Somewhat productive day

Our 4 year old is home from Pre-K school today because he has a fever. A high enough fever to keep him out of school, but not high enough to keep him out of my hair (all you parents will know what I am saying!)

First, we did finger painting. When the fingerpaints ran out but we still had the need for craftiness coursing through our veins, we did some crafts from some stuff I happened to have stored in the garage. Using different sized fuzzy craft balls, craft foam and craft glue, we made little chicks. They are so cute. I could only find one pair of stick on googly eyes though. That was a bummer. So only one out of five of the chicks can see anything.

Today, I am glad to say I am getting close to being caught up on my artwork. I worked on the colored pencil portrait for Mrs. H, and I have to say that I am definitely not ready for prime time myself - as far as colored pencil is concerned. It is difficult to get the likeness and get the skin tone smooth as I would like it.

I did get the likeness corrected quite a bit, but I think I can't really do any more on it. I am afraid I will take that one-step-too-many and mess the whole thing up. Gotta know when to quit. I'm not offering colored pencil portraits anymore - except for certain animals now and then - because I feel my skills in it are not up to par yet. They also take so much time for me to do and I am having a hard time getting enough art time in as it is right now.

I have started a black and white graphite pencil portrait of the same subject, and I will send it along to her at no charge. She has waited so long and patiently for me to get the colored pencil portrait right, it's the least I can do.

Even starting that was difficult today. I had it to the blending stage and something in the chamois scratched the paper with some graphite. It wouldn't erase. I decided that taking the artwork (that was useless now anyway) and ripping it up into shreds would really help my stress level. Oooh, it did! Very cleansing. ;-)

Then I brought out a nice fresh sheet of Strathmore Bristol, and started again. This time around, the drawing went along a lot more easily. I'm past the blending stage now, and I hope I can finish it up tonight.

Oh, and I noticed that lately my kneaded rubber erasers kept disappearing. I suspected 2 year old Little Guy, but today when I tucked him in for his nap, I found a piece of it in his bed. That little stinker! Luckily, I buy the stuff in bulk, so I have plenty to work with, or else he would put me out of business with his rubber eraser embezzlement.