The First Step: Color.

New Year's Morning, Water soluble markers/acrylic, A trashed warm up,
but a step in the right direction.

A fellow diner at California
Kitchens. 

I took the reference photograph for this scribble nearly as soon as my foot hit the floor  and then went about my 'I'm sick' routine. Later in the AM, for the first time in a week, I got dressed--hair, make-up, the whole deal. I had half a thought about pushing us out the door to lunch--I told you, at Alexanders.  The idea went out of my head when I got downstairs. I had to lie down. I was totally exhausted from my effort. Ellis and I drank champagne instead. It tasted funny. It never did before.

In the PM, I recouped  enough to get down to the Ts in my computer project and go on to color while sitting on the couch. I chose markers. They were in my head from yesterday's post. This little, spur-of-the-moment sketch is a bit of a mess, but so was I. It was  a legitimate artistic expression, but I trashed it anyway. One doesn't have to express everything.

This gal show be smiling. I took ten, fifteen years off her face.
iPad sketch. Brushes App.

I picked up my iPad, but instead of playing Solitaire ad-nauseum, I chose to fool around with one of my art apps, Brushes. For reference, I used a photo I took of some woman at California Kitchens sometime ago. She's not a looker, but there's something about her face I liked. She looks strong like she could handle anything or anybody and make chicken soup from scratch. The rest of the evening,  I fumbled about learning how to iPad paint. I wished I had gotten the stylus I told Jean Spitzer about. (Now there's a gal who realy knows her iPad art programs).

Using only my index finger, I didn't get the woman dining at California Kitchens. She looks too young. She looks sad, more than strong.  But she'd probably like it. I took ten years off--maybe fifteen? I like it. I was coloring, taking the first step back to the studio.