end of year busyness

i just finished doing the grade reports for the end of the semester...for the first time. it was easier than i thought it would be!!! we decided this year to go with homelife academy to get ourselves ready for the fact that, starting next year, we would not be able to homeschool samuel since he will be high school aged. in tennessee, if you do not have a bachelor's degree, you cannot homeschool a high school aged child. the only way around this is to use an umbrella school like homelife academy. i'm glad to be done with the grading process!! as unschoolers we don't really do any actual grading. we have to rely on how well we know our children and what our children know. the grading gives me a chance to reflect on the kids in a different way than i'm used to. but it's not something i would want to have to do all the time. so that's what i did this morning.

other things i've been doing...contemplating my artist self...ooh big surprise. i was asked to do illustrations for a children's book. i find myself feeling inadequate for this task. but wanting to push myself to try anyway. i don't want to let my friend down...or myself. i've been working on some larger pieces than usual using my big watercolor paper that's been sitting over in the corner mocking me. i'm doing them with watercolor, pencil, and chalks. i'm also wanting to do more realistic figure work (as opposed to my usual figurative illustrations). i did some rough (really rough) nude sketches using photographs of myself that i have stashed away that were taken by my boyfriend in college for a photography class. they really helped a lot and i'm glad i still have them. i'd love to have a live model to draw from...and eventually do some clay figure modeling as well. anyway, here's an idea of what i've been doing:

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