Scribble Picnic - Finland

Hi everyone,

This is a crazy time of year for me as I'm sure it is for many of you so, needless to say, I'm late with my entry this week for Scribble Picnic.

Michael chose the theme - Finland/Scandinavian. I did a little research and discovered the Finland invented the Sauna as well as Ice-skates...who knew? Well I knew they were big into saunas as my brother-in-law was Finnish. My neighbours in a previous house were also Finnish and they had a sauna specially built as an add-on to their home. I was going to go with sketching ice-skates but opted for Finland's National flower instead - Lily of the Valley.

This was done with a mix of graphite, Prismacolor pencils, and watercolours...even a wee touch of black ink too.  I sketched it in a Strathmore Tan-toned sketchbook.

First layer

Final layer

To see what my fellow Scribblers have done for this week, click HERE.
Next week, the theme is DREDEL/SPINNING TOP/TEETOTUM...that will be an interesting one! Why not come along and join us?
To find out how, click HERE.

I hope you've all been enjoying a lovely week. My son and I have been busy with choir practise for our upcoming performance at one of our major hospitals. This is our fourth year participating in the hospital choir. SO much fun!

Have a lovely week!

Scribble Picnic - Gift wrap

It's already Thursday Down-Under so I'm running very late for Scribble Picnic. I had a very bad pain day with my back yesterday after doing some housework for house inspection.  We passed inspection with flying colours but my back grumbled and groaned for the rest of the day and evening.  I took painkillers and went off to bed even though I did have ideas for my take on the theme floating around in my head. I just couldn't focus on anything due to the pain.  Thankfully, it wasn't as bad when I woke this morning so I decided to quickly sketch something.

There is more to add...and I will definitely be adding watercolours so will post the results later. 

Finished the colour version in the afternoon

To see what my fellow Scribblers have been up to for this week, click HERE. 

To find out how to join our merry clan, click HERE.

Scribble Picnic - Cookie

Hi everyone,

Another busy week has passed by and it's Scribble Picnic time again. This week, Michael chose 'COOKIE' for the prompt.

I decided to create a cartoon-type skit done very quickly. I may redo it at some point and refine a few things.

These two little mice are carrying a large sultana cookie back to the mouse hole but they run into a problem when they get there...

YIKES!!! Me thinks that their Mum won't be too happy with them when she sees what they did.

The whole skit was done over two pages in my Moleskine sketchbook which doesn't take watercolour too well. Next time, I will use the Moleskine watercolour notebook.

To see what my fellow Picnickers have done for this week, click HERE.
Next week, the prompt is 'GIFT WRAP'....come along and join us. To find out how, click HERE.

On another note, I'd like to thank you all for the well wishes last week. I had the cortisone injection on Monday...yes, it hurt, but it was bearable. I was told to rest the hip for a few days and that the cortisone would kick in after three days. The pain seems to have eased somewhat....YAY!

I will post the rest of my INKtober sketches over the coming days. Time got away from me last week.

I hope you are all having a lovely week so far.

Scribble Picnic - Toy

Hello friends,

This week, the prompt for Scribble Picnic is TOY.

I had an image in my head which I roughly sketched with pencil in my Moleskine sketchbook. Don't you just love his over-sized socks?

I then refined it with a new sketch...all finished below.

Will was absolutely over the moon with his birthday present...a T-rex Dinosaur! 
T-Rex looks quite happy with his new owner too. hehe

To see what my fellow Picnickers did for this week's prompt, click HERE.
Next week, the prompt is 'COOKIE'. Do come along and join in on the fun...to find out how, click HERE.

Re. INKtober - I got as far as Day 27 then came down with a severe migraine which happened to be the side effect from dealing with very bad hip and back pain all week. The medication knocked me out so I had to call it quits on the inking. Last year I got to Day 25 so at least I beat that.

I am now booked in for an Ultrasound-guided cortisone injection directly into my hip joint on Monday. It won't help my back but, hopefully, it will help with the hip pain.

I will post the rest of my INKtober sketches soon so stay tuned...

Scribble Picnic - BOO!

Hello friends,

I didn't realise Michael had put up the prompt for this week until an hour or so back so I quickly sketched out the following in my Moleskine A5 sketchbook.

Little Tommy is all set for Trick-orTreating on Halloween night

Click HERE to see what my fellow Picnickers have done for this week's prompt. 

To find out how to join us each week, click HERE.

Next week's prompt is TOY....time to get the thinking caps on.

