EM Challenge #74 & 15: Clouds and Tree

Hello friends. I am so glad you dropped by to see if I still am alive. I am sorry for not being faithful in my posts this summer. I haven't been at my computer a lot, and have been pretty busy. But I am back! Soon jumping into my regular routine when the school year starts back up. It will be a bit different this year for me. My schedule has changed due to some budget cuts and Max is going to preschool 3 days a week, Savannah will be in school all day. I imagine it's going to take at least a week for all of us to get used to the new routines that we will have now. The kids are excited though, and Jasmin is looking forward to spending some one on one time with Karson.
So I bet you are wondering what kind of art I have been doing this summer. Well, unfortunately the ATCs have had to take the back burner, since lugging around all that stuff is impossible, and the one time that I did bring all my supplies for ATCs along, I had absolutely no time to do anything with it. Journaling was an occasional occurance, though now I wish I had been more disciplined with it. I probably could have recorded some good stuff while we were at the fairs. The only real art I have done is sign painting...which really involved doing some touchups on lettering and a few added things that were my own creation. I now have a good stock of one-shot sign paint and some good lettering brushes, which I am only beginning to understand how to use. I painted on 2 popcorn trailers, painted sno-cones on the windows and added shadows to the letters. I touched up a Photo Button trailer that hasn't been touched for years. The trailer itself, interestingly enough, was built by my husbands grandfather, Leo Durocher (not the same guy as the baseball player) On the photo button joint, I repainted the marquee, and a sign board, and touched up 3 sides that had already been lettered. I then added on the front, the words "photo buttons" and a picture of a girl snapping a picture, saying gotcha...but I think I forgot to snap a picture of that. Anyway, I found that painting trailers...or show painting...actually is a pretty good source of income. I made over a thousand dollars picking up jobs at Ionia and Midland. I am going to be working on my cousin's lemonade trailer this weekend I hope, too. I love doing it, and I feel like I am getting better, although I wish there was someone I could train under around here.
So, I was sitting at my computer yesterday, trying to figure out how to get back into drawing and my journal...and I decided that the Everyday Matters challenges could be the thing that gets me going...maybe. I haven't done them for so long. There is no way to catch up, but I find they are great when you don't know what to draw and have no inspiration. So...here are two drawings that I did in my journal of things that inspired me. They happened to be done in the same sitting though, so they aren't comprehensive of my summer, just in case you are wondering.
For # 74 , draw some clouds...These clouds were gorgeous on an early August afternoon, it was windy and the clouds overhead looked like they would drop rain on us any second. I drew these with watercolor crayons, which was the only color media I had with me, but I didn't paint with water over it.
#15, draw some trees...well I drew one tree, actually just part of one tree, the part that totally intrigued me. I love the lines in the roots of the trees, the little plateaus and caverns they create above the ground. I got so absorbed into drawing this that I almost lost track of what my kids were doing (we were at the playground at Ella Sharp Park). It almost seemed kind of out of this world. And it took me back to when I was a kid. We used to go to this camp and there must have been a lot of old trees there. So many trees that I don't remember there being a whole lot of grass. A lot of dirt and leaves, and huge tree roots above the ground. We used to step on them like steps, and play with our barbies on them, each little level being different rooms for the dolls. Kind of weird, but we were just using our imagination. I love drawing stuff like this. I love getting lost in the detail. It's so relaxing to me.
And, now that I have updated you all, I must get to bed. There are thunderstorms expected, which probably means I will end up sleeping with one of the kids...and Karson will most likely wake up early since tonight he fell asleep around 7:00.