out and I find that paralyzing now.

The first steps are the most interesting ones – when you’re just beginning to find your way into a problem […] To me there’s something very solid about the first time something is achieved. I know when I’m working that the very first time I get something right it’s righter than it will ever be again. (Twyla Tharp in The Creative Habit)

I just read that tonight before starting back in on my work. And you know, what? I had a breakthrough. Just a simple change in format, but it helped me see that 2013 doesn’t have to be the same. It’s bigger than just my calendar, but for now that’s what I’ve got.

Back to it.
 

A number of quick sketches for the 365 Day Challenge. Tried something a little new on most of these (but not all)… drawing from my mind instead of from life or from a photo. Spent 1-5 min. max on each.

Sketch prompt #241: Geeky. Harry Potter on the brain.

Sketch prompt #242: Swing.

Sketch prompt #243: Heart. Sometimes it feels like it will just burst.

Sketch prompt #244: Daily. Have to deal with my hair every day.

Sketch prompt #245: Missing. Look cross-eyed at it. It’s a sock missing its match. (Important lesson here. It’s funny. I ♥ The Series of Unfortunate Events and Marinka. Makes me laugh every time.)

Sketch prompt #246: Sing.

Sketch prompt #247: Jungle. Just a scribble.

Sketch prompt #248: Self. Again, look quick and cross your eyes. ;)

Sketch prompt #249: Celebrity.

I decided it was finally time to reveal the blue shag carpet* in my daughter’s room. You know, it’s too bad all of the sweet old elements of this house aren’t in better shape because if they were – and if I had the energy to really play up the style and if I could convince Andy that it would be cool – we would have one rockin old school home. A tiny one. For all six of us. It would be perfect. (Remember my kitchen floor? It’s gone now.)

Ok, this post is actually about my daughter and me – my now nine-year-old daughter and me! She said goodbye to eight on Wednesday and that means this time next year I will be the mother of a ten-year-old. (!!!!!)

Three and a half years ago, she read James and the Giant Peach right before I headed off to New York City with my girlfriends from home. While we were driving one day she told me she wished she could see the Empire State Building (you know, where the peach is and all), and I insensitively bragged to her that I was going to see the Empire State Building and soon. She didn’t think that sounded fair at all, so I told her when she turned ten I would take her to New York City. Well that day is on its way…

For her birthday I found this NYC guide with tons and tons of pictures, so we gave it to her with a pack of sticky tabs for her birthday so she can spend the year going through it and marking the things she wants to see when we go. (She also wrote on her list of top five things she wanted for her birthday that she’d like “at least $5.” I thought it was cute – like she was starting to get into money and counting it in school and all. But it turns out she wanted “at least $5” so she can add to her NYC trip savings. Way ahead of me. So now we have a trip to make to the bank so she can deposit some funds.)

Needless to say I’m SO EXCITED to take her to New York City. My six-year-old son is starting to talk about where he wants to go when he turns ten. This ten-year-old trip might turn into a Fuchtman family tradition, and that would suit me just fine.

Happy weekend! Doing anything fun?

*Oh, and I’m pretty sure that carpet is going to have to go…
 

Been thinking about my Gramma Rose lately – even dreamed last night about the things I remember from her house during my childhood. She passed when my daughter was eight-months-old. I’m wearing a scarf of hers today (there isn’t anything special about it except that it was hers), and I’m feeling her love and her incredible spunk.

On the whole, a great weekend.

My parents drove for four hours (total there and back) on Friday afternoon to attend Grandparents Day at school with my two oldest. And that night we finished costumes so we could…

…birthday-party downtown in the morning with my daughter (who will be NINE on Wednesday!) and her fun friends. We partied at our downtown farmers market, trick-or-treated at surrounding businesses, ate cake (yes, first!) outside on the convention center steps, and gobbled up pizza that ranks right up there with the best in town. Good friends and family played with us and helped me count heads while our party canvassed the downtown. :D

I was so tired afterward that I can’t for the life of me remember what happened the rest of the day. I know it included Andy cooking delicious risotto for dinner. Ah, and a lovely almost-nine-year-old curling up with Mom in Mom’s bed for a cuddly Tale of Despereaux movie after the boys went to sleep.

