Tea and tofu

Tracey Potter posted a photo on Instagram of a tea she liked 

and I just had to try it for myself.
It was delicious!
All natural flavours so not too sweet.
I had mine hot but it would make a great thirst quencher if chilled.
It even made its way into my illustrated journal.

I started with a quick pen sketch
in my large Moleskine sketchbook
using my trusty ZIG Millennium 005 pen.
I used a Uniball Vision Elite pen with blue ink
to stroke in the 'Tetley' background.

Followed by some watercolours.

Final detailing using Faber-Castell PITT pens
in black and sanguine
plus a Uniball Signo pen in white to fatten up 'Tetley'
which looked quite anorexic in the early stages.

One thing that I'm loving at the moment is

I made a stir-fry noodle dish with this
a week or so back and it was SO delicious!
It might just make it into my sketchbook one day. 

Catching up...

While I haven't painted every day since I last posted,
I have done something creative each day 

whether it was with brush, pen, hook, or camera.

I spent a few days on the silhouette bonsai project

adding two more layers of paint
and doing some re-shaping.

I'm now finishing off rough edges
where the Burnt Umber slipped over
onto the canvas sides.

After tidying up edges, 

I'll do two coats of varnish 

before it can go to it's new home. 

The full dimensions are 145cm (57") wide by 104cm (41") high.

To check out posts by other AEDM members for Day 19, click HERE.

On Wednesday, I had the pleasure of babysitting 

one of my two gorgeous granddaughters 

while her parents did some gift shopping. 

We had a blast! 

Naturally, we painted
and Mikayla created a masterpiece 

for her Mummy.

Then it was "Simon Says" time with the Wiggles. 

Mikayla is obsessed with the Wiggles!

All this activity just plain wore her out. hehe 

During our painting session, 

I did a quick watercolour sketch too.

Watercolour butterflies in pocket Moleskine watercolour notebook. 

I roughly detailed with a Faber-castell PITT pen.

The past eight days have been very busy 

with what seemed like a gazillion appointments varying between 

doctors, specialists, vets, and meeting with people
from the Aged Care Assessment Team for my Dad.
I'm pleased that I managed to squeeze in any creative stuff in at all.

I'm looking forward to a quiet, relaxing day
where I can just veg out.

We've had severe storms daily for the past seven days, 

One of the storms graced us with TWO INCH hailstones!!

Brad and I were at my parents' house
when one of the hail storms hit.

It sounded like a heavy shower of rocks
was continually pelting the roof.

Luckily we had covered my car with carpet rugs and quilts
or I'm sure it would have sustained some hailstone damage.

Some areas had hail the size of tennis balls 

so I'm glad we escaped that at least.

Of course, poor Cody was extremely stressed.

His body shivers violently non-stop
and he pants like crazy which is a worry
because it can lead to dehydration.
I had a very scary time
once before with Cody and dehydration
due to storm stress.
You can read about that HERE.

In light of the daily storms,
I sought advice from our vet.
As we all know, stress can be damaging to the body,

so the vet prescribed some Xanax (a sedative) for Cody. 

It initially made him very drowsy and clumsy 

which is what it's supposed to do, I guess. 

With last night's storm,
I lowered his dose by half and,
though he was still stressing a bit,
his shivering was much milder.

and he seemed calmer 

without being drowsy and clumsy.
The vet said that his memory of the storm
would be lessened too which appeared true.
Normally, he would fret for a while after a storm,
but he seemed to calm down fairly fast.

A pic of Cody, taken in October, a less stressful month.
Bless his little heart.

I think that catches me up for now.

~ Love, Light and Peace ~

Day 3 of AEDM - A wise old owl

I had a fairly busy day so didn't get time 

to work any more on the multi-canvas painting. 

However, I did manage a quick pen sketch 

of a recent dollar store find.

Pencil-free sketch in Holcroft A5 sketch journal using ZIG Millennium and PITT pens. 

I was going to splash some colour on but not enough time.

To check out posts by other Art Every Day Month members for Day 3, click HERE.

I'm also linking up this week with Sunday Sketches.
To join us each week on Sunday Sketches
Click the graphic below -

My dear, neglected blog

Part of me wondered if 

I would ever find my way back to you but...

here I am!

The past few months have been so busy. 

Beau has settled back at home.

Michelle and Alex bought a house!!! 

There was a lot of work involved with 

preparing the house for them to move into,
not to mention all the packing and finishing up
with the rental home. 

The days leading up to their big move were
long and filled with hard work 

and lots of babysitting. 

We were all quite exhausted but 

what a joy it was to see them
move into their first home.
SO exciting!
Michelle already has it looking
like something out of a HOME BEAUTIFUL magazine.

