Nina.

Nina is thoughtful, funny and fierce.

She's got eyes you could get lost in...

...and long, inky locks.

Upshots are hard; I don't think I completely succeeded with this one. But that's the nature of sketching - you have to embrace imperfection.

Nina and I have never met in person, but we've been following on Twitter since forever.

I was going to toonswag her, but was inpsired to go with sketches on my iPad, using Paper by 53. I used photographs as reference.

Nina blogs at Mommy Memoirs.

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Life drawing birds.

I flipped open my sketchbooks in the Paper app and found these drawings. It's bone-chilling freeze-your-face-off January outside so naturally my mind drifted easily back to summer when the sparrows were hanging out in the garden.

I liked to watch them in the trees and grapevines near the pergola.

Birds are always moving, so they're hard to capture. I suppose that's the point if you are a bird.

I wait until a sparrow hits a pose I like, and I let it imprint in my minds eye, holding it there for a few seconds while I lay down the drawing.

I guess I'm not so much drawing what I see, as drawing what I've just seen.

Sometimes I don't even look down at my drawing, even if the bird has flown away. I'm still staring at the picture in my head.

When I'm happy with the silhouette, I add the details. It's important not to spend too much time or it loses its spontaneous quality.

You'd be surprised at how few lines make a bird.

So I'm watching the sparrows.

But I think they're watching me too.

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Sketchy memories.

I was hunting for a lost poem today, looking through my old journals, diaries and sketchbooks. I found this one little book from 2002 with drawings of my kids, and little notes about them. It brought me back in a way that no photograph can.

The eldest daughter was nearly eight. She was always practicing her violin.

She was a tiny little person. Small but perfectly formed.

It's hard to believe she's now nineteen and going to University.

And this daughter was only five at the time.

Even then she was fastidious about her clothes; everything had to be fancy, velvet, sparkley or shiny. She's still got definite ideas about fashion now that she's sixteen.

Children move a lot, and ink on paper is unforgiving. See how I noted my error of proportions on her face?

This was my son, at two. He was a jolly little fellow!

I was going to clean up the pages a little in Photoshop, because you can see right through them to the writing on the other side. But I decided to just leave it...after all, it's only a sketchbook.

The Huz, in a quiet moment.

I loved to watch my children. I felt that if I could fill my eyes up with them, I'd never forget the joy they gave me.

So many memories.

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7 Stolen moments.

None of these people knew I was drawing them, as I was drawing them.

A man sitting across from me in the waiting room of the doctor's office.

A young woman passing the time on her laptop in the airport departure lounge.

Betsy's hat flirted with me during a BlogHer session.

A girl answers her celphone on the streets of Chicago, probably on her lunch hour.

Megan's hair is thick and rich and I can't do it justice.

All our flights were delayed coming home from Chicago. This guy stared at his Blackberry for two hours, the sun streaming in behind him as it dropped lower in the sky.

This child caught my eye. When you are two, holding still is impossible (unless you are asleep). I had to be quick.

Who do these moments belong to?

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Sketchy.

After checking out a few drawing apps on my mom's iPad, I went down and picked up my own one last night. I chose 3rd generation, white and silver, 64 gig with wifi. Still checking out different apps; this one is called Procreate.

Haven't yet found a drawing app that comes close to my blog's enhanced-stick-figure style, so I'll continue to use my desktop/Flash/Wacom setup for my work here.  But the iPad is an absolutely fab tool for drawing anywhere - as an artist, I hafta say it's setting me free. And yes, I did lick it when I took it out of the box. Didn't stop the 12 year old boy from trying to lick it too though.

For those who are wondering, the new iPad is slightly warm, but it's not hot or uncomfortable and I was drawing on it for hours. I have yet to explore it's other uses. Everyone keeps asking me to play Draw Something on it, but I hear it's super addictive, no?

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More SPIDEY Sketches.

Last we saw, Spidey was just hanging around hoping my son would draw him.

The 11 year old boy has been at it again, drawing a lot of different Spidermans and even some made-up ones. 

We got Green Lantern in the mix too, which he did specially for @TLanceB who commented last time. This kid knows all the pledges by heart! These superheroes are lining up to be drawn by him!

That's his own Spiderman with Web Wings on the far right. I love when he shows me his sketch book and he likes it when I show him mine. This is his favourite.

This kid will tell you all about every superhero, how they got their powers, whether they're Marvel or DC, which artists he prefers, and even who "draws girls the best", hee hee.

Do you have a budding comic book geek uh, connoisseur in your house?

Share this with a Spiderman fan.

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SPIDEY Sketches.

Me and the ten year old boy were drawing Spiderman. Well, he was drawing Spiderman, and I was drawing him drawing Spiderman.

And that's what we do on a Friday night. Now I'm gonna put this boy to bed, he's kinda sleepy.

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