Five Minute Camping Sketches

More five minute sketches from a day trip to White Oak State Park where my sister-in-law Cindy Lou was camping.




(This was the neighbor's dish, not Cindy Lou's.)

Five Minute Garden Sketches

It's been a long time since I've drawn anything. This winter just wasn't conducive to creativity for some reason.

I've wanted to draw these three things for several weeks but I fell into the old perfection trap. If I couldn't draw them perfectly I wasn't going to even try. But I wasn't drawing anything at all and had to snap out of it.

I got the idea of doing five minute sketches to get over my drawing block. I set the egg timer on the porch and let the pen fly. I tried to capture the essence of the thing and not get too hung up on details. If a line was out of place, so what. I just added a few more to it.







Small square sketchbook
Watercolor added later.

Say What?

Preserving Family History

My mother-in-law, Mammaw Speck, pulls these little dishes out of the cabinet quite often and tells their story. They belonged to her great-grandmother Lelia (1864-1895) and I suspect they were part of Lelia's wedding china but there's no real proof of that.

The butter pat dishes (and the rest of the set) lived in the china cabinet in the butler's pantry in her grandmother's house in Williamsburg, Virginia. She was allowed to play with them as a child and thought they were sweet little doll dishes. When her grandmother passed away, an aunt inherited the china but gave the butter dishes to Mammaw Speck because she loved them so.

I thought it would be a good idea to draw the dishes and capture the story for family history. I wrote the story on a separate piece of paper and promptly lost it. That's why it's taken six months to post this drawing. Photos and paper are easily lost, but I'll hang on to my journal forever.

(The story in my handwriting is on the facing page. I spared everyone having to squint at it to make it out and slog through all the names, dates and locations of the entire Speck family tree.)



This toy tea set also belonged to Lelia. The handles are broken off one teacup and the creamer, and one "ear" handle is broken off the sugar bowl and its lid is missing. However, considering it is circa 1870, I think that's pretty good.

The tea set lives in a small, toy chest of drawers crafted from an old wooden cigar box. Several other small toys and treasures from Lelia's childhood are in there also.

Summer in December

A Very Special Gift

Gas Company Trencher

I'm beginning to understand I have an affinity for large contruction equipment.

Only Sweet When Sleeping

Since Cheezburger got four sketches yesterday, Smudge gets her 15 seconds of fame today.