Making new memories while reflecting on old

For this month, I worked in Heather Rodocker's sketchbook. Her theme is "Childhood Memories". I love seeing the sketches before mine and how our lives can be so similar, even in our differences. 

It was challenging to settle on one. Should it be a happy, a sad, a weird memory? Which one is actually important to me enough to draw? For some reason, I keep coming back to the memory of playing Monopoly with my sister. The whole range of human emotion played out: joy, frustration, trust, taste of victory and defeat. Epic battles that would last days during the summer. The next summer, she moved to another state. 

I started with the Monopoly board and didn't know what to do next. My sister and I were skyping when she suggested changing the street names to places near the house. I looked up the address on google. How was it that my whole world existed within a few block radius of each other? What a different life my son is having!

Then, thinking of that house, our neighbors, and the massive fig tree in the backyard, I knew what to draw. My sister and I would push each other to go higher and higher, we were in charge of picking figs for my mom's jam. How normal a life we had.

I drew the house with marker, then finger-pained with acrylic paint. I figured finger-painting was the best way i could connect to the theme of "childhood memories" . 

Many years later, my sister moved back into that house with her own family. When i visit, board games are still time well spent with loved ones. 

Shaun's "The Design of Life" Challenge

I have just finished up my latest drawing, "The Design of Life" for Lauren. I had played with sketching some trees earlier this month, and they seemed to sum up what it is to design for life, and they look great.

So I scoured the internet for some inspirational quotes, built those into my drawing and hey presto here it is. This month I was excited to use my new pigment pens which are more water resistant and don't fade as much over time. On top of that I bought 3 different thicknesses to allow me to get some variety in the lines that I use in my drawings.

Thank you to Lauren for the subject, here's a quick timelapse video of how the drawing came together.

The theme of Linda Blaize's book (Jonaca's mom) is "What's in your backyard?". I LOVE gardening and have two patios plastered with potted plants. Jim and I chose this particular apartment partly because of the two massive patios. Jim knows that I need this kind of space to pursue a hobby that makes me very content. Anyway, the beautiful tree and chinese lantern on my lower patio inspired this quilt piece. In fact, I told Heather and Becky that I was so inspired by the theme that I think I'll go on to create an entire quilt with trees and palms and birds!! You can't tell from the pic, but the blue background is a gorgeous silk piece, so nice la! Anyway I'm all buzzed because I haven't wanted to start a quilt project since we've been overseas (this is our 10th year). Thanks Linda for your great theme and I hope I'll be able to follow through with a quilt!