Of Mice And Wheat

Based upon a suggestion from my previous post, I decided that my next drawing project would involve mice. I had to forewarn my dear hubby of the subject matter because when he was a child he had a bad experience with a house mouse and has been terrified of the little creatures ever since. So I had to give him the heads up to avoid any freak outs on his end since he can’t even tolerate seeing pictures of them. I don’t tease him about it though because spiders give me the hee-bee gee-bees and since we have an attic, those little buggers have a tendency to just drop down out of nowhere when I’m walking down the hall or cooking in the kitchen. So he gets rid of spiders for me and when our cat died and two months later our house was invaded by a family of mice, guess who had to set the traps and get rid of them? So we have a nice little arrangement for who does what when these creep crawly terrors invade our personal space.


What has been a little surprising to me is that while doing a bit of research on mice I learned that there are a number of different mice. I always thought there was only field mice and house mice but no, there’s more. There’s the deer mouse (also known as the field mouse) that’s called such because its fur is the same color as deer, Then there’s the cactus mouse, the cotton mouse, the wood mouse and the harvest mouse. Of these I chose the harvest mouse to be my subject simply for it’s adorableness and because it’s known to be found among cereal grains which I thought drawing one or two of these mice among some wheat would create some intricacy in the drawing. So far I’ve been working on some preliminary sketches to get familiar with drawing wheat and mice since they’re both new subject matter for my visual vocabulary. And as usual I anticipate that drawing the fur on these little creatures will be challenging because trying to draw fur realistically in pointillism is always challenging but I think this project will be fun as well as stretch my skills a bit. ๐Ÿ™‚

Getting Back In The Swing Of Things

I’ve been a bit under the weather over the past couple of weeks and therefore more focused on getting back to being healthy rather than drawing. But fortunately over the past two days I’ve been feeling better and was able to get started on a new ACEO. Gracing my drawing board today is a base sketch of an egret with cattails that I found to be a bit cute in a peculiar kinda way. A little tidbit I learned about egrets is that they are not the same as cranes, which is what I thought. Actually they’re more so a type of heron, which is another bird I thought was the same as a crane. In actuality herons and cranes are two distinct birds. I won’t get into the differences between the two but if you look at the pictures below maybe you can spot some of them.ย  As the saying goes, you learn something new each day. ๐Ÿ™‚

Heron
Crane

Thinking Of You

Well here’s the result of card making bug that bit me this weekend. I suspect that this itch won’t be going away soon. Actually I got into card making about two years ago when I simply got fed up with going to the store and having to search through a plethora of cards just to find one that resonated with me for the special people in my life. So with a little creativity I started making my own just for friends and family. But now, here I am making my first set. It’s a simple “Thinking Of You” note card created from an original sketch I did a while back. I made this from a heavy cardstock base and added a little message inside. It’s something simple and sweet and great for those thoughtful moments without a lot of fuss. I’ve been coming up with more ideas for future sets but I have to admit, as simple as they look there’s a lot involved in making cards. My brain feels like it’s been stretched a mile but now I feel a bit more crafty and having some fun learning along the way. ๐Ÿ˜Š

Something Froggy

Sketched up something new for my drawing board. No more scary little creatures that make my skin crawl. I wanted to do something cute and was in the mood for something froggy, so here’s my work in progress. I’ve never had a frog but I’ve always found them to be adorable, particularly tree frogs. There’s something about their big eyes and padded toes that just tickle me. ๐Ÿ˜Š

Have You Ever…

“If You Let Me” (wip)

…fallen in love with a song? I mean, literally, fallen in love with a song in a way that the lyrics feel like a lover’s finger tips softly caressing your skin? Well, that’s how I’ve been feeling about Sinead Harnett’s song “If You Let Me”. 

I first heard it in passing while cleaning my living room with Pandora playing in the background. It didn’t immediately catch my attention, I only happen to notice that its sound fit perfectly into the mood I wanted to create for the playlist I was building. So I gave it a thumbs up and booked marked it. But it wasn’t until the second time I heard it, a week later, that I fell head over heels, which in all honesty, is how I am when it comes to love. It’s always with the second or third look that I fall, it’s never been the first. 

This song has been stuck in my musical mind loop for two weeks, I even wake up with it playing in the backdrop of my thoughts and now it has become the source of inspiration for my next piece of ACEO miniature art. There are so many verses in this song that touch me that it’s been difficult narrowing it down to just one but that’s the parameters I gave myself for this project so one verse it is.