With a little Help from my Friends

Again I just dropped some paint on a page, let it dry and took it with me to doodle on later. After I'd made all the suns and was just getting started on the lines and dots of the background, one daughter became dreadfully bored while another one desperately needed me. So I broke my "mommy's sketchbook is only for mommy" rule and let the 10 year-old fill in the rest with her friend while I comforted the 3 year-old. So we'll call today's sketch a collaboration. A silly, playful little thing for no other purpose than to be creative.

Our Ability to Accessorize

(I am sorry about the bad photo! I took it quickly as we were running out the door so I could make sure and get this post done. My apologies.)

For this one I knew we were going to be out-and-about so I ran upstairs and dropped some paint drops on the page giving it time to dry while I got dressed and ate breakfast. Then later while I sat waiting for my kids, I ... embellished! Our accessorized! After all, "The only thing that separates us from the animals is our ability to accessorize." Says the girl who doesn't wear make-up, bracelets, or heels. Ha.

Kooky Little Bird

Hahaha. Sometime you just can't be serious you know? I was sitting there at a soccer game, cutting up a failed watercolor paper to make a beautiful collage, and instead, I made this guy. I kept trying to rearrange it but he kept winning in my head. So I gave in. He makes me smile. And that's gotta count for something.

Between the lines

I was really excited to give this one a go - inspired by a painting my daughter had done in a class I taught on Emily Carr. If you haven't heard of Emily Carr, please look her up! Here or here or here or here will do. Not being Canadian, I hadn't heard of her until recently. She makes me kinda wish I was Canadian. And born 100 years ago so we could've been painting friends. But I digress. I'm going to have to do more of these wavy line drawing for sure. Possibly a watercolor painting where I mask out the white lines. I actually intended to have the white lines go through everything but forgot when I got going on the trees. Oops! It's hard to keep track of things like that when you're having fun!

And it was all yellow

Yellow fields again! I just can't help it. My littles get just as excited when they see fields full of flowers. The youngest points out every single one she sees, and every cow, and every sheep, and every elephant. Otherwise known as horses. 🐴  = 🐘 = 😂

The hills are alive...with paint.

I might've been procrastinating a commission here...which is really nothing new. It's sometimes really hard to muster up the inspiration to paint a commission! Especially when it's something I would've never chosen to paint on my own! So I did a quick sketch in my watercolor journal first of what I see driving through the countryside near my home daily. I love, love, love the valley we live in. The blue mountains, the green trees and the yellow fields make me want to pull over and paint right there every time I'm in the car. 

Waste not, Want not

It can be super frustrating when all I want to do is paint, but I've got other things that need my time and attention. So as to not resent those things (which are most often my lovely children) I've started filling sketchbooks again! I'm trying to always have one with me - at parks, libraries, violin lessons, etc. Then no time need be wasted! And instead of putting pressure on myself to create "masterpieces" that somebody will want to buy, I'm just playing. It's kinda liberating. 

So today while my kiddos played on a playground near our home, I took out my new-favorite watercolor markers and doodled a tree. Would've done more but one of my "things" forgot she wasn't wearing a diaper 😳 💩 😖

*In my studio I'm working on a a large commission. Check it out @alishabwhitmanart on Instagram!