Yesterday Anna and I had a nice day. She didn't have camp and I didn't go to work, so we got to sleep in. We drove the bikes down to the park and we rode downtown to the library. I returned some books and Anna picked out some books. Then we rode over to the music store to get some sheet music.
I'm having Anna take private violin lessons over the summer and her teacher wanted us to pick up a couple of books. We also picked up a couple of piano books. We had lunch at a very crowded Baja Fresh and then rode our bikes back to the car.
At home, we worked together to make a skirt for Anna. Here she is wearing it. Are these in style now? Or are we a little behind the time. It doesn't really matter. Anna loves it and it does twirl very nicely.
And speaking of style, where did these cartoon-y drawings I've been doing come from? Maybe it was the new black pen I bought. Some people only use pens to draw. I thought I would try it. The pen makes me want to have a smooth graphic line. No sketchiness here. You can't erase pen so you have to be a bit bolder. They look kind of 70's-ish.
I have heard many times in the past how important it is for an artist to have their own style. I understand why this is said. People will be able to recognize your work. Your body of art will seem more cohesive and consistent, etc. But sometimes I wonder why you have to have one style. Why can't you have many different? Why limit yourself?
I guess if you work hard enough and long enough, you will develop a style no matter what you do or use. My style hasn't found me yet. I'm still searching for it. I guess I need to spend more time working on art (I'm trying to head in that direction).
One lady told me I use a lot of geometric shapes in my work. I hadn't really thought about it, but I guess it is true. These "fat splats" aren't really geometric but they kind of look like twirly skirts!
When I do these drawings, I just start drawing something in my sketchbook and end up with stuff like this. Then I use my colored pencils to color it in, just like a coloring book. I like to color.
I didn't get much accomplished this weekend. But I haven't been doing nothing. Yesterday was free fishing day in Idaho (you can fish without a license). None of us are fisherpersons. Frank has a rod he sometimes takes with him on backpacking trips. We have tried it when we go to Long Island. 
I chose an environmental approach to water. These are water bottles that I stamped with a stamp I carved. I placed a plastic sheet protector over the bottles and sewed around the edge of each one. Then I carefully cut the excess from around each bottle. Some of the bottles have the number 1,ooo stamped in them. This is based on an article I read that said some plastic water bottles could take up to a thousand years to decompose. 
