Vacation Adventures

 

We went from one snowy mess in MA...

To a beautiful snowy wonderland in VT this past school vacation.

And on the couple of days that it was snowing and sleeting, we had no problems huddling under blankets watching movies or reading, or venturing out for fresh farm to table and craft beer meals. Lots of bacon last week!

I took the pictures above on our snow shoeing adventure through a sculpture garden. It was so warm that day, in the upper 30s...., that we didn't even wear snow pants and eventually the sun was so strong, we ended up tying our jackets around our waists. I think, aside from the bacon, that was the highlight of the trip!

Between all the relaxing and eating up north, I did find an afternoon to work on some drawings from the drawing a day challenge.  I didn't really know what materials I may have wanted to use, so I brought my entire "toy box" with us. In our little apartment, that one basket is where I keep the majority of my non oil painting art supplies. 

I set up my computer and supplies at the dining room table. Since this week focused on color, I needed to use photos. Theres an awesome farmer's market right down the street, so when we went to grab breakfast, I attempted to discretely take some pictures.

I used this last one for the drawing challenge.

Considering its not on watercolor paper and I haven't used paint from a tube in years, I am pretty happy with it. I also feel like it does what the challenge asked, keeping it loose, not including all the details, but allowing the viewer to fill in the blanks for themselves.

On the next challenge, I almost destroyed my paper. I played around with water soluble pastels and crayons again, this time trying to be abstract.... I failed at that part, but I think the image has a likeness to the mood in the original, but perhaps a little brighter. I couldn't darken things too much without putting a hole in my paper.

I didn't spend too much time with drawing after the color challenges. The next section appears to be about drawing people, very similarly to the drawing in pubs "class" I took in the fall. Being up north for the week, it was just two of us, so drawing people was out. Plus, I was much more interested in reading The Book Thief. I seem to only be able to read during vacations and wanted to take advantage of the time. In fact, I read the five hundred page Kindle addition in about four days. It was great!

Wonderful, relaxing and much needed vacation. Work was tough this week to say the least!