doing what it takes to stay safe & warm

For a second year in a row, my neck of the woods has experienced the coldest temperatures ever for the longest stretch ever!  There is an end in sight but we need to be patient for another couple of days.  When venturing out the door to exercise my body is out of the question these days, I exercise my brain!  I have taken numerous tutorials on how to work with watercolor brush pens and graphite pencils then put what I learned to the test.  I have four projects to share:

When I look at this, I think of the days when there was not a care in the world!  For this sketch which I did from a tutorial, I used a graphite pencil, a white gel pen and lead shavings from a navy coloured pencil.   To get the blue look, you use a tissue with the blue shavings on it and smudge it in a circular motion. The tutorial used black but I experimented with blue and prefer that look.

This  project was done more for the practice of laying and blending colours to get a background and for that I used watercolor brush pens and a paint brush that I dipped in water. The brush pens were also used for the flower.  The lady is done in india ink and a white gel pen was used for the hair highlights.

Sketching faces is not my thing nor my interest! That was until I followed a tutorial with the outcome being this!  The only media used was a graphite pencil.  I am feeling I want to explore this angle a little more and see if there is hope for me in making progress on face sketching. 

Chick-a-dee-dee-dee-dee! I enjoyed sketching a Chickadee with coloured pencils and thought there could be as much enjoyment using watercolor brush pens.  The verdict!  There was!  Even with the brush pens, it is a challenge to get small details precise.  

Now on to something not as colourful nor as enjoyable, the weather! Staying safe these days means avoiding frosh bite, praying pipes don't freeze or that water mains don't break.  My staying safe thoughts are not that I might catch something but rather that my car starts when I get back to it from being out & about and that the key does not snap in half when I turn it to open my front door once I am back home.  This is what it looks like to be "out & about" these days!

I saw movement in a bushy area that was wind blown.  

A porcupine was curling up to brace against the wind.

These Canada Geese were flying in a northerly direction!!!

adding a splash of color to a very white day

berries laden with snow

when the forecast calls for ice crystals, this is the outcome

early on while I am still warm

I have many more sketching tutorials lined up 

but I do hope for more windows of opportunity to safely be "out & about"!