Land of Just Pretend

Just a sketch while playing around with a pen.

Pen sketches

Pen sketching while listening to Radio Theatre: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe during rest hour Pen is both a joy to work with, and frustrating, as one can't erase. Since my 2nd/3rd grade teacher insisted everything be done in pen (including math), a lot of my doodles have been in pen - though I would never had dared to doodle on work for her - perhaps not even scratch work.

Aslan's song

This is inspired somewhat by listening to Focus on the Family's Radio Theatre: Magician's Nephew, and in part by the wonderful week-end I spent with a friend from school.

A quick study

This is just a quick study, done in colored pencil of a ballet dancer in motion from one of the books I am reading to prepare for teaching about Russia.

Paper doll sketches for Russian studies

Since I'm teaching a few different age levels, I thought I'd make some Russian paper dolls at least for the youngest. That way, she'll have something Russian related to keep her occupied with when she gets bored. I may end up making one per child though.

Cartography - aii.

A map slightly larger than A4 drawn for a home-school study on Russia.

I've struggled with cartography off and on ever since I was six and trying to draw a map of Burkina Faso for U in an alphabet book. My mother solved the problem by telling me to draw the basic shape.

Drawing maps of imaginary countries was fun - I could doing anything I liked with landmass. It was copying the real maps that proved a problem. I did get better, but it is still frustrating to finish a map, and discover that some angles were off and that the sides didn't quite meet (as in this one).

On the other hand, there are small perks, such as discovering that the north east corner of Russia looks like a little dog:

A little mouse

This was a break from nests and houses.