Riled up at the Ryle's

Party at our musical friends, the Ryle's, last night. Food and live music. Fun.

Joe at Jo's

Out and about with sister P in Austin for the last couple of days. The best way to get my companions to sit for a while so that I can sketch is feed them and/or ply them with beverages. We spent some time in downtown and in the SoCo area prowling around and spending a surprisingly small amount of $$. Coffee at Jo's revived us for more.

My Drummer Boy

S played percussion in the Christmas Eve service at church - The Little Drummer Boy. He has played with them the last 3 years and is eager to play and seems to enjoy the hours of practice the week before. I know D and I enjoy him, and the music. I went early to pick him up from practice to get in a sketch of all the drummers on stage.

Bleu Cheese Burger @ Dutch's

It is a good thing we do not live in Ft. Worth. During our Thanksgiving visit to sister P in that part of Texas we went to Dutch's near the college there. We went based on a review in TX Monthly magazine. Guess I was hungry when I saw the photo in the mag, 'cause I just had to try their Bleu Cheese Burger.

The buns tasted homemade and the melty cheese, bacon and burger were awesome. Definitely belongs on the "Things I Shouldn't Eat" list, but yum!

Streaming Concert

Here is a composite of 3 pages from my sketchbook. I did this at a concert, starting before the musician took the stage and throughout the show. Sort of a stream/timeline of the event. I am pretty happy with how it turned out.

Time for a post

I've been busy all through Oct with work. Now it is time to cleanout the office/studio and post something here.

If I am posting to the blog that must mean I am not cleaning. So I'm just gonna through up a few sketches from the last month.

Including Texas Championship PowWow, and Riven Rock in Comfort TX.

Sketch Crawl and pumpkins

It is late and I am tired. Pumpkins seem to have filled my weekend. 33rd WorldWide Sketch Crawl was fun but only 3, then one more attended. Seriously Houston, where are you? I plan to work on the Farmers Market plenty more. The bakery across the street from it may be my new favorite place, except for the powdered coffee creamer.

Dr. Butter and Pocket Pies

On Saturday the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft celebrated it's 10th anniversary. We have enjoyed many openings and exhibits in the wonderful space at HCCC over the years. (as observers not exhibitors) The weather was cooler and of course clear, on account of the drought, so we headed into town to check it out.

Cool Dr. Butter carved ice sculptures with a chain saw, spraying ice shavings over a shreaking audience of kids. He even carved an ice beer mug filled it with beer, and handed it off too, the ultimate frosty mug.

I visited with a lady that was dying fabric with plant roots and spinning cotton boles into cotton thread. I had an "Oh My Pocket Pie" for lunch, from a food truck. Unfortunately I was too full when the ice cream truck rolled in dispensing FREE ICE CREAM. I guess I am old if I don't jump in on that gig. S on the other hand was skulking around trying to figure out how to get round 2 on the ice cream, and that is after he had already decorated and eaten a chocolate cupcake at the Sprinkles booth.

A head cold, missed flight and the Uffizzi

Since I am just now getting my blog populated with posts, I will be adding some old sketches from previous sketchbooks. Last spring we went to Italy, although it was a great trip with D and S, I ended up with a great gloppy head cold and accidentally missed our flight home and had to stay 3 extra days. No one believed it was an accident, it was, really. Although touristy - the roof coffee shop on the top of the Uffizzi offers the perfect place to view the dome, and of course have un caffè.

Super Awesome Ferry in Honduras

This was the ferry we used on our return from Trujillo to LaCeiba, Honduras. The bridge was out so rather than go the long way, we went the super-safe way. The water was completely opaque, I can't imagine how a fish could live in it. I took the first boat over and sat in the dirt on the other side sketching the whole process. The photo doesn't do the water justice, the sketch is a much more accurate indicator of water color. This was in early Aug. 2011.

Pink Flamingos and giraffes.

A day at the zoo sketching with my friend Mary. Hot as blazes. But the animals stood relatively still.

One lovely giraffe (my favorite) just gazed at me for a long time, with her dark eyes. She was sitting down so her head was nearly level with mine.

The flamingos are great for gesture drawing. Fantastically flexible necks.

Symphony at Pavilion

Poperazzi - a nice evening of Italian classical and pop. And to eat: an Italian sub for me and meatball for D and pizza sub for S. Ciao!

Fish for dinner, fish for lunch

Just eat them up heads, tails and all.
Well as you would expect the seafood in Lisbon was very good. And lots of variety.

Jamaica Beach, TX

Saturday we made a quick run down to Jamaica Beach, which is past Galveston on the coast south of Houston. Went to visit D's brother and his family for one last spurge of summer before school on Monday. I was pleasantly surprised by how nice it was, no crowds, no touristy shops etc, just houses and beach.

Lisbon USk

Stellar Urban Sketchers Symposium in Lisbon. Great inspiring artists, fun people from 21 countries. A banquet of creative food for the soul. So glad I went, looking forward to next time.

Honduras mission trip

Another opportunity to go to Honduras with our outstanding group of volunteers. Construction, dental work, crafts and Bible studies for our friends in La Ceiba and Trujillo. D and S and I also got to spend a few days relaxing afterwards on lovely Roatan. Sweet people and fabulous snorkling.

Cast of characters

Another form March trip to Austin Texas.

Color added later.

Road Trip Ft Morgan AL

A recent road trip with Mary C. to her old stompin' grounds. Lovely white sand and quaint beach houses.

Bryan TX 4.9.11

A quick trip to Bryan/College Station on Friday for a concert. The next day I stayed in downtown Bryan to sketch while D & S went to the Bush (Sr) Presidential Library. I am so used to all the trees at home the lack of them in the area felt like it was missing something. Just not used to the "prairie".

Blue face

I can't remember where I was when I sketched this. Just a page in the journal. Playing with my blue pen.

Austin, Camp Mabry - Texas Military Museum

Austin,TX. Brigadier General John C. L. Scribner Texas Military Forces Museum. Went to visit the Texas Military Museum on our brief family spring break. Thought D & S would enjoy it. Something for everyone, art, food, tanks.

When we arrived the Texas National Guard Camp Mabry was having a "Changing of the Colors" ceremony, which is the change of command. I thought the best part was when they shot big cannons, with the sound echoing off the surrounding buildings and probably all the limestone in the area. Got a couple of sketches on the fly.

The museum was really pretty interesting, surprising number of vehicles. There were only a very few people there. One room had a display of thousands of military pins. A couple of diaramas of battle scenes from Texas histroy, like the Alamo. The museum has displays about all of Texas military history. I recommend it.

Discovery Shuttle Launch sketch

To see the shuttle launch, you get in place and then wait, wait, wait. While we waited the dolphins put on a show for us, and the flamingos? big pink birds took flight from the island too. I took along my sketch book and crochet hook. Here is one of my sketches colored in with Photoshop.

The launch was a tremendous spectacle. Thanks to my sis R for inviting me along.

Work in Progress - Japanese flower

I picked up a huge bag of these DMC yarns when I went to FL to watch the shuttle Discovery launch. They had a bucket of them for .39c each. So I just got one of every color. Then had them send me a mailing box stuffed with more. I had to revise a pattern so that each color would not be more than 8 yrds, which is the size of each piece. This is it so far. Sort of an adaption of a Japanese pattern from the internetsphere. I am addicted to these and yet I have tons of office work to keep me away from the fun. For now.

I'm still pondering how to attach them to each other.

God bless all our Japanese crafters affected by the catastrophe.