Pastel Owl Friends

I sketched these two owls a couple weeks ago and was loving how they turned out...but then I gave them a pink background. Ehhhh, not really loving that look. I decided to share them here anyway because, well you know. I might try scraping off the pink and re - fixing the paper and using a different background color at some point, but the problem was and still is that I can't figure out what the background color should be.

So for now we have pink.

We are finally feeling better over here! Healthwise, I mean. Well, except the hubs is sick now. But the baby girl has been fever free for a few days and the amount of snot being produced from her nose is significantly less. Yay!! Less snot makes Liz a very happy lady.

Custom Pet Drawings

I recently did a graphite drawing for a friend who asked me to make a portrait of her sweet pups. I was all like, YES! I love doing custom work and I had a great time working on this project. And I'm so pleased with how it turned out.

Here's a couple of progress shots:

Paisley also loved this project because it featured dogs, which are definitely her MOST. FAVORITE. THINGS. This girl watches more youtube videos of dogs barking than you could imagine (but what is even more unimaginable is the huge amount of videos on youtube that are actually just that - dogs barking).

Thank you random, proud dog owners of the internet who entertain my child while I'm trying desperately to get the last bits of dinner off the stove without burning the house down.

If you or someone you know would like any custom work done you can contact me at liz(at)theskylarkstudio(dot)com!

Recent Pastel Work

So the other day I drew this classy old man with my pastels. I like how his eyes turned out crinkled and kind but he still seems like a mysterious dude. At one point I had a bit of an emergency when I thought I would add some bright red accents but with his pale skin it made him end up looking a bit flesh eating-ish zombie-ish. I wasn't sure he could be recovered but I think I managed to salvage it with golden accents instead.

One of the reasons I like my profession is that I can watch shows or listen to music while I do my work. Using two different parts of the brain, is maybe what it is. Anyway, we recently looked into lowering our internet bill and were told that if we got basic cable it would actually be cheaper than only having wireless. I don't understand why and I'm not going to try to. So now during Paisley's naps I can draw while watching old Office episodes or the last half of Jurassic Park 3 instead of going through all of our Everybody Loves Raymond discs on our x-box.

It's the little things.

Housekeeping

Hi.

The past couple weeks have been somewhat of a blur of activity, a scramble against time, an endless to do list. Hence, I am feeling the need to catch you up on all of the things.

First, I re-did my blog! Did you notice? You probably did, since it looks very different from before:

(The ghost of Pointsies past.)

I was feeling a little change and I also updated my shop to match. I'm not sure I'm completely finished with it all yet, but so far I am enjoying the new look.

Speaking of my shop, I've been working hard at getting some new winter products all up in there! I've been pastel-ing/printing/photo-ing/changing out of my sweatpants and into jeans two minutes before the hubs gets home (you know I got the hots for you Brian) like a mad frazzled woman these past few weeks and I'm excited to share my new pieces! Here's Papa and Mama Cardinal hanging out during a snow fall. Available in two print sizes, or as notecards.

Check out more over in my shop! 

So I'm hoping now that I have everything all updated for the holidays I'll be able to devote a little more time to writing in this space. Then I can keep you in the loop on important things like that time that I wanted to make chips and cheese in the microwave but then I realized we didn't have any chips so then I made them with water crackers instead but then I realized we didn't have any salsa so instead of chips and cheese with salsa I ended up with crackers and cheese with barbecue sauce and it just tasted really bad but I ate it all anyway.

It's important that you know about these things.

Something new.

For the longest time I've been intimidated by color when it comes to the fine arts. My safe zone is my gray graphite pencils and in my sketchbooks you will find pages and pages of grayscale drawings.

But I've been starting to feel bored. And held back by my grays. I'm tired of shading and shading and shading and trying to get all the dimensions the image requires with a single color.

There's only so much grayscale shading one can do before one starts feeling annoyed.

