Angel's Trumpets & Chinese Lantern

I've been on hiatus with my art and my blog writing because we just moved. We only moved to the next town but we downsized from a house to a condo and the whole downsizing process happened during the holidays as we signed the contract to sell our house the day before Thanksgiving. Our move also consisted of helping two of our sons move from our house into their own apartments so it was almost three moves in one. I can't tell you how much stuff I gave away or threw away and we still have a storage unit that is chocked full of Ferreira "treasure" but for now we're settled in and adjusted to our new condo and town. What I like the most is living in downtown Bristol, being able to walk everywhere with many shops and restaurants only a few blocks away (dangerous!). I also like the ease of taking care of a condo as opposed to the house; the trash and recycling chute right in the hallway vs. driving everything to the dump; and on days like this, not having to plow the driveway and shovel the walks. What I miss the most is being able to just let the dog out the door with his invisible fence as now we have to walk him outside on the leash every time he has to go.

Now I'm hoping I'll have more time to spend on art. I've been working on the piece of artwork that I created for the RI Blood Center but I can't show it because it needs to be kept secret and unveiled by the Blood Center in March. I've also been working on this unfinished piece that I blogged about last September and October. I thought I should finish the drawing in honor of Chinese New Year which is this coming Monday. This is just a portion of the piece which fit into my scanner, there is more to the left, to the right, and on the bottom. It's drawn on Rtistx board using Prismacolor and Coloursoft pencils. I needed to smooth out the pencil because of the texture in the board and I didn't want to add solvents so I used the heated Icarus drawing board to soften and melt some of the pencil allowing me to add more pencil layers and smooth them out. What I did find is that the Rtistx board warps when it is heated, thus I had to work on small areas and try to hold the board flat. However, it does flatten out again when it cools.