Sleeping Cats

I've been rather quiet on this front - my blog.

I have spent a bit of time resting but mostly busy working on a couple of projects that will go into books that will be out by the end of the year or next year.


I have been collecting some leaves and things for eco dyeing.
I went to Clemson Botanical Garden (about 25 minutes from my house) and gathered a bag full of fallen leaves from the two eucalyptus trees that they have on site.
No worries as I did call and ask permission to do this before I did it.
I brought them home and stuck most of them between book pages.
That way they would take less space to store (for later use) and they would be nice and flat to use for printing as well.
I had a couple of handfuls of torn and tattered leaves left so I dumped them into a stainless pot, covered them with rain water and let them sit. A few days later I added two scraps of cloth- cotton and silk- to see how each one accepted the dye in the pot.
That was about a week ago. Last time I checked them, the results were as expected- the silk was slurping in the color and the cotton was just sipping at it.
I'll leave it until I can't stand it any longer then show you the results from my lazy girl experiment.

As is my habit, no matter what else goes on, I am drawing/sketching/whaeveryouwanttocallit.
I fill bound pieces of paper with pen & pencil marks.

We have a cat now after not having a pet for about 8 or 9 years so I spend a lot of time looking at and drawing him.
He has taken to jumping up in our laps in the evenings so I have taken to drawing him.
It ends up being a lot of "sleeping cat"  sketches but practice none the less.

Draw what is in front of you.

He will let me move his feet around a little bit to get a better view of his face.
He did "fang" me once to suggest I quit messing with him though.

When he curls up all I can see is the top of his head
and his feet turned in all sorts of directions.
I occasionally add notes about things I hear
or see that I want to research later.
This night it was about a WWII  group that maintained
sketchbooks while away from home.

My sketches are beginning to look more like him.
I love the stripes above his eyes.
They come together in a triangle shape on his face.
They do make him look like he is a little worried though. 

I'll try to be a better blogger and share more of what I fill my time with.

Sometimes I feel as though it isn't very interesting. I guess I could just take that filter away and see what others think.
Maybe I will do that this week.

Are you drawing?
Are you finding a way to use the everyday happenings to add some creativity to your life?

It's a simple process really - taking your creativity in hand and letting it walk by your side.
You have to learn to look at the world, your world, in a little different way.

For example - instead of sitting in front of the TV at night, letting everyone else entertain you- entertain yourself with sketching out the TV (or what's on it).
No one has to see these sketches until you're ready  to show them.
But do keep them so you can go back and see how much progress you have made!

You will be amazed at what you can do!