Also, I'm trying this new thing where I'm not letting myself be held back by the fear of failure? Trying to not be held back by the fear of failure has been good to me this summer. Very good indeed.

So I asked my mom for some pastels for my birthday. I've worked with pastels a bit before but have never had any of my own. Yesterday during baby girl's nap I gave them a try, and people. I have a new boyfriend and his name is called drawing with pastels. Don't tell the hubs.

I didn't want to waste a ton of time pondering what to create (I often have problems wasting time because of my incredible indecisiveness) so I used a foxy sketch from a couple months ago as my inspiration. Here is the original sketch:

Here are some progress shots. I was worried that I wouldn't have enough knowledge of color to know what to put where, but I pushed that aside and just did what I thought might look awesome.And here is the final outcome! I was surprised with how quickly it came together and how pleased I was with the result. I think pastels and I are going to be spending a lot of time together.   

And don't worry your pretty little head about the hubs, he already knows about us.

More recent work

Another project.

Experimenting with design ideas for bridal showers and bachelorette parties. I am loving simple, square invitations lately.

What do you think?

Recent Work

I wanted to share part of some projects I've been working on the last few weeks. This is a mock-up of a first birthday invite. I drew the lion in Illustrator - not always my strongest program but I think I'm getting more comfortable with it.

Paisley is pretending to be a one-year old boy named Danny here. She's into acting and I try not to discourage her dreams.

Like what you see? If you would like some custom invites or other paper goods designed I'm your gal! You can reach me at liz(at)theskylarkstudio.com. Or check out our website here!

OR you could always check out my shop for unique, pre-made greeting cards and prints!

Summer Doodles

As I've mentioned before, I haven't been spending much time in my sketchbook lately. Part of it is just that there's other things taking precedence right now, but also because every time I sit down to sketch I end up making big elaborate drawings. That take a lot of time. So it's daunting because I don't always want it to be such a huge time commitment.

As I was lamenting my very serious and horrible sketchbook troubles to the ever so wise and understanding hubs, he was all like, "just doodle around, yo." Maybe he didn't say yo, that's not actually how he talks. BUT ANYWAY I took his advice and as we watched an episode of The Office together I doodled some little summer doodles.

Even though there was no purpose to them it was nice to be creating something.

My memory flings me back to freshman year in college when we had to complete a certain amount of "items" in our sketchbook per week. It was tough for me as I am QUITE the perfectionist (you can ask the poor hubs if you don't believe me) and as I mentioned before, my drawings usually take FOREVER. Add that to me being one of theeee most ridiculous procrastinators on the planet and you can guess that I was often up into the very wee hours of the morning the nights before my drawing classes. Working on what were simply supposed to be quick sketches in my sketchbook.

But in other news. College is over and so is drawing class. I'm not sure where I was going with that.

And so I'm off to a fun weekend with the hubs - it's the most special of weekends because it's our 5 year anniversary! I'm supposing that we can call this some type of a milestone. I'm comfortable with that. Fer sher.

Gosling Sketch

The fact is that I have not been spending much time in my sketchbook lately.

This makes me sad and and a little ashamed. Sorry self.

BUT. Today I got the urge and drew this little dude - I've been seeing lots of them around the neighborhood lately. He's trying to overcome his fear and jump the small ledge into the water below.

I can definitely tell that I haven't been drawing for awhile - my technique and speed need improvement. Hopefully today's sketch will inspire me to be a bit more disciplined with it again! PLUS. I've been saying for a long time now that I need to start drawing things OTHER THAN animals. Ugh, it's hard to break away from what's easy though. I know that I'll have to set aside way more time in my day to draw a person or human face than I do to sketch some leeeetle creature.

Too bad that this sweet leeeetle cheeping gosling will soon turn into a squawking honking GOOSE.

Those guys are annoying.

Shop and bump update.

I added a new 5 x 7 print to the shop today! This friendly horse has dramatic wind blown mane hair. Perfect for any dramatic wind blown member of your family. Who likes horses.

