A month ago Eamonn stayed home sick from preschool. We spent some time drawing in his bedroom. Then recently I picked up the drawing and started painting it over the period of about a week, whenever I had a minute here or there. He was inspired to draw and paint the rug while I worked on mine and also added himself lying in the bed. He used a little set of watercolors I recently got him.
In honor of the holidays, cooking and decorating, here is Martha's dog. I recently received a free subscription to Martha Stewart's Living Mag and I have to say it is great. Great recipes that I can fantasize about making, and some cool craft ideas involving glitter and color photos. I also wish my hair looked like hers.
Here's my potted orange tree on the back porch. I got it last spring but have not harvested a crop yet. The oranges are actually still green. 
We have two cats, Seymour and Jose. While the black one, Jose, is more guarded and curls into a ball (usually up high somewhere, like on the grill or a chair), Seymour typically naps on the floor in poses such as this. Maybe it's a pose that lets body heat escape.
I sketched this last Sunday night while watching Inspector Lewis solve a murder mystery. Stolen books, forgery, and drawing were central to the plot. I'm thinking about adding some spots of color to it.
We've been watching The Wire on DVD all summer. Currently in the middle of Season 3. I think our favorite character is Omar, but we enjoy so many.
Another drawing I started a couple of weeks ago while Eamonn and I were drawing in chalk on our front sidewalk. I finished it later and added a bit of color yesterday. Jose is our black cat.
This has been a busy week preparing for students to return next week, so I didn't have much time to sketch. Here's a quick found still life of the dinner table before it was cleared.
These empty containers were clean and waiting patiently on the counter to be taken out to the single-stream recycling bin. No more sorting. Glass, paper, cardboard, even different plastics all get thrown together now if you live in Austin. It all goes together and some type of machinery probably sorts it later? All part of Austin's effort to become a zero waste city.
Eamonn drew this flower this morning. He says the dark shape coming out of the middle, that looks to me like a stamen, is the flower's hat. A future botanist?
Rosedale is a central west neighborhood in Austin. I often take my son to play at Ramsey Park, which is just a few blocks from this house on Rosedale Ave. and 41st St.
I've been reading some of Charles Reid's book on rendering the figure in watercolor, The Natural Way to Paint. Today I had a short time to try out his exercise in painting figures in action without sketching first in pencil. The skin tone is made by mixing (either on the palette or on the paper) raw sienna, cadmium red, and either cerulean blue or cobalt blue.
This morning I took Eamonn to Zilker Park to play and ride the little train. We had our snack on a picnic table overlooking Barton Springs, a large natural spring swimming pool. It was a little hard to sketch because a bunch of kids were running back and forth, alternately feeding and chasing away the pigeons. I sketched this in a moleskine. Those picnic tables are covered and actually make a great place to sketch in hot weather.
I sent this cupcake painting to my mother as a birthday card. Her birthday was yesterday.
Today was a busy day. Cleaning, grocery shopping, had some friends and their two kids over for dinner, which was a lot of fun. Their son is a good buddy of Eamonn's from preschool and the two were rowdy and had an altogether fabulous time.
My son Eamonn loves trains. This is a block train his grandparents have in Cleveland.
Hallelujah! It finally rained today. I was driving back home from the dentist's office on the northwest side of town, dark clouds pouring down rain, and I could see a line of white sky on the horizon. I prayed that the rain had made it all the way east to my house. The rain got lighter and lighter the further east I went. When I got home, as I sat parked in the driveway doing a little sketch of the inside of my car, the rain finally made it east. Not as heavy as west, but at least we got some. The most we've had in 6 weeks.
I love so many of the older bungalows in Austin. This one is at the corner of 42nd and Avenue F in Hyde Park, a northeast central neighborhood. I stood on the curb across the street to sketch this.
I planted this garden in my back yard a couple of years ago when the ground had cracked and left gaping holes because of how dry the soil had gotten. I put in plants that need little water, such as Aloe Vera and Yucca. The Plumbago has blue flowers and looks great even in this deadly heat.
A tiny painting in gouache I did this summer. I started doing some of these tiny pictures last December after attending a local art fair where I saw some tiny acrylic still lives in fancy frames. 
After yoga today, I went to Genuine Joe's for a latte and a scone. I sketched in a moleskine I had never used before. I like the off-white color of the paper. I wonder how it will handle a wash. There were also plenty of people with laptops to sketch.
My desk is the first thing you see when you walk in my front door. I got it at the Austin City Wide Garage Sale not long after my husband and I got married seven years ago.
Today I attended day two of a teacher's workshop on Questioning the Author. Juana, another teacher at my school whom I worked with quite a bit this year, also attended, so we went to lunch together at Mr. Natural's. The original (and my favorite) Mr. Natural's on Cesar Chavez. Afterwards I had a few extra minutes to do a quick sketch in my drawing book before we went back to the rest of the workshop.
Some more tiny art gouache lemons. I was trying a warmer background rather than the blue I had been using.
This little plant is sitting in my living room window. I started it last night, then worked on it today while my son was having some "quiet time", and finished it while he built a castle out of wooden Russian blocks.
This is an ink line drawing in a sketch book that I filled in with watercolor. The papasan chair is on my back porch. Even in 100 degree Austin weather, looking at or sitting in the big blue pillow makes me feel cool.
I am starting this blog with the intent of posting a painting a day all summer. My 3 1/2 year old son loves to draw and paint, so we sometimes do it together. If I don't have anything to post, he always will.
