Practice, Practice, Practice

I can draw.  I know this.  I forget it sometimes, because as a face painter, I don't always need to actually draw.  Yes, I use elements and techniques from my zillion years of art classes to turn your child into a tiger like the one on the banner of this blog, but there's a difference between turning someone into something and drawing it.

When face painting, I've focused on the former and avoided the latter.  For me, the former is easier and faster.  And it's usually more fun for my model!  Who wouldn't want to be a tiger, rather than just having one on his face?  Plus, it's got that "wow" factor that everyone loves to have at a party.

Sometimes, though, a child wants a painting on his or her hand or arm.  Or mom wants cheek art so she doesn't have to wash her child's whole face, even if my paints are easy to wash off.  So I need to be able to draw!

When I've been doing a lot of full-face painting, I sometimes forget that I can draw.  That's silly, I know, since I started taking art classes at age 5.  Of course I can draw!  Look at this lemur I did for my husband at his request.

And then I redrew it for him, in black and white.

I drew him another one too.

They look crazy, I know.  I can "draw" when it comes to the face paints too.  After all, I did this dragon, which won me an Honorable Mention in an international competition (3rd row down on the right).

And I made up this cute monster guy while I was at a slow festival one day, and just goofing.

And I can putll out some strange things when challenged, like that seal I did at the Audubon Zoo.

Sometimes, though, I just draw a blank.  Or when I'm working and moving quickly, I end up doing the same sort of thing over and over.  For instance, flowers.  There are so many species of flowers, but when I'm moving fast, my flowers can bcome annoyingly generic.  The only way to combat this is to practice when I'm not under the gun, with a squirmy kid wanting to be done and get out of my chair and twenty more waiting to get in.  So I took some time today to practice.  And the results, in the flower category:

 

That's my first calla lily.  I also tried an iris, my sister's favorite flower.

Next on my list was a sunnny yellow daisy.

And this little guy.  A forget-me-not, I think.

 

We have variety!  I didn't stop at flower, though.  While I can and have drawn a dinosaur before, I wanted some new ones of those too.  So here are two new cute dinosaurs, too, a stegosaurus and triceratops.

 

 

I also tried some other critters, a lizard different from my usual, a frog, also new for me, and a seahorse.  I love seahorses and am actually getting a tank ready so I can own some real ones!

 

 

Continuing with the sea theme, some shells.

That'll be great when I do mermaid princesses too!  I'm also constantly getting asked for trains.  I had a train, but it was nothing I was proud of.  This one is much cuter!

 

And a for good measure, a couple more things that'd be handy to have in my repertoire.

 

Perfect for summer, that one is!

There's tons more I could practice, of course, but I've gotten hungry and it's a beautiful day out.  I may get a late lunch, and take the puppy for a walk.

'Til next time!

I also...

... bake and make chocolates, just not all that frequently. So with my sister's baby shower taking place today, I baked the cakes and made the favors. Three chocolate lollipops in the shape of teddy bears with blocks per person. Why three? Mom and I decided that one looked too small and cheap. So three it was. With 52 guests, that meant 156 lollipops. I did 160 just in case.

The chocolate looked and smelled so yummy while it was melting!

I had 4 of the mold trays, which helped to speed things along a little, but not enough for my taste. It still took hours and hours, over the course of two days.

I used all dark chocolate, as it's healthier and my family prefers it.

Once they were hardened in the proper form, I bagged each one and then tied it with a personalized custom ribbon. The toughest part was the ribbon, honestly. When they're printed, you've got to make sure the text faces the right way. It took some practice.

One of the boxes I had could only hold 106 of the pops, so the rest went into a different box.

Yesterday, it was cake day. I used this pan

to make these cakes

One a yellow butter cake and the other a fudge cake. I torted each so I could fill them with chocolate pudding that I cooked. For the yellow cake, I sliced bananas into the pudding, and for the fudge cake, I sliced strawberries.

One and a half batches of chocolate buttercream and one batch of regular buttercream (dyed lemon yellow and mint green) later, I had two shower cakes, sitting nicely on the cake board I'd covered in gift wrap...

... and a lot of dishes to wash! While I was baking, I thought my least favorite part of baking was greasing and flouring the pan, especially shaped pans like this. Then I got to the dishes, and they definitely win.

The chocolates and cakes were a hit, though. Everyone who didn't eat them at the shower took their lollipops, and both cakes were devoured, not a crumb left. Now THAT is a compliment.