He's also available as a note card (single card or set.) Check out the options here!

In other news. I had a fun first Semi-Mother's Day, celebrating all the moms and grandmoms in our family with delicious food and fun games. I say "semi" for myself because obviously I am a mother as there is a big ol' behbeh growing inside of me, but don't yet have all of the motherly type responsibility as I have yet to PUSH girlfriend OUT.

Yes, that last part terrifies me. (cue heavy breathing, widening eyes and growing panic)

Oh well. I still have a few more months to harbor my fear!

This pic was taken at about 24 weeks. I told the hubs I wanted some "fun candid" shots taken...but as I had a horrible cold I wasn't feeling "fun" or "candid" at all. So this is what we got! Me working hard to get a semi-natural looking smile out while being eaten by the flower bush. We'll try again soon.

Shop Update

Over the past few days I've been adding some new prints to the shop!

These are once again the daily animal doodles, being sold as 5 x 7 fine art prints (a select few are available in 8 x 10 size). I am printing these on Epson's Velvet Fine Art paper. The images print so rich and beautiful on this lightly textured paper - they look like they come right from my sketch book!

As I mentioned before with the note cards, I will be adding more animal doodles to the shop selection soon.

I'm having a super productive week so far and I'm pumped about that. Being productive is the coolest!

How's your week going so far? Hope you are feeling energized and awesome. :)

New note cards...um finally!

I'm proud to say that I completed yesterday's goal and listed some of my Daily Animal Doodle note cards in the shop today!

They can be bought individually, or in sets of 6 or 12. Check out all of them here! I will be selling these as fine art prints as well, hoping to get those listed by Friday.

There are still a couple of the animal doodles aside from those I finished today that I want to dust off and get in the shop too within the week. Including a frog, a horse, a robin, a squirrel, a hummingbird, a mouse, and a bunny! And perhaps a skunk. Eh, still thinking about that one.

In other news, have you ever had that thing happen where your eyelid twitches?

Well, mine was twitching to the beat of the radio today. I think it means that I'm an innately musical person.

Getting things done.

Finally working on this note card project again. Yesterday was a day filled with lots of editing and printing. And slamming my palm to my forehead. Because somehow, even though I print my work often, it's always a trying (or maybe infuriating is the better word) experience.

Me and printers do not and never will get along. No matter how nice I try to be. They always betray me.

BUT.  Amidst the hair pulling and fighting back the desire to scream, I got a lot of stuff done and ended up with this nice little pile of note cards ready to be folded and then photographed so they can be listed in the shop.

I'm hoping to have them up by tomorrow! Yes to progress.

Cat family.

My first sketchbook post in awhile. Hooray! It feels good to draw again.

This is my cat family. I bought them as a college student from a little shop called Ten Thousand Villages in St. Paul. I was with my friend Mel at the time, who was also my roommate at the time, and who soon became my cat family watcher-over-er when I was gone.

Nowadays they proudly find their rank among such names as Dostoyevsky and Dickens.

In other news, tonight I decided to make a special dessert that consisted of melted marshmallows, Nutella, and Cheerios.

Because Cheerios are really healthy. You should read the label!

Stop looking at me like that.

You make me crazy Liz.

My 5 year old violin student the other day told me (after I told her to try playing a few lines again), "You make me crazy Liz." I promptly laughed super hard which caused her to think of herself as a brilliant comedian, and she said it over and over again for the next five minutes.

I like the funny parts of life.

I'm getting caught up on some projects around here, and hope to be back to my more creative endeavors soon. But I feel like I'm having trouble regaining my old work ethic and momentum.

Example.

Today I came home from teaching violin and ate some dinner. Then I ate a second dinner. Then I ventured down to the basement where the hubs is working on some electrical work. After unsuccessfully trying to lure him upstairs to hang out with me by using my swingin' prego moves and flirting, I wandered aimlessly back upstairs and wondered what to do with myself.

