What I love about being on vacation, aside from not having to work, is that whenever I like I can just whip out my pocket sketch book.  This is something I truly need to work toward doing professionally.  I need to be a professional vacationer.  I have been playing with the new Sharpie pens too.  I don’t know how new they truly are, but they have been advertising the tar out of them so I thought I’d give them a whirl.  I think they are right up there with the Faber-Castells.  They’re still scratchy, but I love the instant dark lines.

Drawing my beer turned out to be an issue for me because I kept drinking it.  Apparently I was having difficulty putting it back in the same position.  But I love just sketching when I feel like it.  Of course, it gets on my lovely wife’s nerves when she’s ready to go and I’m busy shading something.

Sitting pool side and drying off a little before going in for dinner, I got in a quiche looking up at the hotel.  I like that because there’s a lot of perspective to play with, practice, and learn from.  I don’t thinkone can *EVER* get enough practice at perspective.

We went to eat at IHOP and while we were waiting for the food I whipped out my handy li’l sketchbook to draw the coffee carafes.  We have His and Her’s carafes because the Pregasaur isn’t allowed caffeine.  Having learned my lesson from the beer, I wouldn’t let anyone move the carafes until I had the basic layout and shading in place.  My beautiful bride tells me I may not survive this vacation.

We had a little banking to do this morning that took quite a bit longer than expected.  I tried to capture the loan shark company across the street while my beautiful young bride and Girl2 handled their financial transactions.

EDM 124, draw a bird or birds.  Since I like to draw from life, and since it was late in the evening when I did this, I opted for a stuffed toy bird from Sonic.  Girl2 has TONS of these little kid’s meal toys from various restaurants.  So many that they have their own box and I haven’t had to buy toys at Wal*Mart.  I’m sure the money saved from the department store is nowhere near the money spent on the premium kid’s meal, but a “death of a thousand cuts” isn’t quite as painful.

Several of you have written to ask if everything is going all right on my end.  I thank you all very much for your concern.  My day job has had a major “Reduction In Force” and I have been tasked to pick up more responsibilities outside in the shop, in the office, and on the road.  I admit there has been a certain amount of depression that comes with “laying off” your friends and colleagues.  Couple that with my refusal to quit reaching for my fitness goals and my attention to my beautiful pregasaur and it just has not left much time for posting either here or at The Small Town Big Life, let alone much drawing or painting.  However, I have a plan to change all that.  I am currently starting yet another vacation.  That should free up some time to help automate some of the tedium and speed up the processes for posting.  That way, I can focus on what’s important to me *INCLUDING* these websites.  Anyway, I haven’t posted an EDM in a while, so here is EDM 123, something yellow.