Watercolor paintings

Yesterday and today I found myself wanting to draw. It's very strange because normally, I prefer music to art if I have a choice. Since I had some spare time, however, I did four drawings. This one is my favorite of the bunch:

Then there are African violets.

I drew both from World Book encyclopedia illustrations (don't judge, they were good pictures to draw from).

Here are Northern Lights over still water (from a popular Google image; Google "Northern Lights" and you'll probably find it).

The colors are a lot more intense in real life. You can't see all those wrinkles in real life, either.

Tonight I did an image made from pieces I found online. I used one picture to draw the lighthouse, two for the bridge, and two more for inspiration for the land.

This picture is my least favorite. By this time my drawing urge was winding up, and I was kind of in a hurry (not a good idea for any hobby).


Eventually, I hope to have a house with wainscoting painted light sage, light slate, and lavender. (That will probably not happen for many years.) However, I think the first two would go quite well, and possibly the Northern Lights one would go okay.


Also, all four pictures were done with watercolor pencils on regular sketch diary paper.

Bookshelf Organizing

Yesterday I finalized my system for organizing books. Here's how it looks now:

The part I'm talking about in particular is the books between the glass jars on the top shelf. I've had these jars for several years, and although I liked the shape of them, I couldn't figure out what to do with them. I was also looking for some bookends for the top of the bookshelf, and finally realized these would work. The group of books on the left is books I'm currently in the middle of. The center group is books that I plan to read soon, and the book on the right is a library book. The glass jar all by itself holds extra bookmarks.

As you can see, though, I have more books than space (I need another bookshelf, not fewer books). I'd like to find an end bookshelf like the one on the right side of the picture (underneath the glass jar with bookmarks), but I'm not sure what company made these or if the company is still in business, and if it is, if they still make bookshelves like these (the shelves are rather old).

Anyway, I really liked the way this turned out. What do you think?

Organizing: Hall Closet

For some time now, the shelf in the hall closet has needed organizing. Badly. So today I cleaned it off. (See what happens between semesters?)

The three totes in the picture hold hats, gloves, scarves, and I’m not sure what else. The space in between them holds the hats and gloves that are used most often, plus some pet supplies (brushes, combs, nail trimmers, tennis balls, collars, and leashes). I hate to say how many pairs of MY gloves were up there, considering that I try to keep a minimum of stuff.

The first thing I did was sort the pet supplies into piles: one pile to keep in the drawer in the bathroom where the pet stuff goes, one pile to get rid of, and one pile of tennis balls to go in the outdoor stuff. The remaining stuff went into four piles: winter hats, gloves, scarves and umbrellas and baseball hats, and one pile to keep out because we use those items every day.

Then I labeled the totes to hold the first three piles and put everything back on the shelf. Ta-da!