30 Days of Drawing – 12.30.11

Last night, I participated in the Final Friday Gallery Crawl here in Lawrence, KS. It was a smaller attendance than we’ve had the other times, but we expected that might be the case due to the timing with the holidays. We still had a great time, and it was nice to see new faces and also some old ones (so to speak!) that I haven’t seen in a long time. My friends and I need to decide if it’s better for our sales if we participate every month, or maybe skip some here and there. It’s great talking to people and getting feedback about my work, but selling some of my work would be even better!

After I got home, I needed to finish up my drawing for the very last day of 30 Days of Drawing. It was after midnight, but I didn’t want to miss drawing for the very last day. Even though I hadn’t been gone that long, all three of my pets acted like they hadn’t seen me in a very long time. Either that, or they planned a conspiracy to try to keep me from drawing.

First my dog climbed on top of and kept climbing as if I were a ladder. If I stopped petting her, she’d climb up higher. After I got her calmed down and over to my side, my old cat Shelby took over. She kept licking my hands and climbing to top of my sketchbook, and rubbing her head against my pen. Then it was Goliath’s turn. I thought moving into the bedroom might be better so they could all lie in bed by me while I worked. Not so much. Shelby kept walking and sitting on top of my Koi watercolor set and trying to climb on my arm.

But my tenacity won over theirs! I finished this piece, but after all of that, I was too tired to scan and post it. So, I’m doing it now. I am very happy with how it turned out. This was a great brainstorming, and also meditative project. Some of the little pieces I might explore ways to turn them into other projects or uses. You can see the rest of my posts for 30 Days of Drawing here.

Thanks everyone who joined me for 30 Days of Drawing. I hope you feel you got something out of it. For me, it always reaffirms that I CAN keep a commitment if I set my mind to it. And it’s good to keep a practice of making art every day. I am going to keep making art every day, but won’t blog about it every day. Don’t worry, I’ll still blog on a regular basis.

Happy New Year! I’ll be spending most of my weekend editing knitting patterns to try to meet the deadline for the knitting magazine I edit for. But I’m going to try to squeeze in some time for art. It had been a tradition to spend New Year’s Day with my long-time friend Bobbi Studstill, eating posole that she made and “gluing shit down” (as we called it). She moved away this summer to start a new adventure, so it’ll be a little sad tomorrow not having her here to do that. I miss her!