Although I was unable to get this post up last week, I think I am still pretty close to on-time, especially considering I never start my week until Monday. I also had a completely different idea for a subject than I will be doing. Let me explain…

Last weekend I started doodling. I had just bought brand new pens (actually I bought them three weeks before and had misplaced them). Anyways… I just HAD to use these suckers! It had been a whole year since I could splurge on good pens (the kids had broken the tips on my previous set). I decided I wanted to make a signature to use for my SWAP posts.

Wouldn't it be cool if I made that signature a piece of art? Hecks yeah! But what would I put in it? Well, I had to ask a few questions of myself. I mean, this is my signature I am drawing. Everything has to be about me.

First thing was easy, there had to be something to do with frogs. I mean, @GG2 just counted over 67. And I know that there are some she is to short to see, some in boxes, and some that I just bought this week. Last year, when we moved, we counted 167 individual frog decorations. In fact, I own every single one available in our local Dollar General stores. So, I had to decide if I just wanted a random frog. Definitely not, but they are adorable when they hang from branches and peek out of flowers. In the end, I decided the hanging frog looked better, but the other side looked so bland now.

What to put next? Well, I love nature conservation. In fact, it ranks up there with art and baking. Whatever I put next had to deal with nature, and it had to tie into the frog. I was coming up blank. I just started drawing in a tree branch that would border my name. It still looked bland. I pulled out my gardening book, started to open it, and was hit with an idea before I even looked at a page. I should add a hanging vine from the tree branch. My favorite flower happens to be blue morning glories, which are a vine with flowering buds.

While doing all this for a signature, I started coming up with the idea to do a small write up on adding value with ink. There are so many ways to do this. I got excited and started drawing up some examples, jotting down notes, and researching the proper terms to use instead of my Bambi-isms. I was chugging along great.

Now, while doing all of this and everything else going on in my life, I am also helping write and illustrate a book. I am actually teaching someone how to do it. I started to realize that you can't just jump into ink. I mean, inking generally entails a pencil sketch to begin with. So I have decided to do a small art series that leads up to adding value with ink.

Let the fun begin!