Like Ol' Tom Sawyer

A few weeks ago we started reading The Adventures of Tom Sawyer at bedtime. It's part of my mission to help Celina re-learn the English language after reading too many Junie B. Jones books. We've only gotten to the part when the boys run away to be pirates. But apparently my girls liked it enough to start pretending to be Tom Sawyer when Aunt Polly makes him whitewash the fence. So now when they're outside, they get their broom, dip it in the bucket of water, and "whitewash" the sidewalk. This is a drawing of Miri taking a turn at it.
The head is my favorite part. It looks just like her. She's a hard little thing to capture on paper.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Book of Kells: The Name Of Jesus

Image
It's been a while and I'm in need of some drawing practice. I chose this small segment of a piece from the Book of Kells. It's deceptively simple. I realize there are actual methods to producing this type of artwork, painstaking methods that involve lots of measuring and straight edges to make sure things are even. But I'm like Nike, and I just do it.  I literally look at the piece and just draw. I try to copy the angles and the lengths of the lines that I see. My trusty pencil and eraser come in right handy for this. Take for instance, that letter s. It's too far away from his fish friend and from the ih (for Jesus - ihs. If you've seen Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade , you know that "in latin, Jehovah begins with an I.") So I moved it over and thought I was good to go.  I bought some india ink pens to try out some this summer (mostly since I left all my ink and nibs at home). It's only after outlining everything that my mistakes become
Read more

Cloaks But No Daggers

Image
Little did I know that when I found Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader  as a DVD Blue-Ray combo at Costco for super cheap that I would later give my youngest an idea for her Halloween costume. I bought the movie because my girls hadn't seen it and I thought the series might be something they would like. I made them watch the first two before we started Dawn Treader , but they liked it so much that by Prince Caspian , my daughter had decided to be not a dog for Halloween, but Lucy Pevensie. She picked her outfit from Prince Caspian  over the ones in Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe  because it was prettier, she said. To make this dress, I actually used a pattern I had bought in case I was going to make a costume for my oldest, and modified the pieces so that it would look like Lucy's dress in the film. I couldn't find any fabric in the rusty-orange color that my daughter would let anywhere near her skin. I wound up choosing a dark red knit interlock fabric which I think
Read more

Cake Bawse - Irish Dance Birthday Cake

Image
It's time for Lord of the Dance! And by dance, I mean the Cakewalk! I never liked that silly dance show anyways. My oldest daughter is having an Irish Dance Birthday Party and wanted a cake to match. Well, there are no dancers, and no shoes on this cake, because I haven't gotten myself up to the task of learning fondant work. I chose to learn about royal icing instead. First, let's talk about plans. I'm not even going to show Lina's, partly because I don't know what she did with it. It was four tiers, with fondant irish dancers on the top and a second cake sculpted in the shape of a hard shoe on the bottom. Time, skills, and small children notwithstanding, it was a little much for a party of 10 girls to eat. Later, when I realized what size the cake actually would be, I scrapped any notion of irish dancers on top. I put Irish lace on the bottom tier, along with the words, Happy Birthday in uncial script (it's the same kind of calligraphy used in the Book o
Read more