November

Alas! It is already the last day of November. I feel a bit guilty for not blogging hardly at all this month. ....well, I've written quite a number of articles but I have yet to publish them. That does not help my case though. And so, here I am paying homage before December dawns on us.
It has been a lovely month. Working hard most days. Some day, hardly working. I taped dried leaves that the kids and I collected onto a doorway like I do every fall. The reds and greens of Christmas don't last long enough so it's a fun way of saving a bit of color all throughout the winter.
Thanksgiving was wonderful. A smaller group of family and friends than usual, but it was such a joy. We were quite stuffed, satisfied and sleepy by the end of the day. Oh, and we made 14 pies!!! It truly was an accident... caused by over estimating the amounts for filling the pie plates. You wouldn't believe me if I told you the pies were gone by Sunday! ...no we didn't eat them all ourselves. Some were distributed to the freezer for Christmas and some were also taking to potluck on Sunday.
There has been a lot of deer hunting. My big brother shot two small does on opening day but other then that the critters were hiding well. ....no thirty point buck this year! =)
I was able to reflect on thanksgiving and made it a goal to post a different Bible verse each day on facebook that used the words "thank" "thanks" "thanksgiving" and "thankful" in their context. My dad's handy dandy Strong's Concordance came in very handy and I learned quite a bit by looking up all of those verses!!!!

It has been a lovely month. Working hard most days. Some day, hardly working. I taped dried leaves that the kids and I collected onto a doorway like I do every fall. The reds and greens of Christmas don't last long enough so it's a fun way of saving a bit of color all throughout the winter.
Thanksgiving was wonderful. A smaller group of family and friends than usual, but it was such a joy. We were quite stuffed, satisfied and sleepy by the end of the day. Oh, and we made 14 pies!!! It truly was an accident... caused by over estimating the amounts for filling the pie plates. You wouldn't believe me if I told you the pies were gone by Sunday! ...no we didn't eat them all ourselves. Some were distributed to the freezer for Christmas and some were also taking to potluck on Sunday.
I was able to reflect on thanksgiving and made it a goal to post a different Bible verse each day on facebook that used the words "thank" "thanks" "thanksgiving" and "thankful" in their context. My dad's handy dandy Strong's Concordance came in very handy and I learned quite a bit by looking up all of those verses!!!!
I shall have to share them with you sometime.
Time is short.... and I am off, to go milk the cows and welcome in December. I hope your month was a lovely one.

To sea...

There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat. And we must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures. 
~William Shakespeare

Lend Me A Hand?

 A sketch I did while working through the book, 

Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain

 Another DTRSB sketch

I saw a picture that demonstrated how JC Leyendecker painted hands/flesh. David Darrow, a painter who posted the photo on facebook said of it, "...it shows how Leyendecker started with a fairly slick, neutral half-tone gray (not middle gray; lighter) base. This appears to have had the effect of solving many mid-tone issues as he added pigment, while reducing the need for light half-tones. Highlights POP from it."

I got excited by the concept and decided to try it for myself. It was the first time I'd ever added color to one of my 'fleshly' drawings.... and therefore it was incredibly fun!!! Such a task might seem elementary to an experienced artist but it was quite a break-through/Eurika moment for me. 
Unfortunately this copy of my pastel turned out a bit yellow due to the lighting that I took the picture in.  The original has more of a pasty grey tone.

The funny part:
After completing the drawing I had the picture sitting out on my desk. In the course of the next few days there were a number of times when I was in need of a writing utensil and tried to grab the pencil from the drawing!!!!!

Old Artwork

A few old sketches:

This is my first pastel. The proportions are all funky. :)

 My second pastel drawing. I still have this vase of dead flowers on my desk.

 This is a pencil and charcoal drawing of a post card I received of Warren Dunes, MI.

 A little picture my sister Nellie and I drew.... she drew the flower I did the lines. ;)

Friendship

It's November already. Crazy how the time flies! ....and yet, at the same time the past two weeks couldn't have felt longer. An eternity could have passed because the days felt so long. 

I have been thinking a lot about friendship. Old friends, that is, true friends are such a blessing. I've had a lot of friends and acquaintances all of my life, for which I feel so blessed and am always thankful. As I have grown up my friendships have matured or diminished away and the whole meaning of what a friend is has transformed. 
When I was a child a friend was someone that I played with frequently. In fact I hardly considered someone to be a close friend if we didn't do fun things often and if we didn't become "buddy-buddy." 
 Now I understand a friend to be someone whom you might see all of the time... or once a year... or once every five years... or whom may live next door or miles and miles away. You know a friend is true when no matter when you see them or get together you can instantly feel at ease and safe because you share the same goals, the same principles and morals, the same blessed hope. I can't even explain the depth of a true friend but it is something that I look forward to discovering throughout my entire life.
It seems that the days just gets busier as I get older, which scares me because life already seems overwhelming. How did I ever find the time to have so much "fun"?!!! For as much as childhood was a sweet time I am very glad to have found more substance in friendship. I thank God especially for all of my true friends.

This thought on old friends also made me realize something about new friends or people that we have just met: Maybe getting to know someone new is such a pleasurable experience because we hope that they too could become another one of our dear, sweet, old friends.

Proverbs 17:17   

A friend loveth at all times, and 

a brother is born for adversity.