Frosty

You can see the thick layer of frost on the grass behind the birdfeeder with the female Cardinal and the female House Finch on it. It took a long time for the weak winter sun to burn off the frost but it finally got up to 37 degrees and it melted away.

You can see that there's no frost on the grass in this Downy Woodpecker picture taken a few hours later.

This is my new drawing book that I got for Christmas from DD. It starts with lessons on drawing with graphite pencils so I had to take my "Happy Birthday, Jesus!" Michaels gift card and go shopping.

I spent all of the gift card and a little bit more but got this set of pencils in a nice tin, a couple sketchbooks, and a few Micron markers.

Lesson One was nothing more than measuring out a scale of boxes and then gradually shading them in using increasingly dark pencils. I'm hoping that the next lesson involves some actual drawing.

My fingers got cold while I was drawing so I treated myself to a mug of hot chocolate. I know it doesn't look very thick but it's made with water and has powdered milk in it. Besides it's Weight Watchers so I can have it when I want it.

Once I had the new drawing lesson completed I pulled out the Zentangle book and drew these. They're the Day 3 tangles and I feel like I did a much better job of them this time around. Maybe practice does make perfect, or at least an improvement.

Oh, another of the artsy gifts I got was this pad of watercolor pages. Each one is about bookmark size and has a perforated strip of watercolors on the side. I painted the first one yesterday and like the way it turned out. There's even a paintbrush in a slot carved into the backing cardboard. It's a fun gift.

DD texted me just after 7 that they were home safe. She said it felt like they stopped every 20 minutes but she persevered and made it. I advised her to take tomorrow off. She said she planned to.

--Barbara