a little lime

Here I am, up all bright and early to post my MM for the week - well, o.k., it's almost midday, but I have been up since 6.30am - that counts, right? It's the half way point of my holidays - and though I've gotten a few things done, I just haven't been as productive as I would have like (the heat hasn't helped) so - the next three weeks - watch out! Last week I spent a lot of time re-organising my craft room- a few things lead to this: - I inherited all of my mum's embroidery, materials, beads, etc, etc that she can no longer use, this needed to be incorporated into my own supplies of similar stuff (I now realise, between us we have a LOT). - I had all my 2011, 2012 and start of 2013 photos printed, which I'll be organising Project Life style using my own stash as I still have a lot left over from my scrapbooking years. - I want to document 2013 more thoroughly in photos/journals, keeping up to date with printing out my pics so I can document t...

It has been so consistently hot over the past week - we've had temperatures up to 39C (102F) - looking forward to a bit of respite in a few days and hopefully (please, please) a bit of rain before it gets super-hot again! I might even get some drawing done - right now all I can do is lie on the couch on the verandah and maybe read. Oh, and water the garden......over and over and over again! It is taking a lot of work to help it survive against the onslaught of heat - I'm on an almost constant rotation with the sprinklers (we have a huge veggie garden as well as my flower garden - my poor hydrangeas are really not taking the temperature well). Here's my first Monday Moleskine for the year: I think the challenges start up again tomorrow...........exciting! hx

It is cherry season here in the Yarra Valley - that lovely, shiny 8 or so weeks that we can get fresh cherries from the farm gate. I start to get excited in October. The signs go up around late November and we usually buy 1-2kgs at a time and just gorge on them. So, so good. John bought home a 5kg box tonight, so I spent a couple of hours this evening pitting most of them to freeze. I love to make cherry apple pies when the apples are in season - lucky we live next door to an orchard! This weeks Monday Moleskine - started off with a line across the page again then just went from there. Looking forward to tomorrow's challenge! hx

Our Christmas trees are up. I've added hot pink to my usual blue/silver theme to the main tree/room decorations this year. I also have a small tree in the hallway which is all about lime green. So beautiful, love this time of year!! I haven't had a lot of time to draw over the past week, so have just done a little here and there on this one and managed to finish the shading on it today. Still playing with this style, though I am just about over it! lol! There are things I like, some I don't, but I always learn something :) I also got diverted part way through when drawing the shattuck pattern - the outline & pattern fill reminded me of an artichoke, so I found myself compelled to sketch out a few artichokes to play with later. Monday Moleskine 6  - not sure where I was going with this one - though, I guess, that's kind of the point - I find the design having two strong diagonals throws the balance off a bit, but, still I had fu...

At the half way point. I have been so consumed with drawing another detailed spiral drawing that I almost didn't get this ready - not to mention that John was hogging the computer so I couldn't get on at a reasonable time. Anyway, here is this weeks Monday Moleskine. This one started with the 2 lines down the centre - I probably thought I'd draw on both sides of the lines but this is how it turned out. I think I've cropped a little off the top LHS when scanning, too, as the line isn't really running downhill on the drawing. Looking forward to the challenge tomorrow, and finishing up my spiral drawing :) hx

I was not in the mood to draw anything significant this weekend, so I indulged in the mindless pursuit of getting through my patterned tiles -  and made it all the way through to the h's. My little book is looking quite full and I am finding myself stroking it lovingly at odd times, because, you know, uniformly presented, alphabetically organised things just make me happy, happy :) Monday Moleskines: because I felt in the mood to draw one of these today (and also, maybe I'm a little afraid that Mrs Wibbs will spank me if I don't. LOL.), I have decided to continue these till I reach the predetermined *magic* number of 10. I think that's all I've got in me before boring myself silly as I seem to be compelled to doodle flowers and paisley shapes all the time! So, here it is, a nice simple one :) Maybe next week I'll try to start off with a box shape instead of a curved one to see if that alters the direction of the drawing. Challenge day tomorrow - ...

This one started with some circles with a flowing line joining them across the page. My Monday Moleskine career may just about be over - though it is relaxing, and I'm trying hard not to be judgemental towards my Monday doodles - for me it may be more about the destination than the journey! LOL. We'll see if I get another one up next week :) hx

It has been a long weekend here and the weather has been great! John and I have been gardening for most of it - we put in a new 35 sqm veggie garden bed and I've spent the last 2 weekends filling it, creating a mulch path around it, and today, doing a bit of planting out. John has been working on the other veggie beds. Over the past couple of years our goal has been to grow all of our own vegetables and this year, for the most part, we have done it - I did have to buy some onions and carrots a few times, but that was it. It means a lot of work, eating strictly seasonally, but we love knowing exactly where our food comes from. I did manage to do some drawing this afternoon and here is my Monday Moleskine for this week - just by the skin of my teeth! A bit of smudging from the pen I'm using which is annoying. This one started with the loopy path through the centre and is showing my paisley love. I also added to my granny's bonnet drawing from a few days ag...

I am not really all that comfortable with "doodling" - I usually start my drawings with a bit of a plan - sure, they often evolve and change as I'm working on them, but I generally have a concept to start with. Doodling starts with a random shape then grows from there - nothing predetermined. Well, this is how I am planning to approach it anyway. Some people are incredible at it.......me..... I'd just like to improve and learn some new things. So, I thought I would set myself a goal to get one doodle posted each Monday. I am using the Moleskine journals I bought a while back, they're a smaller format than my usual art journals - I am hoping that not needing to fill a big page will make these a quick and fun exercise each week. I might not necessarily do the drawing on Monday (in fact I probably won't), but I'll post then........until I get sick of it. Which might be in a couple of months..........or next week! So here is my first one: I thin...