Snow Days

We got snow a week ago -- a whole inch of it -- and then below-freezing temps ever since, so it insists on sticking around.  So once again, I've been stuck at home.  Luckily, we had more sketching sessions than normal, which helped pass the time, along with a new needlepoint project I've been working on which shall remain unseen for now as it hasn't got very far yet.

The holidays were quiet and low-key.  I bought a gift for the Hounds via a fund-raising auction for my favorite charity, the rescue group  Hearts4Doxies.  It's a lovely blanket:

Friends who know me well sent a few gifts that all seemed to have a certain theme, like these stickers which now grace my fridge:

And this blank notebook with a cover from The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter:

Or this tote bag with imagery related to Aziraphale and his bookshop:

And this tote bag with demonic Crowley illustration:

Odd, how Good Omens somehow kept turning up!

On to the art work!

The pieces I produced during our sketch sessions all turned out okay, but not fabulous, as far as I'm concerned.  We did these pools, which are in Turkey, and I tried a mix of watercolor and colored pencil which proved difficult in terms of blending, and I failed to get the color of the water right (it's really much more aqua).

We did a mountain at night, which I knew would be hard to do in watercolor, so I tried it using the Adobe Fresco digital drawing/painting program.

Then we did some salt ponds, which were quite abstract and very colorful.  I used just watercolor for this one.

Then we did a moth on a flower, and I tried a mix of watercolor and colored pencil again, and struggled with it so much that I don't think I'll bother trying that multimedia approach again.  

And we did this bench, where I tried ink and watercolor, and wasn't all that happy with those, either.  Sigh.

Things might get interesting artistically, as I've run out of my favorite watercolor paper, and have sworn that I won't buy more until I've used up other art supplies in my house, because there are a gazillion other art supplies here.  Different papers, different media -- there are colored pencil supplies, pastel supplies, acrylic and oil paints, brush pens, and more!  So I'm going to try some at our upcoming sketch sessions, and we'll see how long I last before rushing out to buy more of my favorite watercolor paper. 

Okay, on to the always-photogenic dachshunds!

As I mentioned, we got snow, and that means photos of the Hounds frolicking in it, despite the chilly temps:

Poor Pippin slipped on the rocks in the garden while chasing a squirrel, and turned his ankle a bit, and had to be penned up for about six hours and given drugs until he bounced back.

Which, thankfully, he did!

Poor Truman never gets as many photos, as he tends to always look away from the camera when I'm trying to capture him, but I managed to get him to look at me while he was doing this silly pose on my mother's sofa:

Well, that's all for now.  Welcome to a new year, and let's hope it's a better year all round!