101 Goals in 1001 Days

We skipped sketch group yesterday to stay home and watch the inauguration.  Nothing warmed my heart more than seeing Bush waving from the plane as he exited D.C.   We celebrated with cake and champagne.  It really feels like we are beginning a new era.

I've been sketching quite a bit on my own lately.  Every day, in fact, for 2 weeks straight as part of my 101 goals.  3 years ago Debi in my art group suggested we do the 101 goals in 1001 days project.  You can read more about it here.  At the time, 1001 days sounded like forever, and now the time is up next month.  Even though I won't finish all 101 goals, I am really happy that I've made substantial progress.  I've marked off some really big items (go to Mexico), lots of small, mundane ones (organize garage), realized some will always be on the goal list (lose 15 lbs.) and have found that some no longer interest me (make paper cones for my mantle).  

 I'm now trying to see how many little goals I can squeeze in before the time expires.  I set a time limit on a lot of my goals so that they were things that could be checked off.  One was "sketch every day for 2 weeks straight."  This has ended up being more beneficial than I imagined, mainly because it forced me to sketch when I wasn't in the mood.  I often tried to squeeze it in right before bed so I rushed through the sketches, which resulted in looser work--something I'm always trying to accomplish anyway.

I do all my drawings in ink so they cannot be corrected and fussed over then put on a quick watercolor wash, but I have a hard time keeping them fresh and accurate without getting too tight.

I'm happy with the looseness of these sketches, especially for these subjects.  This is one of my favorites, my 2 boys' shoes:

And looseness fits the bulldog very well:

Christmas at our House

I've been enjoying reading blogs and seeing how people celebrate Christmas in their different ways.   Here are a few pages from my sketchbooks to show a bit of Christmas at our house.  It's a little after the fact, but I didn't have a chance to sit and sketch before it was all over.  

I've been gathering silvered glass ornaments for about 25 years now, so that's now all I use on my tree.  My favorites are ones that aren't very Christmasy, the odder the better.  One of my goals in sketching this year is too get looser with watercolor.  I love how African Tapestry and Laurelines both use it.  When I try, it just ends up messy:

Here's a much tighter page, and what I want to move away from, but I don't know how to do that with highly detailed bits:

This was a page from last year's journal at this time of year.  Some things don't change much from year to year: