Tonight I finally got the thing-a-day posted before 12a Eastern!  I decided I wanted to do a dinosaur.  I was all geared up to run back to Wally*World to see if I could get some rose art modeling clay.  I know I want to do something like that during this challenge.  But I decided instead to draw a little caricaturesaurus-rex.  Then I wanted to color it.  Then watercolor it.  Well, the paper was in no way the right kind of paper for that, but I couldn’t be bothered with such trifles.  I was having too much fun.  I really like what’s going on from the lower jaw down.  Actually, it’s the snout I’m really not happy about.  Girl2 and I have decided to redo this on 22″x28″ poster board with poster paint.  OK, she’s three.  I want to redo it that way and she excitedly agreed with me.  Rest asured that when we do, you’ll see it here.

My adoring wife expressed her concern with my lack of sleep over the last few nights.  She said that she thought it might be a bit much to do the blog, the thing-a-day and the EDM challenge all at the same time.  She says that it is keeping me up until 2 and 3 in the morning.  I laughed and explained that I was usually done with all of this by 11:30pm.  The reason I’m up so late is due to all the other people’s work I’m watching.  I’m subscribed to 50+ blogs, including thing-a-day which is a blog of blogs!  Now that’s suffering for art.

On the EDM front, tonight’s challenge was to draw my foot.  I know these challenges were originally meant to be weekly challenges.  The 20th challenge was supposed be in honor of Father’s Day.  That would put this on in June or July.  As it is now, it’s February.  It’s cold.  I’m not taking my boot off to draw my foot.  In February, you get a booted foot.  After I have finished all 208 of the challenges, I think I will start over with ink and watercolor.  When I do, I’m puting all of the NUDE challenges in the summer.

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EDM 23: Draw your foot

I’m going to have to start earlier.  I come home from work, help the wife around the house, and play with the baby.  Then at 9pm when the baby goes to bed, I start working on the projects.  The hard part is making the midnight deadline.  Especially when the Thing-a-day website is set to eastern time.

I was so stoked that this was pretty much all I thought of today.  Staring at my computer screen or my paperwork at the office, people thought I was deep in thought and so, left me alone.  Little did they know that I was busily planning my next creative project.  It’s like stealing from the company.

Tonight’s EDM project was to draw a piece of clothing.  Luckily for me, it’s laundry folding night.  On Sunday evenings, we *TRY* to keep the laundry going until it’s all washed and dried.  Whomever happens to be available when the drier buzzes puts the next load in and hangs up what needs to be.  On Mondays, *WE* fold the rest.  I had to add the words “try” and “we” because my wife is the only one who is consistantly available on Sundays, and Mondays means a sock-ball fight between me and girl2 as we help fold. That goes on until my beautiful young bride runs us out of the room screaming, “QUIT HELPING ME!”

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EDM 22: Draw a piece of clothing

My very first upload to thing-a-day.com.  While traveling down a highway on the way to Sunday dinner at my grandmother’s, we were passed by one of those incredibly expensive horse trailers.  If you’ve never seen one, a family of six could live comfortably in this thing.  Girl2 innocently asked what it was and my beautiful young bride told her it was a trailer for show horses.

“SEA HORSES!?!?!” squealed the child.

Mommy tried to explain “Show Horses” but it was too late.  Girl2 and I were already making up a story about the sea horse rodeo.  How the merpeople had a coral corral and sea monkey barrel racers.  Thus the inspiration for “Sea Monkey Rodeo”.

Also, they say that if you do something everyday for three weeks, it becomes a habit.  Today is day 21 of my edm challenge.  Today, the challenge was to draw something old, antique, or vintage.  My wife suggested a self-portrait, hateful woman that she is.

I guess the truth is that if you have ever bought one of these new, then you too, my friend, are vintage.

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EDM 21: Draw something old, antique or vintage.

My wife and I have very unconventional pasts, to say the least.  You wouldn’t know it to look at us.  Today, I’m a burly biker type, and she’s a catholic school teacher.  Growing up, however, she took autoshop where I took show choir and Home Economics.  She played football.  I was a cheerleader.  Today, if the car is making a funny noise, I go into the house and find my wife to go look at it.

me: Hey Myst, the car is making a duhduhduhduhduh noise.
Myst: OK, get me a beer and I’ll go take a look at it.

So tonight’s challenge to draw something “Dad” was a little difficult.  Everything I thought of that was obviously mine, was not necessarily easily identifiable as “Dad”.  Frankly, in most households they would have been much more “Mom”.  I do have a few masculine traits though.  I could have drawn my razor, my golf clubs, my bike, etc.  I settled on my work boots.  They are a well worn testament to traditional “Dadness”.  She looks hotter in them though.

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EDM 20: Draw something “Dad”

I signed up for yet another challenge, Thing-a-day.  The concept is that for the entire month of February, I am challenged to create something every day.  I’m already sketching and writing every night here.  Now I’ll try some other things on top of this.  Is it cheating if I’m already brainstorming ideas?  I know that I want to create a field watercolor sketch kit like Russ Stutler’s.  I have a couple of pieces of patio furiture that I have been wanting to build forever.  I have a very large chess set that I have been imagining for years.  The challenge tonight was to draw a view from a window.  This is really more of a view *OF* a window instead of *FROM*.  It’s dark outside so I can’t really see anything outside.  It’s cold outside, so I’m not going out there to draw the view from the other side.  So I drew what I could see from my kitchen to my back porch.  My first thought was that eyes are the windows of the soul and  I seriously considered trying to draw my reflection in my wife’s eye.  I may follow up on that during the next few weeks.  Maybe I’m just using art and creativity as a way get a hot chick to sit with me for a while.

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EDM 18: Draw the view from a window.