Recent and not so recent sketches

These are several drawings I've done recently. Ryan challenged me to draw something new every day and post in on my blog, so that I would be constantly creating new things. unfortunately we are having some technical difficulties with our scanner, so it's taken a while to get them uploaded (I had to wait and use Ryan's mom's scanner). I drew these all in pencil, I'm not a big fan of pencil, I prefer charcoal, but pencil is less messy to work with. I want to thank Kim, I used several photos of her boys for several of the drawings. Kim, you take the BEST children photos, I frequently look at your blog for reference photos.
These are some basic figure sketches I've been doing from a worksheet I got back in college. They are very good for teaching you the very basics of anatomy. It would be nice to actually study anatomy, but these work pretty well also.

Several sketches from college. The first set I did from photos I had or my roommates had. The second was of one of my roommates, Tina. I started to draw another girl leaning on her shoulder, but that girl got a phone call and left before I could draw her in. It would have been really a cute picture to have them both in it.

Waking Up

Pearls

Since losing my wedding ring several years ago, I have been looking off and on for a replacement ring. One of the problems I've faced was that diamonds have increased in price so much. My original wedding ring now costs almost 3 times more than when Ryan bought it in 2004. I loved my ring, and was very sad to lose it, but as I've been looking at diamond rings I just don't find them "that" pretty, like when you see something you think is pretty in a store, then you check the price tag and think, never mind, its not that pretty. Plus, when I think of paying that much money, I think of all the other things we could get....bigger and more important things, and I talk myself out of it. Then I happened upon some pearl engagment/wedding rings and I fell in love. I've always loved pearls, and honestly I find them prettier than diamonds. I think they are timeless, elegant, and beautiful. At one time pearls were more valuable than diamonds. Also, the tradition of a diamond wedding ring was started in the 1920's (my source might not be credible, but it sounds about right) as a marketing scheme to boost sales of diamonds. So, this is my new ring goal, for when we have the money for a ring, I think I want a pearl ring with diamonds on the sides. I don't know what color of pearl yet, or what design, because there are so many beautiful ones to choose from.

Vegas and Jessica's wedding.

Last week Ryan and I went with his brother Brandon and his wife JaNae to Vegas for 4 1/2 days. Their little sister Jessica was going to be getting married in St. George UT on Friday, so we thought that we would take this opportunity to have a little vacation also. I didn't get any photos of Jessica and Randy or anything with the wedding, I should have but I didn't think about it until after leaving the camera in the car, and then forgot again later to go grab it. It was a beautiful wedding and I'm happy for Jessica and Randy, they seem to be very good for each other. Here are some pictures from Vegas. We spent the week walking through all of the casino/ hotels looking at their different exhibits and stores. It was fun but very exhausting. Ryan and I were not used to so much walking and also staying up so late. It wasn't that late, but later then we are used to. Yes, we are a boring married couple with a three year old.... :)


The above picture and the one following were taken in the venetian or the Pallazo. You start out in one hotel and without realizing it you can end up coming out four buildings down from where you started. I loved the lanterns. For the record, these were the colors I wanted for my wedding, the exact colors (this is a really bad picture of them though). My mom just couldn't quite get the vision of red and orange though, she thought it sounded ugly I think.


JaNae and I in front of a horse in one of the casino/hotels.... I don't remember which one, but it was the same one as the one with the bride coming up.

So, we thought this was such a classic Vegas type scenario and so we got a picture. My camera is great when it comes to uploading pictures onto the internet, but the quality of the photos isn't that wonderful. From the back you think that the girl is wearing a regular wedding dress and then you see the front.... They were from France, and they seriously were causing crowds to form as they went through the casino, we were assuming they were headed to the chapel that was down one of the halls. This might have been in Ceasars or one next to it. You can't tell, but she was really pretty. She could barely walk in the dress though, as you might imagine.....

This picture was taken in the Venetian or the Pallazo. We wandered a lot, so it really was hard to keep track of where you were in some of the buildings. behind us there is a waterfall. It was very pretty. We had just come from seeing Phantom of the Opera. It was very well done, but I still prefer the original long version to the 40 minute one in Vegas. In the venetian they had waterways going through the store areas, and they had a gondola for people to take rides on. The guy even sang for the passangers. None of the pictures we took show how really beautiful all of the buildings were.

One of the nights we went to a dinner show at the Excalibur. This was JaNae and I standing in front of our Knight (each section of the arena had a different knight and country assigned to it). Ryan, Brandon and JaNae got really into cheering, we decided that they were definately the loudest in our section. It was pretty funny. You sit in an arena and eat dinner (with your hands, no utensils) while they put on a king arthur type show with horses and jausting (sp?). It was pretty fun.

JaNae standing on a oddly pretty stairway....I think it was lit from within... it was in one of the newer hotels that wasn't quite completed, there were still a lot of shops being constructed that hadn't opened yet.

This is Excalibur where we went to the dinner show. My favorite thing from the trip would have to have been the water show at the Bellagio. My next favorite place was the Vanetian and Pallazo.

One of my new sister in laws, Janae (Brandon's wife), has started designing jewelry and has set up an etsy shop. She is making some pretty cute things. Here is the site: http://www.janae5.etsy.com/

Primary

Today was Ethan's first day of primary. Our ward doesn't have a teacher for his class yet, so the sunbeams went with another class, and from what I could see it was all boys under the age of 4, about 8 all together with the two sunbeams. Ethan was very cute sitting on his little chair in line with all the other little boys. The other sunbeam was not happy about being in primary, once he realized it meant no more nursery he was quite miserable for the first little bit. Ethan handled the transition really well, mostly because the class was full of other little boys, and I never pointed out to him that there wouldn't be any more nursery. I think if I made that clear to him he might be upset. I came by to check on him at one point, the teacher was in the middle of talking about homes, and Ethan was counting to 20 (it's one of his favorite things to do right now), seemingly oblivious to everything that was going on in the class, BUT he was still sitting on his chair, which is a pretty impressive thing knowing how much energy he has. It's sad and sweet to see Ethan grow up. It's sad because it seems to be happening so quickly, but it's sweet because he's so happy and cute, and it's fun to see him getting smarter and learning new things.

Pictures from Christmas

Ethans new train set. This gift was the best idea ever, he spends most of his time playing with it.

Grandma Anderson got him a keyboard, which he also loves to play with. I told him to smile and this is what I got.....:)

Ethans beautiful hair last night after his bath.

we were playing around with the camera and taking funny photos, but I really liked how this one turned out.