Things have been so sadly quiet on my blog this fall. The change I spoke of has kept me from it and I feel quite pouty about it. Downright childishly sulky. But good news: I’m taking steps toward the “more change” I alluded to earlier this month and I still hope it all comes through. If it does, it should help me balance out my work/life and get me back over here for crying out loud… and I really am crying out loud like I already told you! Just ask Andy. (Some of you have anxiously asked me about this “more-change” and I appreciate that. I’m also sorry to raise too much interest in something that – if it happens – is quite boring to anyone reading while completely new and exciting to me.)

Andy and I continue our potato/potahto dance, but happily it has become more of a dance than a crash. (Funny. “Crash Fuchtman” was the pen name his colleagues gave him while he interned at a newspaper in college. Haha. Just remembered that.)

Oh, and I did finish them like I said I would:

You can find them here. (And if you buy a set, you’ll find out what kind of cereal my family eats! I made the packaging from our cereal boxes and drew the labels by hand.)

I hope this week brings you peace and clarity or change and confusion… whatever you need right now. ;)
 

So, I know the point of the 365 Day Drawing Challenge is to draw DAILY. I am like 100 sketches behind and I really want to finish all 365 by day #365 next month. I’m not quitting even though I clearly failed at the “daily” part! These are all quick-quick sketches…

Sketch prompt #235: Walk. My kids walking home from school.

Sketch prompt #236: Prom.

Sketch prompt #237: Cook. My stove.

Sketch prompt #238: Moon. Eek… a 30-second sketch.

Sketch prompt #239: Utensil. My fork.

Sketch prompt #240: Citrus. On the “utensil” track I guess… our juicer.

Almost always promises me to be hard. Has always fulfilled its other promise to bring me to a better place than before.

Sort of in the thick of it, so it’s been quiet here. Hoping for even a little more of it, and I’ll share if things pan out they way I hope. Ooooh, I would love it if they do! And maybe I’ll share if even they don’t. While I wait (and race), I crochet. Releasing these soon! Watch and see me finish them. I will.

(Photos from a peaceful night on the front steps last week with my boys con Andy while little lady was out enjoying herself with friends. I’ll say it again, I ♥ fall!)
 

Labor Day weekend my mom, my dad, my sister, my brother, and my family of six hopped in two Iowa minivans and headed north to visit our family in Wisconsin. Both of my parents are Wisconsinites, so we got to see almost everyone. Every aunt, every uncle, almost every cousin and their spouses and almost all of their children. We haven’t been together like that in an awful long time… maybe not since my grandmother passed away when my daughter was eight months old. She was my last living grandparent and I miss them all. I met a few of the youngest babes for the very first time and life felt right. The visit was sweet in every way.

After kicking off fall in Wisconsin, the month flew by. A review in snapshots…

My youngest cousin raises honeybees now, and he poured us each a jar of delicious honey (above).

My boy enjoyed his last first day of preschool (year #2 and kindergarten next year already?!):

Crocheted a baby blanket (really into combining acrylic and cotton yarns after a friend made a fantastic blanket this way a couple years ago):

Walked into the living room one morning to find these hanging from the ceiling fan:

That same morning, the wearer of those jeans must have been busy making a superhero cape for his toothpaste from a toilet paper roll:

I made my first chai of the season (I like to rotate through seasonal beverages). :) Recipe here:

Sat at the top of the back steps to think one day:

The Youth Art Team was in the paper and finished the mural the same weekend. (I have a few more days yet to post on their blog. They completed the mural in 12 days of painting.):

Been enjoying walks with I & X to meet E & C on the way home from school. E & C have to cross one busy street so we meet them at the corner so they can practice:

Two days after the Youth Art Team finished the Plaid Peacock mural, their “Love is Power” mural was demolished. It was the last building to come down (after the school and church) to make way for the new CVS Pharmacy. Big change in landscape!:

This guy started hanging out in the tree outside my kitchen window:

I have yet to see my first game of the season because of all of the mural painting, but I received the yearly update on our kids’ inheritance in the mail this week. (On each of their first Christmases, I wrote to the Packers requesting a spot for them on the Green Bay Packers season tickets waiting list. Hopefully at least one of them will receive tickets before they die. My eight-year-old has about a 25,000 person lead on my two-year-old at this point.):

