OK, Here is my last Calvin and Hobbes for a while. 
                                    

I bought some Blick's markers.  I wish I got Prismacolor.  I know that is unfair since I haven't actually tried the Prismacolor, but the Blick's were too vibrant.  I needed nice toned colors not these.  I could  have used some Crayola markers and gotten the same result.  Anyways:

I think I somehow made him look more evil than the actual comic strips.




Da Vinci also stresses copying and learning from the masters.  I think drawing Calvin and Hobbes cartoons is a good equivalent.

So I sat down today and drew different expressions. 

Remember that odd looking falcon I was posting about earlier?  Have you wondered what happened to him?  I have been working on him, but I have been experimenting a bit, and didn't have enough humility to post the results.  I finally worked it out though, and here I have the falcon with more detail and colors.  He looks very "buttery" since I haven't yet given him the texture of his wings.

One of my least favorite things about art is framing.  I think this is primarily becuase I am not entirely sure what to get for each frame.  It's like when you try on a top in a store and can't quite tell weather it's something you really like, or one of those, "why'd I get this?" items.  There are definitly some frames that do not work with the paintings, I can tell those easily.  But it is so hard to find one that enhances a painting to it's full potential.  This is a picture of the frame I picked for my red flower.  I am pretty darn happy with this one.

The absense of pastel paper forces me to be creative with my drawing.  Hence, I have this long sketch on the margins of some old sheet of paper.  I am really happy with how this turned out and I hope to do that larger still life to include the Irish Whistles.  They look really cool in pastel (if i might say so myself...:)

 I painted this a few years ago with my art class as a refresher on drawing and values.  It's was primarily to emphasise the dark and light sides of an object.  What makes this piece interesting is that one side is a maroon and the other is a light pink, yet the watermelon is essentially the same substance and color on both sides.  The light and darkness contrast is something my art teacher regularly emphasizes as one of the essential things to a good painting. 

Here is a begining sketch of a still life I set up a few days ago with the Irish one.  It's still in it's very primary stages.  It's also just a small part of the page.  I plan on adding to it and changing it. 

I hesitate to post photos because I don't like to copy them religiously.  I take them so that I can save a particular still life set up or for something to be a general guideline, but I do not like to copy it totally so that it looks exactly like a photo.  Why do that, when we have cameras?  For this reason, I like to avoid people comparing the painting with the photo.  The beauty of art is that we can enhance photos and make the colors more splendid through the different mediums.  However, my artistic thing for today was setting up a few still lives to draw and eventually paint.  So I will go ahead and share one of those photos.  I collected a few Celtic things around the house, (we're all very proud of our heritage and collect all things Irish) and set this up in my room. 

I came home from babysitting a family last night and thought, "Oh my.  I need to draw something to post."  I really need to start bringing my sketch pad around everywhere with me so that I can draw during all my down time in life.  Anyways, here is a quick still life I drew late last night. 

I drew this butterfly in a colored pencil class I took about four years ago.  I never pursued colored pencils after that simply because they were too restricting.  For that same reason, I never was able to enjoy paint by numbers either. 

During the ratification of the constitution, the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists had a heated and lengthy discussion over the extent of the Judiciary's power.  

Essentially, the Anti-Federalists main concern was that the Judiciary branch would be above the constitution and that because they had the final word on law and fact, they would have extensive unchecked power.  They were also worried that they would be able to interpret ambiguous clauses in the constitution, because this would, of course, lead to them legislating from the bench and enhancing the federal government's power, which would in turn increase their money and power. 

The Federalists had a simple and practical solution to this:

Mr. Bryan was unnecessarily concerned that the trials concerning "admiralty and maritime jurisdiction" would not have a jury "of the vicinage." 

If they simply watched a couple Disney movies they could have seen the eminent solution to this problem.

The Anti-Federalist were also concerned that citizens would have to travel thousands of miles through ominous rivers, treacherous mountains, looming statues and ... an arch. 

Finally, to settle all discourse, Mr. Hamilton exclaimed:

Okaaay.... No he didn't.  But I wish he said that.

Here is an acrylic painting I did a few years ago.  I really liked it because it was all black and white.  These kinds of paintings are the easiest for me because I find colors challenging.