Elk Carcass Blues Jam © Chris Ferlita Colored Pencil and Ink Stillman & Birn Alpha Sketchbook 5.5 x 8.5 inches

(If you missed the first post, you might want to read it here before continuing.)

"I don't remember saying that," says my husband after he seeing the last Alaska post. "It sounds like something I could have said though."

"Seriously? Guess I must have just made that up," was my slightly sarcastic response.

"I remember you asking what I think of when I think of Alaska. You were trying to come up with something for the cover," he says, as if clarifying.

"I asked you what your strongest impressions from trip were."

"That was twenty years ago, I don't really remember the details of the trip," he responds.

"Yeah. Got that. That would explain why you thought you saw a bear eating an elk carcass. Because I'm pretty sure we didn't even see any elk in Alaska. We had to go to Tennessee for that," came my reply.

Again, he disappeared.

A little while later, I see him in his studio, bent over his table, smiling...

He's up to something.

I step closer to see what he's working on.

It's a bear jamboree.

Sort of.

He looks at me and says, "I know it's not real."

"Oh? And what was your first clue?" I inquire.

"Bears don't wear sunglasses."

When you find a new tool this good—you just have to tell everybody!!

Disclaimer: I nor Imaginary Trips are associate or affiliated with Duke Pens. Purchase and use at your own risk.

Chris and I had dinner with my parents a week ago and my mother gave me these two drawings she had found in the very back of a closet in my old bedroom! I was stunned to see them....because I didn't recognize either of them.
Unfortunately, I have little recollection of either and since I didn't date either one, I have no idea how old I was when I created them. I know there mine though, at least the top one, because it has my initials on it. Talk about a blast from the past.

And humbled to see where I was and how far I've traveled.

It surprises me as well that I have little memory of doing these...not the thoughts behind them, why I chose to create a mouse or a cowboy, why I chose to use graphite and colored pencil, nothing.

I expected some flood of memories to come back, but there was none. I suspect the top one is from my years in art school—a long time ago. The bottom one is on notebook paper. High school or early days at college? Dunno. It definitely appears to be done by a younger me.

What I do recognize is a beginning. Tentative maybe, grasping certainly, but a beginning.

Your wish is my command—usually. Some of you asked to see Chris' work from our one-day staycation.....above and below are Chris' sketches from our outing to Davis Islands. (You can see the first post here.)

Chris worked larger than I did, his pages are 5"x 7" and he worked in colored pencil. Using colored pencils, especially for location work, is a real challenge as you generally have to build up many layers. Chris is an extremely quick sketcher yet the pencils slowed him down considerably. A few things both of us agreed on is that our values were off on the fountain guy and we wished we had simplified the background.
 I had finished my fountain face and was nearly finished with the bench when Chris turned to start sketching the bench. Having no way to really capture the whites of the Bridal Wreath shrub, he decided to capture some of the local wildlife going about their daily business.
Believe it or not, this door is part of the same house that I sketched. We both agreed that it seemed out of place for the house. It's looked like they were trying to marry different architectural styles and they just didn't mesh well. There were no bats....that's Chris' special touch he adds to his work. I was really surprised that the top sketch was not given the special touch as well. As Chris said, "I can only take this stuff seriously for so long."