A Blog Called "Sketch Life"

I love it when I come across a wonderful blog that I hadn't seen before, like I did today. Technically this blogger came across mine first. Lisa Mertins e-mailed me this afternoon to ask if I minded if she'd linked to my blog in her post entitled The Enchanting Gold Bug in her blog on the Orange County Register called Sketch Life. I visited the link she provided and was pleased and surprised to see that she had referred to my post about the Golden Tortoise Beetle.


While that certainly made my day, I was even more thrilled to discover her wonderful, charming, and sometimes quirky watercolor sketches. Her narrations are pretty good, too. In fact, I can't really tell if the illustrations came first, or the words that go along with them; they're both fun.

Watercolor is my first love when it comes to art. I actually did a watercolor of my own, once upon a time during an art class I took at Wassenberg Art Center in Van Wert. Well, it wasn't all my own, because I copied a watercolor print that was on the front of a Christmas card we'd received. Let me tell you, as someone who doesn't have an abundance of natural artistic talent, this was HARD! And that's why I only did one and may never do another as long as I live. I'll just admire the talents of other artists that do them, like Lisa.

Lisa is a journalist and illustrator for the Orange County Register in California and I've placed a link to her column in my list of Other Blogs I Read located on the left side of this page. I'll be enjoying her charming and amazing artwork on a regular basis. I mean, besides her artistic talent, she loves shoes too, and that alone makes us instant friends.

Lisa has also written and illustrated a children's book, Ginkgo and Moon.