Sketching and Beyond

I have finished the December drawing challenge. Leaves were working for me and December is the time when the leaves turn and fall in Florida, so I figured I would finish out the month with leaf drawings. Last Saturday, my husband and I went on an afternoon walk around our neighborhood and I watched for pretty leaves on the ground as we walked. That’s how I found the red, green and yellow one I drew on December twenty-eighth.

Leaf 12 28 13

The bright red one I drew on the twenty-ninth was also found on that walk.

Leaf 12 29 13

On the thirtieth, I pulled a green one from a plant in my back yard.

Leaf 12 30 13

The next day was the last day of the challenge and I thought I would find another leaf to draw, but then I realized I was tired of drawing leaves and I looked around for an alternative. My eye fell on our Christmas tree, a fat and fluffy white pine that was probably the most perfectly shaped tree we have ever had. The perfection was broken only by a single branch, which stuck straight up while the branches all around it bent gracefully towards the floor in a smooth, symmetrical cone. I had put a single red ball on that branch. When I saw it on New Year’s Eve, it reminded me of the adorable little tree in the Charlie Brown Christmas special and I decided to draw that instead of a leaf.

12 31 13

Now the December challenge has been met and I’m closing in on another challenge. My List of Fifty Things is up to forty-nine. My sixtieth birthday is still a month away and, thanks to my niece and her drawing challenge, all I need to think about now are the Big Three. I said when I started this blog that I wanted to do fifty creative things before my sixtieth birthday and they had to include an art quilt, an art doll and a 16” x 20” painting. The idea was that I would be working on those three things throughout the year, while I also did other, smaller creative things.
Of course that was the idea, but I’m not at all surprised that I’m down to just a few weeks and I haven’t done a single one of the Big Three. It’s more surprising to me that I actually have forty-nine things on my List of Fifty Things. I was completely stuck and I was doing mostly nothing when I started this blog and challenged myself to do fifty creative things in my sixtieth year. I’m pleased with where I am at this point and still absolutely determined to finish the challenge before February eighth.
Thank you, Grace Makley, for setting up the sketch-a-day challenge that brought my list to forty-nine. Now that my milestone birthday is breathing down my neck, I will be putting my attention into the Big Three. I do love a deadline.

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