Scribble Picnic - Fill in the blank

Hello fellow Scribble Picnickers,

I've had a pretty rough day...feeling unwell and having to take medication to ward off a pending migraine. I'm a little foggy-headed as I type this so please forgive any errors.

This week's prompt was a 'fill in the blank' —

I've enjoyed working with the tan-toned paper for INKtober so thought I'd use it for today's sketch as well. Castles kept coming to mind so that's what I went with. Sketched with a Platinum Carbon fountain pen and coloured with a mix of INKtense and Prismacolor pencils. I was channeling well known Urban Sketcher - Pat Southern Pearce.

To see what my Picnic pals have done for this week's prompt, click HERE.
To find out how to join us each week, click HERE.

And a laugh for today —

Those who follow my blog regularly will know that Jack, our Jack Russell/Shihtzu, detests having a camera or smart phone pointed in his direction. Well, yesterday, I caught him watching me, and he looked so darned cute that I had to try. Poor little man is blind in his left eye (cataracts and age) so he didn't realise what I was up to at first and I managed to actually get a fairly decent shot of him.

Within literally two seconds, he spotted my phone and was on the move...a blur!  THIS is what most of Jack's photos are like. haha

I will post more INKtober sketches tomorrow so stay tuned...

Scribble Picnic - Blanket

Hello friends,

This week, the prompt for Scribble Picnic is BLANKET.

I thought I'd go for something cutesy this week. A little platypus curled up under her blanket, fast asleep. Sweet dreams, little one.

Sketched with Platinum Carbon pen, watercolours, and Prismacolor pencils in Moleskine watercolour notebook.

To see what my picnic pals have been up to for this week, click HERE.
Next week, we will have another 'Fill In The Blank'...what fun!
Click HERE, to find out how to join us.

I also did my INKtober portrait sketch for Day 4 of 31 but I will post that tomorrow along with whatever I do for Day 5...probably another portrait. I wanted this post to be all about Scribble Picnic.  You can check back on previous posts to see what I've been up to for INKtober.

Scribble Picnic - Radio

Hello friends,

This week's Scribble Picnic prompt is RADIO.

I had a few different ideas running through my head for this one:

Our own digital radio playing music while a goldfish danced in its bowl beside the radio.
Or a mouse dancing on top of a radio to the song, Billie Jean, in Michael Jackson style clothes.
Or perhaps a 70's roller-skater carrying a boom box combo as he skated along the promenade at the beach.

So, what did I end up sketching? 

I started out with a rat on rollerskates carrying a radio/CD player combo — sketched roughly with pencil

Which I changed to this groovy rat rollerblading along as his radio/CD player combo belts out some funky tunes. Is he off to skate along the promenade, I wonder?

The finished illustration - Ink, watercolour, and Prismacolour pencils in Moleskine sketchbook

I have to say how thrilled I am to be able to draw directly from my imagination all thanks to Michael's Scribble Picnic prompts each week. They really get my mind thinking and imagining all sorts of scenarios.

Of course, I do have a studio muse but, as you can see below, he really isn't any help at all

To check out the other contributions for this week's picnic, click HERE.
To find out how to join in on the fun each week, click HERE.
The prompt for next week is BLANKET.

Scribble Picnic: Watch Out!

Hello friends,

The Scribble Picnic prompt for this week is WATCH OUT! 

It is Spring here in Oz and the bird nesting season is in full swing so I immediately thought of swooping magpies.  While they aren't the only species of bird to swoop at perceived intruders to their territory, they seem to hold the record for being the most persistent and aggressive. I remember my son, back in primary school, bleeding from just below his eye due to a magpie swooping at him.  I remember being swooped at myself many years ago when I was trying to hang out the washing in the back yard. They are fast, catch you unaware, and they do make contact if you're not fast enough to duck. It's very common in our area, warning signs are in place, and sometimes, people (particularly cyclists) wear funny hats with soft, long, skinny spikes sticking out in all directions to hopefully deter a magpie attack. Magpies see anyone as fair game, no matter the age...you walk into their territory and WATCH OUT! Here, magpies are a protected species which I'm very glad of as I'd hate to think of people harming them simply because they are protecting their young.

That said, magpies are very clever and will actually recognise faces and come to know the humans who mean them no harm.  In a previous home, they would gather twice a day for their treats and, quite often, one or two would come into the house, sit on our dining table and watch my son or I cut up their food. We have never been swooped/attacked since we started making friends with them.

