Pika Pika Perler

By on Jul 24, 2017

    We just spent the weekend at my in-laws house. They live in rural Wisconsin, which has its upsides and its downsides. We used to go alot more often but now we only go a couple times a year. When we were visiting more often I started to despise going. There were a few reasons, one of which was sheer boredom. I have mentioned, with children I am not afforded the luxury of boredom, which is true and amplified there. After we had kids I would find myself working twice as hard taking care of the kids because they were bored. Being as it was my in-law’s house, my normal tools for keeping the girls occupied were no longer available. This made the situation even more frustrating for everyone involved. About a year ago I decided to remedy the situation. It took me a little while to come up with a decent solution but I realized if Grandma’s house had special activities...

Mickey as Wolverine Update…

By on Jul 14, 2017

    I made some prints. We have a new printer at work that prints silver. I was messing around creating some sample files (more on that later) when I realized I had the scan of this on my desktop. I cleaned it up a little and made his claws and buttons silver. So this is what I am going to do… If you contact me by email, comment on this article or any other way I will send you a print. I have already signed five copies and put them in envelopes. It doesn’t matter when you contact me, as long as I still have one left I will send it to you. I am not sending stuff out of the US, because that is a pain in the ass, but if you get in touch I will send one out. I kind of hope some day this blog will catch on and people will start sending me requests.

Strawberry Picking

By on Jun 27, 2017

We went strawberry picking this weekend. My mom is visiting for the week so we all went strawberry picking. It was a good thing we went this weekend because it was the last weekend for it. We have been getting alot of rain so the strawberries have suffered a bit. We were still able to get a ton of strawberries. I spent at least 1 1/2 hours cleaning them last night. I think we picked about 11 pounds of them and they were all tiny but delicious.I mentioned my mother is visiting. She is spending the week with my oldest. They are having a great time. I don’t know if my mom is going to survive though. She is running her ragged. We went to the craft store and planned out some themed days for them. They are watching Song of the Sea and then making an owl craft. They are watching Moana and making beaded necklaces and bracelets. My mom doesn’t drive while here so we had to figure...

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...