I made new newsboy caps (available soon!). I have the prettiest model in the world:

We partied at our school’s fall festival! Costumes…:

…and hayride in the field next to school! So fun:

September also marked the start of another new work routine for me – one that actually has me home with our kids most days. That’s taking some getting used to. I work out of the house just one day now, and the other days I work projects into naptimes and nighttimes. Thankfully we have a flexible daycare that I & X love who will take them here and there for me during particularly busy times. It’s been fun to loosen up and just hang with them at home and catch up on our house a little bit. But it’s also a little mind-numbing. Hoping to work out some of the kinks in October…

Just a few days left. Crazy, fast, sweet September.
 

Sketch prompt #234: Class. Drew this old school desk while watching a show tonight – White Collar, the only show I watch because a friend I had in high school writes for it and I LOVE IT – so the drawing is a little wonky because I was distracted by the show. Not a very comfortable seat!

Nighty, night.
 

Sketch prompt #233: Aquatic. Didn’t finish this one… time to party with the kids! It’s Friday, you know.

Sketch prompt #232: Dinosaur. Saw this guy in NYC.

Sketch prompt #231: Astronaut. This has got to be one of the most terrifying things I can imagine ever doing.

Sketch prompt #230: Day.

Sketch prompt #229: Sorry.

After my last post, I declared my own little drawing party here on the blog. Submit your own drawings in the comments, or send them to me and I’ll post them for you.

Happy drawing!
 

I’m trying to fill myself back up after the last several weeks of crazy wonderful art making (go, Youth Art Team!). I’m also home with our kids WAY more than I’m used to this fall, so figuring out how to fill myself back up while trying to meet everyone’s needs around here is a new trick.

Drawing fills me back up. Moves my work forward. Focuses my mind.

So today, I’m working on my sketch prompts (remember, I’m so behind). And eventually I’ll have my energy back to share more about my last few weeks. They were good weeks.

These first two are from last night…

Sketch prompt #223: Wood. Definitely a start-and-get-one-done sketch.

Sketch prompt #224: Blanket. Crocheting one.

And from this morning…

Sketch prompt #225: Tranquil. My new candle – made by a friend – that keeps me company while I work at night.

Sketch prompt #226: Vitamin. My kids always fight over the lion vitamin. Maybe I ate this one after I drew it?

Sketch prompt #227: Take. The look on a kid’s face when another child takes his toy is unlike any other. Pain, outrage, disbelief… ha.

Sketch prompt #228: Exercise. My favorite yoga pose right now. Forward fold. Just perfect. Strrrreeeettttccchhh. Ah.

If all goes well, I’ll have more to post as the day goes on!
 

Ahh, back to my once-a-week office. I work here once a week, and from home the rest of the week. Today’s especially sweet because after significant changes to my personal/work schedule this fall, this is my first day away from home since this time last week. Nice.

I keep trying to work my sketches into my daily routine, but it’s hard when so many other things seem immediately more pressing. Did it today though… a warm up to my design work this morning. Two here:

Sketch prompt #221: Six. We had six kids playing in our yard – hunting for bugs together – yesterday. Four are mine. Two are older kids from the neighborhood.

Sketch prompt #222: Hand. My two-year-old’s grubby little hand on the table at the coffee shop yesterday where we shared a blueberry almond scone. Mmm, mm.

Still drawing as much as I can squeeze in these last few weeks, but I haven’t been posting them. Loads of catching up to do on them…

Sketch prompt #213: Fabric. Cotton.

Sketch prompt #214: Toy. Millions (no exaggeration) of “wrecked” matchbox cars lay around my house these days…

Sketch prompt #215: Block. A quick sketch from a photo of a block party parade (girls dancing)…

Sketch prompt #216: Boom. Alexander (my 2-year-old) says, “Fireworks go boom!”

Sketch prompt #217: Hello. Copied the “H” from the letter on my favorite mug…

Sketch prompt #218: Stuffed. Toy dog laying on my living room floor.

Sketch prompt #219: Polar.

Sketch prompt #220: Coordinate. My two-year-old this summer wearing plaid shorts, and orange t-shirt, and a green crochet winter hat.