I still get magpies bringing their babies to my door for their daily treats. Their babies can be very loud and demanding and, by that stage, are nearly as big as their parents. They are brown in colour unlike the typical black and white of the adult magpies. I love to watch them! 

SO, getting back to the prompt, I only managed a rough pen/ink sketch...not yet finished. The bird in the sketch will be a magpie when the piece is fine-tuned and coloured in.  These sketches are done completely from imagination and I made it into a cartoon-like sequence. Can you tell what happened?

NOTE : No sweet, old ladies were harmed in the making of this sketch.

Next week's prompt is RADIO. To join in on the fun, click HERE to find out how.
This week's contributions to our picnic can be found HERE.

Scribble Picnic: Black & White

Hello friends,

This week's Scribble Picnic theme is BLACK & WHITE.

Numerous thoughts rushed through my mind — A white sketch on black paper, a Zentangle Wolf, a black ink sketch on white paper, a chess set, a zebra etc.

The Zebra is what stuck in my mind so I did a rough pencil sketch to start with. I wanted to create a cute, baby-like Zebra...a character in my mind, if you will.

The first layer of watercolour

And the end result

I wonder if anyone else thought of a black and white zebra?

Michael hasn't put the page link up for this week yet so I will come back and add it when he does.
Next week's prompt is WATCH OUT! To find out how to join in on the fun each week, click HERE.

Okay, just checked, and our illustrious leader has put up the post for this week so you can click HERE to see the contributions from my fellow Picnickers.

I thought you might like to see a couple of my zebra art pieces from years ago.

This one was done with acrylic paints on an ACEO card made from matte board

And this one was a love job for one of my sons. I called it 'Zebra Sunset' and painted it with acrylics on a 36" x 24" gallery-wrapped canvas.

I'm still dealing with back and hip pain...some days are good, some are quite bad. I feel like I'm developing a permanent limp but I will give the physiotherapy more time to work.

I hope you are all enjoying a beautiful week!

Scribble Picnic - Tie It Up

Hello friends,

I'm running late but I had a good excuse — explained later.

As hard as it would have been, I very nearly let this Scribble Picnic pass without doing anything. I went off to bed very tired after a long day but — an image came to mind and I just had to do a very rough scribble of it — straight from my imagination. I'm so glad I managed to do something after all. Obviously, lots of refining is needed as the rectangular shapes on the roof-racks will be turned into suitcases...but I think the idea is cute and will look better with ink and some watercolour.

The theme for this week was 'TIE IT UP' but for some unknown reason, my tired brain was thinking 'TIE IT DOWN'. Both can pass for the same, I guess.

After making sure all their belongings were securely 'tied down/up' on the roof-racks, these two besties were off on an adventure to the big city — a new life awaited. How exciting!

To see what my fellow Picnickers have done for this week, click HERE.
To find out how to join in on the fun each week, click HERE.

I had a bit of an adventure myself yesterday when my two sons and I decided to take a trip to The Spit, Main Beach at the Gold Coast to capture some photos of the sunrise. We woke up at 1:30 AM to get organised and were off on our adventure by 3 AM. It takes just over an hour to get there. It was dark and cold when we first arrived being that we have only just started spring.  I was so grateful that Aaron had packed some blankets for us. Plus I had taken some Thermo mugs filled with hot coffee. It was heaven!

So here is the sunrise in sequence, taken with my Samsung Galaxy Note 5.

I was so excited to see a couple of pelicans on the beach so naturally I had to get a pic of one

Isn't he/she beautiful?! I adore pelicans! There were lots of seagulls about too waiting at the waters edge as the tide moved in.

We had a beautiful, fun morning! I was a little worried that the fine, dry Aussie sand would have caused my hip and back to flare up but, while I experienced a little pain later, it wasn't as bad as I thought it might be. The physiotherapy must be helping. YAY!  Walking in soft, fine sand can be very hard on the legs and hip, particularly uphill, and especially when you're not used to it.

While the sand looks dark and reddish in this pic, it's purely from the glow of the sunrise, as the sand is actually a white-grey colour in the dry sandy parts of the beach.

We will definitely do that trip again. Needless to say, after a spectacular start to the day, the lack of sleep caught up with me by evening so I went off to bed around 9 PM — and did my Scribble Picnic sketch too before lights out.

I hope you all enjoy a beautiful week!

Scribble Picnic - Curly

Hello friends,

This week, Michael's prompt for Scribble Picnic is CURLY!

