Bratislava

Since it was snowing and very cold, I had a plate of Slovakian potato, cheese and bacon at Cafe Roland and painted the main square.

Also, a church outside Bratislava.

I drew this during a tour of ship's wheelhouse.

Sketches from the Danube

Happy New Year's Eve!  This week I flew to Budapest and have cruises from there to Bratislava, Vienna, Melk and now Linz.  Here is a record of my travels so far.

View of Buda from my stateroom - we had snow!

Magyar king from Heroes' Square

Next are various treasures from the Applied Arts museum, third oldest in the world.

Baby quilts

Here are two baby quilts I just finished - they are for my boss's son and the baby he and his wife are having next spring.  I used organic fabric and batting, and since I'm pretty sure he doesn't check this blog I thought I'd share them here.

Friday life drawing class

Tonight we had our last model session at the art center where I take classes. Here's what I got:

Seasonal scenes

In addition to needle-felting a snow bunting as a companion to my children's book today, I painted several holiday cards which will soon wend their way to friends and family members.

This is Sarah Beth Snow Bunting (copyright 2014 worldwide rights reserved :) )

Here are some holiday cards.

Snow buntings

This weekend I wrote a draft of a children's book starring a family of snow buntings.  I think they are my favorite birds at the Peabody.  Here are some sketches I made there today as I prepare to draw the illustrations.

Quilted Christmas Stocking

Today I made a quilted Christmas stocking for a relative.  The Missouri Star Quilt Company provided the tutorial last month and all the fabric came from my stash.  Now I just need to figure out what to put inside it for Christmas!

Drawings at the Apple Store

While waiting an hour for my Mac to update at the Apple Store, I drew the good people working and shopping there.

Peabody birds

Here are two additional postcards - the birds were at the Peabody and I invented new backgrounds.

Many postcards

I just realized I hadn't posted anything in a while.  I seem to be focusing on postcards lately- here are more birds as well as a guitarist I did from a photo taken in Guatemala. Happy Thanksgiving!

Postcard books

Recently I realized that my aunt had quite a collection of postcards I had sent her, so I gathered them up and bound them using Coptic stitch into little books.  Here are the results:

Here is a nuthatch postcard.

Portrait

Here is a Portrait of a Lady from my life drawing class tonight.

Markaska and friends

Today I finished a water sketch of Markaska I began in Croatia.

And here are two postcards I painted this week- one of a local sheep, the other the Riva in Split, Croatia.

National Theater, Croatia

Drawings from Zagreb

Working more in my Croatian sketchbook.
This is St Catherine's church.

Next I have a drawing of St Marks church.

In real life the roof is a colorful combination of red, white and blue.   The guards changed while our tour was nearby, so I sketched some of them.

Paintings of Croatia

Here are some of my sketchbook paintings from my trip
to Croatia.  These are primarily from Zagreb, I sketched them on the spot and added color later.

This is the first drawing on my book- it is a slide from the Contemporary Art Museum in Zagreb.

This is the funicular, which we took to the top of Gradec.

Then looking down.

A view in Kaptol.

One of the parks, featuring a Bolle fountain. 

Drawing from a model

Here is what I got tonight.

Drawings from Croatia

I've been in Croatia for the last week. So far I've mainly made line drawings but tonight I sketched the church of St Blaise over an under painting.

There were break dancers which I can always add in later!

Here are two more pages- a line drawing of a bust of the father of the Croatian language by Metrovich and a cat I saw in a window this morning with traditional Croatian decorations.

Arbaer and Reykjavik

Painted one more sketch and put ink on another.

Turf church at Arbaer

Arbaer scene

I finished the sketch of my favorite scene in my sketchbook- a panorama of Arbaer Living Museum.