I was already caught up on any Hulu watching I might want to do.

I had finished my book and didn't have another one to start.

And I had already eaten two dinners plus some snacks and dessert.

"Dude, what am I going to do now?" I asked my faithful kitty companion.

Then I remembered how if this had been a time before we got preggers, I would have been excited about the opportunity to squeeze a few extra hours of work in. Editing new projects for the shop, making a sketch, or writing a post.

So then I wrote a post. This post.

And now I'm going to share a picture of cats. What else?

Look at them, plotting. They totally April fooled our sleepy hineys on Sunday morning. They woke me up at 6am to feed them. I went back to bed....and they woke up the hubs at 7am. And he fed them! Two breakfasts!

Dang, fooled yo.

Hello.

Alright. I hereby declare my return to blogging. And I'm excited about it!

But you know the thing where you don't say anything for a really really long time...and then you decide you want to start saying things again....but you're not quite sure what to start saying?

That's happening to me right now.

So since I'm sure that I want to start blogging again but unsure of what exactly I want to say, this post might be a bit of a rambler.

First off, thank you friends and readers for your wonderful comments in my last post! The one where I announced that I have a baby bump starting to grow. I was so glad to hear from you, and was reassured that taking a blogging break when you have the growing a baby grumpies was perfectly ok. So thank you again.

Second off, well I'm not sure. This is where I start randomly typing my thoughts. I'm super pumped to get back to work on my animal doodle note cards, improving my etsy shop, and having sketchbook days again! But as I did basically nothing these past few months (and when I say basically nothing I'm in no way exaggerating) I have quite a few items to catch up on before I can get to those things. At the top of the to-do list has been cleaning my much much neglected house, sorting through frighteningly high piles of accumulated papers and mail, doing our taxes which is one of my VERY favorite things (and by favorite I mean I want to kick taxes in the face), working on projects for clients, and reminiscing about how the hubs finally threw away our only plant because I allowed it to slowly die. Because apparently I was so lethargic that instead of getting up to water it once in awhile, I just watched it's slow death from the couch I sat on for four months.

1st trimester pregnancy looked good on me.

But now I feel like a new person! Or perhaps more like the old me. And if I could get that plant back to apologize to it right now I would, and I would lovingly nurse it back to life. And there wouldn't be that bare space on top of our tv stand anymore.

More good news is this: spring is here in Minnesota! And it's only March! When most years we'd still be having snowfall and slick ice, this year we are having 70 and 80 degree weather. And yesterday we had a thunderstorm! A (very) early spring is perhaps one of my biggest dreams come true and I refuse to even entertain the thought that winter could maybe still bring it's ugly head back into our lives this early in the year.

Here's a few shots of the hubs and me enjoying some park time in the glorious weather.

Me getting ready to slide down a twisty slide.

Ouch, guess I'm old and have big hips and twisty slides hurt me.

The hubs is an outstanding climber. Here's him on a super hard route. Yes he wears Hannah Montana sunglasses. I think it's sexay.

Us being happy at the park.

Well I think I'll wrap this up. Talk soon!

The one where I awkwardly come back.

hark! avast ye! be still my beating heart.

And such begins the post where she (and by she I mean me, myself) unearths herself from the blogging rock she seems to have buried herself under.

For 2 months! Or a month in a half. Or something along those lines. The whole month of February passed by with nary a post!

For my absence, I apologize. And although I'm not too incredibly sure how many people noticed my absence, for those of you that did and checked in, I am grateful.

And now for my explanation. I am still alive. So are my hubs and kitties. And as it turns out....I'm totally preggers! Have been for a few months now. Surprise! The hubs and I found out on Christmas Eve and have been excitedly placed into the category of expectant parents ever since. Our baby Points is due at the end of August!

