Splotch Monster for Milo: "Hey, Quit Roughhousing!"

Here's one of Steve's Splotches which I made into not one but four Monsters for Milo's pocket--"Hey, Quit Rough-housing, someone might get hurt!"

The original Splotch is shown below.

This probably completes my work in and for Milo's mole, which I will soon send off to Mike. We are expecting out of town company, so there may be a bit of a delay, but it is about ready to go.

Painting in the Dark, Quick barroom sketches

So we have out-of-town company, an old school friend of my husband and we are sitting in a bar hour after hour, drink after drink, in a very dark corner while they talk about the old days and I m bored out of my gourd. I drag my tiny watercolor set out of my pocket and a little pad of paper and sit in my dark corner "listening" and painting little sketches.

The first one of the child with the book I "finished" today (added the background). I want to learn to paint well enough to illustrate my own children's books. The second I did last night practicing monochrome. It's hard to paint in the dark.

For Milo's pocket.

Milo's Pocket again: Fractal Dragon

I created this fractal in Xaos and then manipulated it in photoshop. You will not find another like it, I don't think, as it it quite changed from the original. For Milo's pocket.

Here is the fractal that I manipulated to get this "final" image. The image below was also manipulated from an original fractal, which I did not copy, on Xaos.

It is sort of like splotch monsters in that I looked for creature and a dragon is what I saw.

More Milo pocket items (well, one)

I know each and every one of you is dying for a picture of my husband, so here's one for Milo. I did this on the iPad in Sketchbook Pro--it's 100% finger painting. I can't seem to keep track of the stylus. It wanders away. Luckily, none of my fingers have wandered away yet. No photo was involved--it did this totally from scratch. Well, I had a photo of him to LOOK at and the real person as well.

Two pocket items for Milo (a bit of silliness)

A couple pocket items for Milo. I put so many pocket items in the last two moles because I had a long wait for them, but had no wait for this one and therefor, not many pocket items.

This first one is a watercolor memory test--I tried to paint the yellow ladyslipper from memory after a number of days of not looking at it. The second one is even more silly, a sort of doodle on the side of a kleenex box with metallic markers.

First piece for Milo's pocket

I don't have a mole (a traveling one, that is) right now, so I am working on some other projects (a Ms of poetry, a novel, some paintings). I painted ANOTHER yellow ladyslipper using the same photo I used on the one I made for Ballookey as a reference at the request of a friend--this one in gouache. I made a print of it and one of the picture I made on the iPad for Ballookey and am saving them for Milo's pocket when it arrives. I wrote a little bit about the project here, if anyone is interested. This is entirely painted with gouache. I used a rigger brush for the small water droplets. It was made from scratch on green paper. I made the original sketch in gouache, not pencil.  (It's still a big deal for me to just go ahead and paint without sketching first).