Benefit for Gracelyn

This is my niece, Gracelyn:

Photo credit is not mine.

Gracelyn is ten years old and she love to read.  She is a beautiful young woman with a contagious smile.  Gracelyn has cystic fibrosis.  When I first met her, she was six years old and like most children of that age she was excited to share her daily life with me.  She asked me to come sit with her as she used her vest.  I was amazed at how happy she seemed wearing the vest, using her nebulizer, and watching SpongeBob.  I couldn't even hear the show but she was excited to explain to me what was going on.  She has a really positive attitude.
The time has come and Gracelyn needs a lung transplant.  This means that she will need to be within two hours of the Texas Children's Hospital in Houston.  Her parents, her sister and brother, and she will be making the move down at the end of this month.  This is the time when they need our support.
This Sunday there will be a benefit lunch for Gracelyn at Marino's in Fridley, MN.  There you can enjoy good food, good company, and a craft fair and silent auction to help support her family.  I made a crib quilt for the occasion, so head over there and make a bid.

If you are not able to make it to Minnesota (I know it is a long haul for a lot of us) you can also add your support through GoFundMe or you can give at any Wells Fargo under the name Gracelyn VanGorden Fund.
If you want to read more about Gracelyn or watch the spot on local news that was recently aired about her situation, here are a few links.
Fox9
MNSun

Please keep Gracelyn and her family in your thoughts and prayers.

Drawing Challenge Part 6

This 30 day challenge was a really great way to stay inspired to draw every day.  Having a prompt made me go outside my comfort zone and draw things I hadn't drawn before.  This post represents the last 5 days of the challenge.  I hope you have enjoyed seeing the work I have produced during this challenge.

Day 26, something I don't like.  Wasps, enough said.

 Day 27, someone I love. John, that is all.

 Day 28, I felt like drawing a squirrel.

 Day 29, a place I want to go.  Glasgow City Chambers, representing the area of Scotland my Grandfather came from.

 And day 30, a banner congratulating myself for completing the thirty days,

and reminding me to keep drawing.
Now that I have shared all thirty days of drawing with you, my posts should return to normal crafty projects, but before I am done, which drawing was your favorite?

Drawing Challenge Part 5

The fifth week I definitely felt like I had a routine for my drawings.  After each day I would look at the next day's prompt and just keep it in mind as I went about my daily life.
Day 21 is something I want, a juicer.  And I chose a nice one to draw, the Hurom Slow Juicer Model HU-100S.

 Day 22 is something I miss, the island from the kitchen in our apartment in Newark.  Although living in Newark, NJ wasn't the best place overall, I do miss the counter space I had in the kitchen.

 I got all weird about day 23, something I need. Because I feel like anything I say I need reveals just how spoiled I am, never having lived outside the United States.  So I chose water.  Everyone needs water, right?

 Day 24 was a couple I saw at the laundromat.  I didn't draw them until I got home, so they have the same facial structure as any face I try to draw from memory.

 Day 25 is scenery, specifically Multnomah Falls in Oregon.  I went there once with my family and was struck by the magnitude of it.

I should post my next and last drawing installment Thursday. 

Drawing Challenge, Part 4

I had a really great time doing this week of drawings.  I got to choose subjects that were really interesting for me to draw and things I had been trying to figure out in my head how to draw a lot recently.  So with no further ado:

Day 16 was inspiration and since I had been looking at the huge (and I mean for the east coast in an apartment complex) trees in our neighborhood recently and trying to figure out how to draw or paint them, I went for the tree I can see out my window.

 Day 17 was my favorite plant, one of my tomato plants.  I got the composition off so it is mostly the pot, but you get the idea.

 Day 18 was just a doodle.  As you can see I kind of let it get out of control and it covered the whole page.  It was actually slightly too big for the scanner bed, so about a half inch is missing off the bottom.  I like the bottles in the bottom left and on the right above the cloud, so I think I may be drawing more bottles in the future.

 Day 19 was something new.  I took a long time figuring out what that meant, a new object, or something I haven't drawn before?  I went for something I have never drawn before.

Day 20 was something orange and my favorite orange thing is carrots.  I love carrots!

  I am having a great time with this.  I am currently in my last week of drawings so expect this all to wrap up in the next two posts.