Summer is here…

By on Jun 23, 2017

Summer is here. It has been a little while since I checked in but it is because I’ve been busy, not lazy. The kids are out of school for the summer and our weekends are quickly filling with plans. I look at the calendar and most of the weekends already have something written on them.So I have been having a strange problem. I have been having a problem with dates. I did not run the Warrior Dash this year because I looked at the calendar and thought, “That’s weird. Why would they do the Warrior Dash on Mother’s Day Sunday?” Of course they didn’t, I just read the calendar wrong. Then I was super bummed a couple of weeks ago because we were halfway through Sunday and nobody had wished me Happy Father’s Day. Nobody wished me Happy Father’s Day because it wasn’t Father’s Day. Father’s Day was the following Sunday. Which is...

Starting with some swirls…

By on Jun 6, 2017

Man have I been busy! You can tell I mean it because I very rarely use exclamation points. Work is crazy. You will notice from here on out the links will no longer appear at the bottom of posts. One of the companies I was linking has closed. It is rather disappointing because I built the company’s web presence from nothing to being the first unpaid google result for Milwaukee printers.Alas, we move on. Work isn’t the only thing that has been crazy. I took my nephew to a Pokémon tournament this last weekend. He is the nephew that inspired me to start Pokémon GO. We talk about Pokémon and he mentioned a long time ago the desire to go to a tournament. This year a tournament was held in Madison, WI so I agreed to take him.I have been to a few Cons so it was pretty much what I was expecting. He had a blast. The competition was far stronger than he anticipated so he didn’t...

Finished Marill

By on May 19, 2017

I finished this a couple of days ago. I didn’t want to just post some phone pics of it so it took a couple days to get the opportunity to take some nicer pictures. I had fun doing this one. Some parts were a little frustrating while others turned out really nice. I mentioned in the previous post that I like doing pokemon drawings because they are simple designs that are easy to customize. I picked this guy because my colored pencil collection is still a bit weak. I have the blues all covered and that is the Marill’s main color. It was able to expand my greys and then start my reds. I am still getting a feel for the pencils and the larger areas of blue proved to be more of a challenge. I was anticipating this which was why I started with the snake-like Dratini. I am still thoroughly impressed with the quality of these pencils. Even in the places the drawing became...

And an Anklet…

By on May 16, 2017

Last night we had some thunderstorms move through. I don’t know where my oldest picked it up but she has decided she is terrified by thunder and lightening. Lately I’ve been going for my nightly run and then coming home and listening to music while drawing or doing something creative. Last night I was listening to Ahmad Jamal while making a new anklet for my wife. She used to wear stuff like this all the time but most of them have broken or gotten lost. I made the beads out of Sculpey, if you look close you can see the occasional fingerprint. I was distracted, wearing headphones, looking down at the anklet when suddenly my oldest was standing next to me silently sobbing. Scared the living daylights out of me. I was lucky I didn’t drop the anklet and loose all the beads.We talked for a little while and I showed her the anklet while making her a small snack to get her...

Necklaces…

By on May 10, 2017

My oldest daughter has been doing little sculptures using Sculpey. I could tell she was losing interest because she was running out of ideas. She was making food with faces kind of like Num Noms. After making several dozen she would get out her sculpture stuff and just sit at the table not really making anything. So I suggested making jewelry. I mentioned in previous posts that we are currently on a Moana kick, so she decided to make Heart of Te Fiti necklaces. Small aside, I just looked up how to spell Te Fiti and up until this very second we all thought it was “Na Fiti.” Anyway, she made some Heart of Te Fiti charms and we baked them so she could make a few necklaces. She has been gifted many necklace and bracelet making kits so finding supplies was not a problem. She also went through her jewelry box finding old bracelets she could cannibalize.I took the...