Approaching the Dark Times

I'm getting ready to hunker down for the coming Dark Times, which for me does not mean Winter but rather the end of baseball season.  The World Series will end this week, and there will be nothing to watch on TV until Spring Training in March.  How will I cope?  I tried to save some of the better Mariners games on the DVR to rewatch during the Dark Times, but they were so very bad this year that I have only six games to view over and over and over.  Sigh.

I hope to come up with some painting projects to get me through.  Meanwhile, I bailed on InkTober after 25 or so days.  Not a bad effort, and I enjoyed most of it.  I drew this last week:

It was one of the exercises in the Pen & Ink Sketching Step by Step book, and it took some time, and it was a good exercise in cross-hatching.  

Another day I did a quick and not entirely successful sketch of what I can see of the sycamore in my mother's back yard from my back yard:

On Wednesday the sketch group met up at a retail area where this optometrist building provided some architectural interest:

Thursday was the first day that I skipped doing an ink drawing, though I did do some pencil sketching while teaching a friend how to draw birch trees.  If I rename it ArtTober, meaning to just do something artistic every day, then I'm still good!

Friday I did another exercise from the Pen & Ink Sketching book:

On Saturday I slapped a colored ground on a canvas.  I'm hoping to do an acrylic painting, something colorful to go with that quail painting I recently bought.  No idea what it might turn out to be yet.  On Sunday I slapped a bit more paint on it and then watched several YouTube videos on acrylic painting techniques.  Possibly that wasn't an entirely artistic weekend since I didn't actually draw or paint anything recognizable but hey, I thought artistic thoughts, so I'm counting it.

Finally, it truly is Fall here, with the end of the Farmer's Market season, and the end of the riverboat cruise season.   Both ended last week, and I shall miss them.  

It's been a weekly tradition for Truman and Pippin and I to go to the Farmer's Market every Friday, and to visit the main riverfront park to see if a boat is in.

Last week there were TWO boats there, the last ones of the season.  Sniff.

We're going to have a cold snap this week, so I am planning to hunker down with the Hounds, thinking artistic thoughts while watching the end of the World Series...sigh. 

Welcome to the Dark Times.