Category: Art

I got some polymer clay and tools to try and do some sculpting with the kids. We went with Super Scupley - it's soft when you work it, but you can bake it out in the oven to set it hard as a rock. We all sat down one night last week to give it a shot. They really seemed to enjoy it - we'll probably make some more stuff tonight. Last time I made the little one-wheeled robot on the left, and Carter made the Pikachu on the right. Sean made a Pikachu as well, but he hasn't painted it yet and he wanted me to wait before I took a picture of it.

Here's another paper portrait that I made recently. This one is a friend's son, and was sent to him as a surprise. His son is pretty photogenic - and you've gotta love that hat!

I made another pair of paper portraits for our bedroom. I made the previous two long enough ago that they've grown a ton since then - and we really wanted some more current ones. I especially like the way the one of Carter came out.

Carter and I saw this project online, and decided to give it a shot. We tried using felt stick-on letters to mask the canvas where we wanted her name to show up, but it didn't quite work. The hot wax soaked through the stickers and colored the canvas behind them. You could still see the outlines of the letters from the raised ridge of wax around them, but there wasn't enough contrast for our liking. So we painted the letters within that ridge instead. Carter was quite proud of it.

Did some more sketching lately. The first is of a seagull that was hanging out with Lori on the balcony when we were in San Diego. The second is Lori in front of a bunch of flowers at San Diego Zoo. The third is an autumn view from Frankenstein Cliff in the White Mountains. And the last is something I saw in downtown Newburyport last week.

I've been sketching a lot lately, and decided it was time for an update. These first two are a couple of watercolors I did recently. The one on the left is from Maudslay State Park while the Rhododendrons were in bloom. The one on the right is a duck Lori and I saw at the San Diego zoo, just wandering around on the walkway.

These next two are just pencil sketches. The one on the left is a church we saw in La Jolla, while wandering around town. The one on the right I call "old man Ryan" - it's a drawing of my nephew in his big winter coat, but for some reason every time I try to draw one of the kids' faces they always end up looking a lot older than they actually are. I think it might be that I'm not drawing their faces wide enough for kid proportions - but I'm not sure.

This last one is a pencil sketch of a tortoise we saw at the San Diego zoo - the sketch doesn't get across the size of this thing, though. He was big enough that I could have climbed on his back and taken a ride around his enclosure - my feet might have touched the ground, but not by much.

A few sketches I've done in the past couple of weeks. The first is a pencil sketch of Sean sitting on a tree branch near the river at Maudslay State Park. The second is my dad sitting on the summit of Mt Willard in Crawford Notch. And the third is Carter at the lake in her new bathing suit. That third one is on 8.5 x 11 inch paper - which is much larger than I normally work. Usually I'm working in a Moleskine pocket sketchbook, which is about 3.5 x 5 inches.

I've been doing some more watercolor sketches lately. They're nothing amazing or anything - but they certainly are fun to do. From left to right these are: a Bonsai tree Lori and I saw at the San Diego Wild Animal Park, a section of the shoreline near our hotel in La Jolla, and Carter walking on the beach near Odiorne Point.

As a teenager I used to sketch a lot, but not really at all since. But lately I've been thinking about starting again. On our trip - and since then, too - I've been sketching in a little pocket-sized notebook. Below are a few recent sketches - two are buildings near our hotel in La Jolla, and the last is a plant in our living room.

Started this thing almost a year ago, when I was doing all of those paper-cut portraits. Finally got around to finishing it, and putting it up in Carter's room.