I just knew I had to sketch my doll, Bess. She was given to me for my first Christmas when I was only nine months old. She is now 58 years old and a little worse for wear after all these years.

Bess was made in England and has the word 'RODDY' imprinted at the back of her head. She is 17" in height. I did a little research a while ago and it seems 'RODDY' dolls were made in the 1950's and are now classified as 'vintage'. She has a hard, plastic body with soft, vinyl/rubber head and arms.....when you squeeze her head, Bess squeaks. She has sleepy eyes too which means they close when you lie her down and open when you stand her up. One of her eyes are a little wonky now and she's lost a bit of hair around the forehead. Her tootsies are a little worse for wear too which goes back to when I was still just a toddler and one of our German Shepherds decided to snack on Bess. Thankfully, she was saved from the jaws of death just in the nick of time...with just a few teeth indents to mark the experience. I've had a lot of different dolls growing up but Bess is the one I chose to hold onto...maybe it was that garish yellow hair?...but I loved her dearly!

I have sketched Bess a few times over the years...this one was done back in 2009

And today's effort. I plan to add another layer or two and blend her face more but I'm pleased to see my sketching skills have improved a bit.

To see what my Scribble Picnicker friends have done for this week, click HERE.
The prompt for next week is TIE IT UP....why not come along and join in on the fun? To find out how, click HERE.

Scribble Picnic: Fill in the blank

This week's Scribble Picnic was a 'fill in the blank'.

Michael gave us the following image to work with...

I had a couple of ideas....key/s or diagonal-slotted wine racks within a cube.  I ended up going with a key, mostly sketched from my imagination.  It's not quite finished yet but almost there. 

Sketched with ballpoint, graphite and ink in Strathmore Toned Gray sketchbook

I'm keen to see what my fellow Picnickers have come up with for this one. To see the entries for this week, click HERE. 

Next week's prompt is CURLY. To find out how to join us, click HERE. 

Scribble Picnic - Flower Bed

Thanks so much for all the well wishes on my hip ailments. I will be attending physiotherapy this Friday which will hopefully help my hip and my chronic back condition. It's been a pretty rough week in more ways than one so the Scribble Picnic challenge has been a pleasant distraction from it all.

The challenge theme this week is FLOWER BED.

I decided to sketch up a flower bed featuring daffodils which has been my favourite flower since childhood. Mrs Katy Koala is watering the daffodils as I type.

To see the entries of other Scribble Picnickers for this week, click HERE.
To find out how to join us each week, click HERE.

Our challenge for next week is a FILL IN THE BLANK...we must create a piece that includes at least 'one square with an X inside it touching each corner'. Time to get the thinking caps on...

Scribble Picnic - Buttons

The theme for this week's Scribble Picnic is BUTTONS BUTTONED (Amended)

I wasn't thinking of the traditional sew-on buttons but rather the buttons on remote control units. Namely, remote controls for garage doors.  This week, our Landlord replaced two of our ten year old, falling-apart, remote controls so we now have brand-spanking-new ones and they look pretty darned cool! 

This is the first house we've had remote-controlled garage doors. I think back to a time when we used to have to get out of the car to unlock the roller door with a key, then manually open it. We're so spoiled nowadays. 

So, I sketched the old and the new.  I love that the new remote has a slide to cover and protect the buttons when not in use. 

I thought I'd also share an older sketch I did of 'Buttons' using mostly ballpoint pens and a touch of coloured pencil. 

To see the work of other Scribble Picnickers for this week, click HERE. 

To find out how to join in on the fun each week, click HERE. 

SO, it wasn't until I got to this point of my post that I realised I had misread Michael's prompt which was actually BUTTONED, not BUTTONS. Ooooops, sorry...

I will blame it on a pain-filled, cloudy-headed week. Thanks for all the caring words last week re. my illness etc. I received the results of last weeks X-ray and Ultrasound and it turns out that I have a torn Gluteus Medius tendon and Hip Bursitis. The most recent fall I had was at the local shopping centre back in October last year which makes sense because my hip started hurting in early November.  I just didn't tie the two together and put it down to my chronic back pain instead. I ended up having to go to the doctor because the pain was getting worse and I was developing a permanent limp.  Treatment is anti-inflammatory and pain medication, rest, and some physio...all recommended to avoid getting an Ultrasound Guided injection into my hip...sounds nasty, doesn't it?

On that note, I wish you all a happy week. 

P.S. - Next week's prompt is FLOWER BED, right? hehe