Okay folks, I need some help. I found myself hesitating this morning when whipping up a doodle for my girls sandwich bags. I get big puppy dog eyes when my doodles aren’t spunky enough to giggle with the classmates over, so I’d really appreciate some suggestions! I’ll post pics of any ideas that wind up getting bagged. heheh. Get it? Bagged.
1. New privacy fence installed. Installed? Built? Whatever the word is, our home is now wrapped up in big beautiful fencing and we love it.
2. New garage door installed. This is so cool. Press the button, the door opens. Press it again, it closes. WoOt! (I’m so easily amused.)
3. Teeth cleaned. OMG. Hygenists are totally out to prove a point. Their point? “I own your mouth while you’re in this chair. Hold still, and quit being a baby.” I don’t even feel remotely close to being qualified to audition as the new Orbit girl. This adventure was. not. memorable.
4. Photo shoot for a custom dog portrait. I’ll be painting a gorgeous yellow lab in a few weeks, and I got to spend a lot of time with Katie (the dog) photographing her. She’s an energetic gal, and she’s beautiful – and I’m excited to paint her portrait. Her eyes are gorgeous, her coat is rich and creamy, and the poses I captured are just perfect and will make for a stunning portrait painting.
5. I cleaned the studio roof and skylights. You should know I’m afraid of heights – but there’s a leak in my studio and no man (ahem) has been able to figure it out. Even after having the section re-roofed. So up I went, jittery knees and all, and I found the leak. I think. We’ll know for sure after the next downpour!
6. I’ve been working on a blog design (through EW), and hope to have that launched by the end of this week.
7. My Coon painting was selected by someone for something very cool. I’ll fill you in more on that later – but I do need to prepare some things for it, so I’ll be working on that and making a more formal announcement soon.
8. I’ll be working on a small cat portrait over the next several days, too. She’s beautiful!
9. I’ll also begin a medium sized portrait of a sweet black Scottie as soon as my supply order arrives, you’ll see a sketch on canvas over the next several days as well.
10. I just sent out another print of my Award Winning Peacock – a gentleman saw it hanging in the Museum and had to have a print. I do enjoy printing that one – it lights up my eyeballs every single time. I still need to get over there and get pics of it with its awards. It’ll be on display through November 19th. 🙂
I think that’s it for now – the kids are great, they’re still diggin’ their Sandwich Bag Doodles and Chickeymonkey is on some sort of learning fast track right now and will not tell us where her “slow down button” is. Her off button kicks on between 8:30 and 9:00 pm, but other than that she’s like a speed reader who can’t quite read yet and is also on crack. Good Lord. She wants to spell everything, count everything, make blends, sound things out, ask me questions, eat, drink and be merry all within 5 minutes of eachother. Tack on the 5 year old whiney pouty big brown eyed alligator tears every time things don’t go her way – and my head is going to essplode.
Catybug giggled as I doodled out her “sandwich bag art” this morning. We had 5 minutes. Then 3 minutes. Then one minute – then we were late to leave the house. When we’re about to be late, and I still have a headful of hair to comb – that would be me – the little stick figure with the “Oh No! Mr. Bill!” look on his face.
I dug the espresso machine out of the pantry lastnight, cleaned it up and stopped by the coffee shop for some ground beans and vanilla flavoring. That was a smart move, because I needed that latte to put me in overdrive and get the girls to school on time today.
Now if I could just figure out how to go back to “idle” mode…
Every day, I doodle a little something on the girls’ sandwich bags. It’s always different, always just a cute little surprise to remind them I’m around in the middle of the day.
Today, I doodled this little girl. I thought she turned out so sweet and cute, I knew she’d be appreciated.
Sure enough, when I picked up the girls from school, I asked my daily question – “did you finish your lunch today?” and got my standard answer, “Nope”. I asked “why do I keep making you sandwiches if you never eat them?” and her reply just tickled me and brought a tear to my eye.
“I didn’t wanna finish my sandwich mommy because I didn’t wanna throw my bag away because the girl is too cute!”
No wonder she comes home and eats me out of house & home – I’m starving my Chickeymonkey! Maybe next week I’ll doodle full bellied little girls throwing away bags with doodles on them.
I don’t doodle nearly enough. I should doodle more often.
It’s storming here today, and I’m always very cautious paranoid about my electronic equipment when lightening is nearby. So, while waiting for the orange blob to pass over, I doodled.
I started with the doggie, of course. Tucker was lying beside me and wouldn’t hold still for me to look at his nose, so I just guesstimated – it’s more of a caracature anyway. When he tore off the couch like a bullet, whipping around in the next room and using my face as his next launch pad to circle, I quickly finished his doodle and moved on to the cat. He kinda torqued me off, that little Tucker. (ahem.) He’s in his kennel now. Just in case you were wondering.
So, the cat. I do love to draw cats and paint cats. In fact, I painted a cat on Artpad once, did you ever see that? (Click Here) In case you never saw it. There’s a lot of fur, so you might want to watch it on high speed. Anyhoo, there’s something about cat eyes that I just love, love to paint, and love to make look glassy and glossy and dimensional.
Of course once you doodle a cat, you have to doodle a bird. Of course I doodled a hummy! I get to watch them so much, their little birdy bodies are embedded in my virtual memory.
Lastnight while I was hummy watching, Chickeymonkey came up beside me right at the window. I thought the little guy (actually, girl, I think) would have been startled off, but she just stopped eating, came down to Chick’s height in front of the window and hovered there as if to say hello. I’m talking inches. 3 maybe? Just the depth of the glass that separated us. Mouths dropped and eyes got big, as you can imagine. She did the same to me – when she arrived at the feeder I was already at the window, but I thought she was just looking at her reflection in the window. Guess not, huh?
So. Yes. After I drew the hummy I got to thinking about that, and started doodling the girl. The girl has longer hair than I have, and it’s curly, and in my head she’s a blonde. So I’m not sure what that all means, but hey. It’s a doodle. She’s also got one of those zookeeper’y nature type hats on (sans the net), and she’s wearing a shirt with my acronym. How cool, I didn’t know I sold apparel! Really. I don’t. Not yet, anyway.
Last, but not least, the wierd squiggly thing and the raindrop, because as I said earlier, it’s raining here today and the dang lightening bolt zig-zagged my retna.
There you have it, anatomy of a doodley doo by Leanne. If you’d like one of these doodles developed into a blog graphic or something just for you, just give me a holler. Actually, e-mail would be better. Yes, e-mail is good. No hollering, please. My head is still sorta reeling from being a launching pad.
Here’s a rough (very rough) sketch of a custom illustration that I’m working on – this is the preliminary sketch. Things may change within it, but I thought it turned out so cute I just had to share. He’ll be incorporated into a blog design when he’s finished.
Fun stuff going on here in my little corner of the web today!
Hope you’re having a good one, I will catch up on my mail and your comments in the next day or two!
I think she’s got it. You think?
Doodlie-doodlie-doo! This wacom tablet is FUN. Did I mention that? Well here’s another doodle for you. (No reference image.)
😆
edit: trackbacking to Beth, because she said so. It’s all about elephants, apparently. 