A glimpse of Mikayla's and Maddy's room

Photo copyright - Michelle Hallmond

I sewed curtains for their living room and kitchen
and they look quite pretty if I do say so myself.

Maddy (granddaughter) is nearly 11 months old and 

has taken her first steps. 

She is quite a character and
I love her to bits!

Mikayla (granddaughter) seems to have matured so much 

since Madelyn came along. 

She adores animals just like her Grandma (me).

Photo copyright - Michelle Hallmond


Mikayla loves wearing her sunglasses. 
She's our little celebrity. hehe
She loves soft toy animals as well....

Photo copyright - Michelle Hallmond

Bradley turned 30 in August and a huge
surprise party was planned with an
Elton John (Brad's idol) theme but
it had to be cancelled due to
bouts of sickness hitting both immediate and extended families.
We did manage to make his day special regardless,
just no party.
I had already ordered the huge party cake
which we 'forced' our way through.
OH, the things we must do. lol
Yes, it was delicious!

I battled with asthmatic cough for over a month and,
just like last time,
I was left with severe inflammation of the chest wall.
It was very painful and hard to breathe.
It felt like I had a heavy bowling ball crammed inside my chest cavity.
I had to rest and, thankfully, after another three weeks,
 I'm finally over it.

My two furry bedfellows
modelling my new quilt cover.

Poor Dad ended up back in hospital
with a lung infection in recent weeks.
Parkinson's disease affects the
swallowing reflex and liquids
ended up in Dad's lung.
He is now back home and, from here-on,
only allowed to drink mildly thickened fluids.

Have I been doing much sketching or art?
Unfortunately, no!
This is all I have to show for myself on that score.

We took a day trip out to Burgess Park and I sketched part of a tree
using BIC ballpoint pens and a black PITT pen in my large Moleskine sketchbook.

Life seems to be returning to normal now
although I'm almost afraid to say that out loud
in case I jinx myself. lol

It's been a rough month...

Life has been tough for my Dad over the past month or so.  After I last posted on ANZAC day, we went to visit my parents as Dad had not been well after being diagnosed with gallstones three weeks prior.  During our visit, Dad had a severe attack and was rushed by ambulance to the hospital ER. From there, things went downhill fast as we were told Dad was a very sick man and needed emergency surgery.  After the surgery, we found out that the two surgeons had not expected Dad to live as his gallbladder was badly infected and had turned gangrenous, It had also ruptured which meant a life-threatening crisis.  After a stint in ICU, Dad was labelled their miracle patient.  Naturally, I've been beside myself with worry and, while my Dad is now at home recuperating, it is still a worry because he is not a well man in general and must now go for further tests.  Dad is 80 years old and, on top of everything, he has Parkinson's Disease.  It's been very hard to watch this once strong and vibrant man deteriorate over the past couple of years. 

My Dad and I a few years ago

Needless to say, I haven't had a lot of time for sketching or art. 

I started this one but never finished it. 

I only managed the first layer.

Pencil-free sketch using ZIG Millenium pen and watercolour pencils in large Moleskine sketchbook.

Due to Dad's frailty and unsteadiness on his feet, 

he has pretty much been housebound and bedridden a lot of the time. 

My sister and I have been helping out where we can.

I did the following sketch during a time of sitting with Dad 

while Mum popped out to get some shopping done.

Pencil-free sketch in large Moleskine sketchbook using ZIG Millenium and PITT pens.

In other family news, Aaron had plastic surgery on his lip over a week ago.  Cody, my Malt-Shih-Chi, was on my sister's lap who bounced him towards Aaron, just as Aaron was bringing his face in towards Cody and, Cody grabbed out in play, as he often does, and caught Aaron's lip. It was all a big error in misjudgement due to each of them doing their own thing at the exact same moment in time.  Unfortunately, the lips are very soft, vulnerable tissue and little dog's teeth are small and sharp.  You could have sworn that someone had taken a knife and sliced Aaron's lip cleanly....no tearing at all which made the plastic surgeon's job a lot easier.  The stitches came out on Friday and it's looking great. The scar will be barely noticeable with time.

Beau is also moving back home for a while which means reorganising everything. 

It's a big job as we had turned his room into a study and bought more furniture to do so. Beau has also accumulated more furniture whilst away from home so I have to figure out where to put everything.
Wish me luck!

And NOW, I'm dealing with an impacted wisdom tooth that has decided to flare up.
I was in a lot of pain with it last night. :(

Lots more to say but I don't want to cram up this post.

I hope to get back to regular blogging as well as catching up on 

everyone else's blogs too.  I have dearly missed you all.

Colour swatches and sketching....