But as it also turns out...pregnancy so far has turned me into a sick, fatigued type of person who doesn't seem to resemble my usual, peppy, workaholic self. In fact, growing a child has completely stripped me of any motivational or creative thoughts, plans, and ambitions. It's kind of...a bummer. But in an excited, "we're making a human!" kind of way.

BUT. As I am now at the 15 week mark and the dreaded 1st trimester symptoms should HOPEFULLY be settling themselves away and the 2nd trimester is supposedly high energy and cute baby bump filled...I am hoping to become a productive person again very soon.

And so. I'm not sure if I am completely out from under my rock or if I'm just merely peaking out my head today, but as I was staring listlessly at my computer this afternoon I remembered something.

I remembered that I used to blog a lot, and that I really liked it.
And I remembered that I used to draw a lot, and that I really liked it.
And I also remembered about a note card project that I was about to put into my shop, and that I really liked those too.

And I remembered that maybe I would like to start doing those things again.

So. To sum up. I'm harboring a baby in my uterus. It's a very, very happy thing for the hubs and myself. And perhaps the cats too, although it's hard to tell.  And although I have been sick, lazy, absent, and without any life ambitions the past couple of months, I hope to be coming back very very soon.

Man. It felt good to write that!

New Stuff!

I'm excited to announce that I will soon be listing a select group of my Daily Animal Doodles in my Etsy shop! They aren't in there quite yet, but I will be selling both prints and note cards.

I've been experimenting printing on note cards and I'm really pleased with how they are turning out - it looks so close to the original pencil!

I still have to decide what type of paper to use for actual art prints - I'm excited to try a textured paper instead of just a smooth matte to see if it makes it look even more realistic.

There are a few more animals that I also will be adding, and I have some tweaking to do now that I can see how they print. But I'm so excited to soon be getting new items into the shop! I do hope that this means that my productivity has made it's return.

Sketchbook - Tiny Dancer

I've been wanting for a long time to start drawing dancers, as I don't have much practice with "movement," I guess you would say. I love drawing human faces and I've (obviously) been in an animal doodle kick lately, so I'm excited to try something new.

I definitely don't have all the proportions and movement exactly right, but it was a fun first try!


In other news.


Do you ever make a perfect meal and then all you can think of for the rest of the night (and admittedly the entire next day) is how good it tasted and how you would like to eat some more? How you wish your stomach was five times bigger so you could eat five times more?


Or is it just me?


The hubs and I have been making these black bean tacos with lime slaw for awhile now, but last night we completely superly perfected them. And I can't stop dreaming about it.


Perfect. Black bean tacos. mmmmmm so good.

Ch ch changes

You may have noticed the lack of animal doodles around here lately.


And for that I apologize.


But after awhile you can only get through so many animals when you wonder how many more can there possibly be? (As I'm sure Andrea has wondered as she has put the lists together.)


So. I'm taking a bit of a turn in a different direction. I'm going to start doing sketchbook posts at least a couple (hopefully) times a week. These very well could be more animal doodles, or sketches of anything else I happen to be working on. Some of them may be nothing more than a few squiggly lines or a silly cartoon, and some may be elaborate and detailed. I actually really love drawing people and faces but haven't done that for awhile, so I'm looking forward to getting into that again.


And when life starts to get just a little bit too crazy (as it so often seems to) I may post a few doodles and drawings from some of my old sketchbooks just for fun.


So in short. There shall still be doodles, but the doodles shall not be limited to just animals. I have loved the daily animal doodle project because it has made me keep up with drawing way more than I have in the past. And since drawing is one of my absolute favorite things, it's good. It's gooooood. I'm excited to continue on in a bit of a different direction. 


So without further ado, a doodle. Of the Christmas variety.

Oh and ps. I've got some fun plans coming up for my animal doodles from these past few months - so excited to show you!


In other news the hubs and I finally watched Christmas Vacation tonight. Such a fave.


"Well why is the CARPET all wet TODD?"
"I don't KNOW Margo!"