Back To Work

I had written that I had a long Christmas vacation returning to work January 5th. Well, I really paid for my vacation. I work in a non-profit assisting individuals that are unemployed or underemployed find employment, update skills, or retrain (through a grant) for a new career. Due to the state of the economy overall and especially in our area we have been swamped with customers coming in and the phones ringing off of the hook. The result is that I was exhausted last week. Friday night I could hardly wait for bedtime. It was a long busy week. I have not done any artwork since I returned to work as I have simply been too tired. I did complete another OSWOA before returning to work and have completed an ATC for a trade but have not had time to post them. I believe this week will be just as busy at work but maybe I will be more used to it now and not be so tired! I have many ideas for artwork but must find the time and hopefully some will be posted here. Until next time!

New Year 2009

Hope everyone had a happy and safe Christmas holiday! My family's holiday was very quiet. My parents and in-laws are deceased and brothers and sisters are busy with their own families, etc. so Christmas Day was very quiet for us. We had our family gathering a couple of days after Christmas on Saturday.

It is now New Year's eve and tomorrow will be the first day of 2009! I really don't make new year's resolutions because I rarely keep them more than a few weeks. So I will just hope that 2009 will be a better year for my family than 2008. We have all had some health issues, job issues, and various other problems. I am going to begin the year with the positive mind set that 2009 (The year of the Ox) will be a better year for us in general. I know that there are many families that have had it worse with the state of the economy and the high unemployment rate. Our state of North Carolina has had the highest job loss in the country and predictions are that more jobs will be lost in our area. My husband lost his job last February and fortunately he was able to go ahead and retire. If I lose my job I would not be able to retire and I know it would be a difficult job search and probably impossible to replace the salary I presently earn. I am truly thankful for each and every day I have a job to go to.

I took a nice long Christmas vacation and do not have to return to work until January 5th. I had some projects I wanted to complete and have been successful so far. I cleaned my son's closet out and reorganized his room, going through all of his clothes and boxing for Goodwill the ones that he had outgrown. Believe it or not that took a full day. I then cleaned my closet out and reorganized it and boxed up clothes that I no longer wear and delivered both boxes to the Goodwill store last night. I have a couple of other projects I would like to complete and of course the Christmas decorations will need to be taken down and stored.

I have also continued working on my artwork and have completed another OSWOA and started on a new one. The one I completed is below:

Barnyard Friend

By: Lori Talbert

12/27/08

It is colored pencil on smooth bristol board. The new one I am working on is a still life. Until next time!

Merry Chistmas!

Just wanted to wish everyone a very happy and safe Christmas! Christmas seems so hectic anymore, that we sometimes lose the meaning of the season. Please spend time with family and friends and enjoy the holidays!

This is an old drawing that I did for a Christmas challenge a couple of years ago and I wanted to post it here as a Christmas card for everyone:

Still working on the OSWOAs. Hope to complete several during the holidays. This is the latest:

Parrot

By: Lori Talbert

12/20/08

It is colored pencil on bristol board. I also have an ATC to work on for a trade.

Once again, Have a great Holiday Season!

Ready To Work

I finished the piece I was working on. It is a different type of work for me. I usually do animals and this is more of a landscape. It was definitely a learning process for me as I had some problems to work out but overall I am pleased with it. 8x10 Graphite on smooth Bristol Board.

"Ready To Work"

By: Lori Talbert

12/16/08

First Sale!

I have been creating artwork for many years but have never actually sold a piece. I have given many works away, created artwork by request, and have had people ask me what amount I would sell a work for, but something just stopped me from charging for my work. I would think of all of the hours of work I had in that piece and even if I charged minimum wage I believed they would be shocked at the price I would have to name so I just told them it was not for sale. Usually, I actually did not want to sell these pieces as I had put so much time and effort in them. However, it has always been a secret dream of mine to actually SELL something!

I discovered the OSWOA website a few months ago, read the rules, decided to create a few and put them up for auction on Ebay. The ones I have created thus far have been shown on this blog. The website recommended a minimum price of $9.95 per OSWOA so I decided to start there, put four of the pieces on Ebay and last night I sold one! Not a fortune but someone actually wanted to purchase one of my works! I am so thrilled! Hopefully I will be able to sell more as time goes on.

I am also currently working on a piece now that will take awhile to complete. It will be 8x10 graphite on smooth bristol board. It is of a stone barn with an antique wooden wheelbarrow that has a metal wheel standing in the doorway. There is a pitchfork with one of those incredibly long handles that books used to call "widow-makers" because the user would have to "heave his guts out" to use it. The photo came from Morgue-file. I will post it when complete if it works out as I want it to. I also want to work on some more OSWOAs.

Until next time!

And Again!

I guess I have gotten on a bird kick as I have completed another OSWOA of a bird. This one is a cardinal. I keep working on something until I have it the way I want it and I am working on the colored pencils and bristol board. I experimented with illustration board but liked it even less. Anyway this is my latest:

Fence-Sitting Cardinal

By: Lori Talbert

12/02/08

More OWSOAs!

I hope everyone had a wonderful and safe Thanksgiving Holiday! I enjoyed mine even though there was the usual family drama that I won't bore you with here. It seems there cannot be one family holiday that there is not some type of drama occuring. However, I did find time to complete a couple more OSWOAs over the Thanksgiving Holidays. This is the first one:

Yellow Bird

By: Lori Talbert

11/26/08

I also was not satisfied with the Bluebird drawing I had previously completed. The bird faded into the background unless you were looking at it under very strong light. So I took another try at it and came up with this version:

Bluebird 2

By: Lori Talbert

11/29/08

I am more satisfied with this version. I made the bird a little rounder so it looks less predatory, darkened the colors of the bird and lightened the colors of the background. What do you think?