sketchbookfactory

A few weeks ago my husband and I were at hanging out at Chaparral Park watching the birds on the island when 2 domestic geese started squabbling. It appeared to be a female goose rejecting the advances of a male goose.

Suddenly we heard a frantic honking from inside the island, and out of the trees came another goose, running and squawking and flapping his wings. Clearly he was the mate of the female.

He ran (and then swam) over to the other two geese and chased off the harassing male. Then he and the female swam off together, the protective male making a sort of under-the-breath muttering sound the whole time. It really seemed to us like he was lecturing her.

“What were you thinking? Everyone knows that guy is trouble! You can’t just wander off alone like that…”

It was a fascinating and hilarious sight to see. After the excitement, we went for a short walk around the lake. When we returned, the mated pair were still swimming around and this time they were both making those bickering noises.

“Will you let it go already? I’m an independent goose, I can do what I want.”

“Not until you promise to be more careful!”

“Oh calm down, nothing happened.”

“Because I was there to stop it.”

“I can take care of myself perfectly fine.”

“Obviously not.”

I made this one as a gift for a friend.

It’s a female blue jay and a female cardinal. The cardinal is keeping an eye out for her friend.

Marker on paper.

Fly Paper is a literary organization in Phoenix that produces all kinds of workshops and events around town. One of their most popular events is Bar Flies – a live storytelling series with a different theme each month.

During the pandemic they started doing Illustrated Bar Flies, which was a great way to keep the community storytelling alive without jamming a bunch of people into Valley Bar. In the illustrated version, participants get 9 panels to tell their story in any visual medium they choose.

A few months ago I had the privilege of participating in this project. This was a perfect opportunity for me because a) I had just gotten an iPad and was dabbling in digital art, and b) the prompt was “fly”, which was a great excuse to write about my latest obsession: birds.

This is my story.

Hey it’s me, the person who has been egregiously neglecting this blog for the past few years. I’ve been wanting to get back here for a while, but the thought of posting and writing about all the creative work I’ve done while I was away has been kinda overwhelming.

So I’m not going to bother. I am just going to start with where I’m at now.

And where I’m at now is birds.

Living that quarantine life, I should have more free time than ever. Yet each day seems to end before I’ve had a chance to accomplish much.

So I’ve been wondering where the heck has all the extra time gone?

Then I figured it out…

Each year I draw my Christmas tree. And each year I hope to make it look different from my drawings of previous years.

But it never does. I’ve used a variety of mediums, but they all kinda end up looking the same.

This year I realized that the way to make it look different is to stop doing the same close-up composition, and just let the tree be part of a larger scene.

So here it is. A little sloppy and a little late, but I finally achieved my goal.

I’m a lover of small luxuries. Like handwarmers and candy cane coffee and good pens. Little things like that bring me a lot of joy and make me feel lucky.

Have you ever borrowed a pen from someone and the ink just flowed out like a dream? Not too juicy, not too dry, just a perfect beautiful line. You find yourself asking “Where did you get this pen???” Because up until then, you never knew what you were missing. You never knew how much difference a good pen could make. How much unexpected happiness you got from making a mark on a page.

Not long ago I wrote this to remind me to get the good pens.

One of my favorite pens is the Pentel Pocket Brush pen. It’s so fun to draw with. You can get such a wide variety of marks out of it. It takes a lot of practice to make a precise line, and I don’t quite have the motor skills to get it to do exactly what I want it to do, but that is part of the fun.

Congratulations to our new vice president, Kamala Harris!