Helping Out My Artist Child

I had some of my art supplies sent over from the house that I was living in to my new apartment in Salt Lake City, Utah. Then I had to arrange my art supplies with my graduate school gear in an apartment that is not all that big, but big enough.
I love this place, but it was missing something. I also was missing something in my life. After doing the assignment with the hands for one of my graduate school classes, it dawned on me that I was missing a key element in my life. ART! My artist child was neglected for way too long.
Now that I have some of my art supplies, I can create art. Even if the creations are just doodling as I am taking notes in class, at least I am creating and satisfying that drive to create.
My next goal is to arrange my little basement so that I can bring over the rest of my art supplies. Then when I need some bits and pieces to go in or on an art project, I can simply go downstairs and gather what I need.
Now go create!

Drawings~36th World Wide SketchCrawl-July 14 and Creating Art with my Son-July 19

 Last weekend I participated in the 36th World Wide Sketch Crawl with other artists at SketchCrawl.com.  I had just finished my first semester in graduate school and needed to treat myself to something. Instead of food as a treat, I took myself on and Artist Date.
I posted a notice on the SketchCrawl.com forum inviting other artists in my area to meet me at a local library to draw and then travel on to another spot to create. That was the whole point of the activity. Gather some friends and go out and sketch together. At the end of the time agreed upon the group is to meet at a local coffee shop or whatever to share their thoughts and drawings.
I posted a time and place to meet and then waited to see if anyone wanted to get together. People read the post, but no one posted that they would meet me there. Well, I decided that I would still show up and hope that someone else would also.

1st drawing~Sugar beet sculpture

2nd drawing-Fireplace inside of library

3rd drawing~Emigration Creek

I arrived at the library a little after 9 am and started to draw the Sugar beet sculpture that sits in front of the library. No one showed up, but at that moment I realized that it did not matter to me if anyone would. What I wanted was to draw, to add art back into my life. Yes, it would have been nice to have an artist friend to share with, but it did not happen. However, I really was not alone, because all over the world there were artists sketching, painting and so forth at the same time that I was. They have shared their artwork on the forum and I will also. It was a great day and I enjoyed every minute of it.

4th drawing~Annie, my dog hanging out by the creek

 July 19, 2012~ Creating Art with my Son

My son and I created these drawings of a Purple Coneflower that was found near us.
We both created our works of art using Prismacolor drawing pencils and paper that my daughter makes. (Walk Through Water Creative Arts) 
Once again it had been a long time since I had used colored pencils, but the flower turned out great, but not as well as my son's drawing. I like his better. He had not done any creative work for a long time either. I really do not know why we ignored our Artist child for so long. We will not be letting that happen any longer. The Artist child in us needs to be given more opportunities to create. We will create and have a lot of fun doing our creations together. Here all along I thought that I did not have anyone to go out and about to draw with. My drawing companion was right there in my son and I should have had him go on the sketch crawl with me. Now I know better and we shall go and create.

My Trailer Went Camping Without Me!

This is true, my trailer or Parnassus on Wheels did in fact go camping without me. Rude! I guess he did not want to wait for me to go because he knew I was hard at work doing my graduate school assignments.
Parnassus let my oldest daughter and my youngest son take him camping for a week. They had to dry camp and tote their water in containers. Apparently, one of the pipes in Parnassus cracked during the winter. I did not think there was any water left in the pipes and plus there was that anti-freeze stuff in them. Of course, I am going off of what others have said. I have not been able to go over to Tooele to check the situation for myself. The water could be coming from something else.
Despite this Parnassus and company had fun camping. My daughter took this photo of him and you can see the new paint job I gave him at the end of last summer. I love the thin red line and the fresh green on him. If the door was closed in the photo you would be able to see the red around the window. There is much more I need to finish on him, but for now he is pretty just the way he is.
I hope to go camping a least once this season, but that is still up in the air. Graduate school takes a lot of work, which I love and does not end until July 12. There is another major holiday coming up in Utah and by the time I get set to go, it might be time to start a new semester of school. ;-(

Anyway, I hope y'all get to go camping and have fun!