Hi everyone,

I hope you all had a lovely Easter weekend!

Aaron is currently on school break so it will be nice having him home for the next couple of weeks.
It's hard to believe the first term of school is already over.

The other morning I woke to a beautiful dawn sky with pink clouds.

It was so pretty!

You may remember that I treated myself to some art goodies a month or so back.

As it's hard to tell what the watercolour pencils will look like once they are activated with water, I decided to create a colour swatch chart for them to make life a little easier.

Now, I will be able to tell at a glance which colour I need to use.

The chart was created on a sheet of A3 CANSON Montval Watercolour 300 paper (300gsm).

I haven't been sketching much since my last post but I have been doing a lot of reading. My copy of 'An Illustrated Journey' by Danny Gregory finally arrived and it was well worth the wait. This book makes a wonderful companion to 'An Illustrated Life' which I bought a couple of years back. I LOVE sneak peaks into the illustrated journals of other artists!  SO inspiring!

I actually did feel inspired to do a quick sketch yesterday.

I sketched my new stainless steel water bottle using Faber-Castell PITT pens, watercolours, and watercolour pencils in large Moleskine sketchbook.

Hopefully, this sketch is a start to many more.

Sunday sketches

My eyes are much the same which is why I haven't been online a lot. I can only spend short stints at the computer due to the glare on the screen. I see the Optometrist on Friday which can't come soon enough for me.  Amazingly, I only ended up with one bad migraine....I expected more with this amount of eye strain.

I did manage a couple of sketches this weekend.

Yesterday, Aaron had a doctor's appointment and we had to wait an hour past our appointment time because the doctor was running behind schedule. Unfortunately, our doctor's clinic is rather dull and boring so not a lot of interesting things to sketch. I ended up drawing one of the chairs.  The cow was drawn later at home. It's the head of Cody's soft, squeaker toy and it was within easy reach when I was pondering what to add to the page.

Pencil-free sketch in A6 Moleskine pocket sketchbook using 

ZIG Millennium pen, PITT pens, watercolours and watercolour pencils.

It rained on and off today
with heavier downpours expected tomorrow and Tuesday.

It ended up being an odds and ends kinda day. 

I cleaned bathrooms,

dyed my hair and pottered around mostly.

I clipped Jack's nails too which were long overdue. 

LOVE these doggy nail clippers!
They're so easy to use.

Pencil-free sketch in A6 Moleskine pocket sketchbook using 
ZIG Millennium pen, PITT pens, watercolours and watercolour pencils. 

I'm linking up this week with Sunday Sketches.
To join us each week on Sunday Sketches
Click the graphic below -


Last month, I treated myself to some art goodies and I'm very much enjoying the watercolour pencils so far.  I plan to make up some colour swatches soon.

I hope you're having a great weekend! xx

A bit of this and a bit of that...

I was treated to a beautiful rainbow early Friday morning 

when I took the wheelie bin out for pick-up.

Another stretch of sky was clear 

and full of fluffy white clouds. 

Hard to believe they were taken at the same time.

I've started yet another ripple blanket. 

This one will be for me. 

I love to snuggle up under these blankets in winter.
All cosy and warm while watching TV or a movie.

And so does Cody. 

My ever faithful companion.

When I work at the computer, Cody snuggles up in his basket while, 

Jack snuggles up in his.

SO cute!!!

Back in 2001, my eyes seized up on me after spending a lot of time at the computer. They froze at a set distance and my brain just couldn't refocus for any other distance whether it was closer or further away. My eyes were under a lot of strain and pressure. After seeing a Behavioural Optometrist for the first time, I had to do regular eye exercises until my vision returned to normal. I was also given my first prescription for reading glasses.

Well, I think my eyes have seized up again because I'm experiencing all the same symptoms as last time.  The change happened over the course of 1 - 2 weeks. I get no relief at all unless I'm sleeping.  The strain is constantly there even when I'm wearing my reading glasses which I pretty much have to wear all the time now, even for distance.  They also help a little when watching TV which is all pretty weird considering they are supposed to be for close distances. I am booked in for March 1st to see my Behavioural Optometrist. I can't get in before then because she is only working Fridays due to caring for her ailing grandfather at the moment. Wish me luck.

I did manage a sketch of the new water filter I bought yesterday. Michelle has had one for ages and swears by it. I like the fact that, when you use the filtered water in electric jugs/kettles, they stay clean and don't build up any sediment. 

 NOTE - You may notice the font and font colour change on my blog, on and off, as I try to find one that isn't so hard on my eyes. Please bear with me.

To end this post, 

I just had to share this funny animal video with human voice-over. 

 ~ Love, light and peace ~