A day at the Wild Animal Park

We took three of our grandchildren to the Wild Animal Park in San Diego today. The park was overflowing with baby animals, nesting birds and a special butterfly exhibit! It was perfect weather and the kids had a great time. I took tons of pictures and brought along my trustee sketchbook. I took everything home and painted a few things. I was inspired by all the wildlife, and I do mean animals not grandkids, to paint. Here is one of the Lorikeets that the kids fed while there. 

Watercolor 5"x7"

Sketches from the sketchcrawl

Here are my sketches from today. Marta and I drove down to San Diego and met up with about 15 other artists. It was such fun catching up with Jane and making new friends. Jane shared Danny Gregory's Newest book in which he had featured many of the EDM sketchers. Congrats Jane on you spread in the book, you deserve it, you are so talented! We were warmly welcomed by the owners of the shops as we drew and painted. Then over to Guadalajara's for lunch! It was a perfect day, thank you San Diego sketchcrawlers for making us feel so welcome!

Home again

I got home safely but I was in such a bad mood getting home. I think its that coming off the mountain let down. I enjoyed having some time to myself and it was hard to get back to my reality. I was really getting into a good pity party when I figured I best stop now or end up in the black hole of despair. I don't know why I would be feeling like that. I had just spent the last three days playing, laughing, sewing, being cooked for, someone making my bed and cleaning our room each morning. HMMMMM

The weekend was fun and we laughed so hard my sides hurt. I can't remember the last time I laughed like that! Oh my, what a story, to long to share but Ursula and Marta know what I am talking about here. Marta, Dawn and I all shared a room. Dawn got us a gift bag of bath goodies which she put on our nightstand. Then everynight she read to us until we fell asleep. Wow, that was the best! Thanks Dawn! Her voice was like music that just quietly lulled us to sleep. On Saturday we walked down to the main street and had breakfast on the patio while the mexican women that worked there made fresh tortillas. Saturday night the whole group went to a resturant we go to each year and had a wonderful dinner. I got alot of quilting done, Marta taught us all to bind books and Dawn knitted Christmas gifts for her hubby. It felt as though our friendly group was a bit clicky this trip. I know there was some tension with some of the women in the group and I just wish we could all just get along!!! I volunteered to have the Christmas party at my house on the 7th so I need to get busy and finish the yard! I will post my new sketch book tomorrow. I love it, it turned out so great, I have yet to sketch in it. LOL It seems to be so hard to make that first mark.

San Diego here I come

Well its that time of year again, retreat time. There is a great group of women that get together twice a year for a retreat, one in Big Bear, one in San Diego, we call them camps. We don't really camp though,this is where we stay, you can see that we are really roughing it during our visit here. It is in downtown so there are many great shops and places for foodies to get a fix. Marta and I and Dawn are sharing a room, should make for lots of laughs. Marta leaves for Europe right after camp, plus she is teaching a class, if I were her I would be a bit stressed. But if you look at her blog you can see she is ultra organized with all of her outfits drawn out in her sketchbook! I will miss you GF. See you tomorrow!