Sketchbook Hospital and UVA

Okay here are some more sketchbook pictures.  These are from last year.  Victor had a little hospital stay due to an e-coli infection.  This is my sketchbook note from the hospital.  By the way, someone miss-typed his age, so instead of 18, he was listed as 78.  He was put in the geriatric ward.  You should have seen the expression on the nurse's face when my husband went to complain about his son's treatment (waiting an hour for an IV when he was admitted for dehydration).  A bad experience all around.

After more recuperating he could go off to college.  This is the sketch I made while we waited on the lawn to see if he was okay after a day of classes.

Visiting the Bay Area

This year I got an extra vacation that actually is a vacation.  I can while away the day while my husband attends meetings.  These are the observations I wrote down when I spent the day in Sausalito.
Flowers are everywhere.
Every other hotel is a spa.
The Vet on Bridgeway specializes in Acupuncture.
There is a store that makes wooden bicycle frames, it seems to be next to an electric bicycle shop.
There are a lot of houseboats here.

Most are quite unique.

It is very popular to grow cactus on your dock.
There are too many swarovski crystals in this town.
It helps to be an artist to live in this houseboat community but I don't think it is required. 

Zendoodles/ Solid Sound

A couple of years ago I read about zendoodles, or zentangles.  It is glorified doodling.  Basically, you draw a shape, divide it into sections, and fill each section with different patterns.  I've done this with my students, and they love it, and they look pretty cool.  The method has done a lot to influence my sketchbook.  I keep a small "travel journal" in my purse.  I like to record places I've been to in it.  But along with traditional sketches and notes, I make a zendoodle, filling spaces with patterns and images of where I have been.  I kind of like them.  To most people they may appear to be just color and line, but to me everything has a meaning.  Traditional zendoodles are black and white, but my favorites use lots of color.
This is one I did at the Solid Sound festival this past June.  It was a rainy weekend, so there were not that many great opportunities to draw for the first day and a half.  Most of it was done on Sunday.  Half is devoted to T-shirts.

This is the one I did from the year before, same festival.

I like the 2010 one better.  But I was sitting in a sunny field drawing as opposed to the first one where it was damp and muddy - not very conducive to sketching.