September has quietly slipped away and I hate to say it, but December isn't that far away.
Earlier in the month, I travelled to the Philadelphia area where there is much to do and to see and all only two hours away at most. I relaxed on a deserted Jersey shore, visited various outdoor gardens such as Grounds for Sculpture in Hamilton, New Jersey, Chanticleer in Wayne, Pennsylvania, as well as the city of Philadelphia itself. I saw The Liberty Bell and walked around the historical area, and then spent an afternoon admiring the murals on South Street. It was a week that seemed to fly by and before I knew it, I was on my way home.
A few days after returning to Ottawa, I participated in a 5K race in the downtown core in support of our armed forces. On the same day, we took in the Battle of Britain ceremonies on Parliament Hill. Two days later, I was ready for a road trip to northern Ontario to visit Dad with my friend Lucie.
By the time this post is published, I will be sipping my morning coffee sitting on a dock at a friend's cottage.
As you can tell, it has been a month filled with activities and I have tried to sneak in some time for art whenever possible. In addition to all the comings and goings, I started an online course, Paint and Pixels, and I am learning to use my iPad to enhance my art in many new ways.
In the first few lessons I have learned to modify art that I don't really like or simply to start right from scratch and try out a new idea before committing it to an expensive canvas.
It is very addictive this art on the iPad. There is no mess, no prepping to worry about, and with one click of the undo button, a line, stroke or colour can easily be removed.
The first portrait below is an imaginary person completed with Procreate on my iPad mainly using charcoals. I cannot really say which particular charcoals I chose because I used that undo button to its fullest advantage and tried different charcoals and brushes.
Warning: do not adjust your glasses. The sketch is blurred. I think I used the smudging tool a bit liberally!

The second portrait was started in my sketchbook after seeing a Jeanne Oliver video on painting portraits using mainly gesso and charcoal or stabilo pencil which I only recently started using so I am learning how they might be applied on paper, and then also learning the ways they might work within this app. Excellent creative gymnastics.
I uploaded the image of my portrait into the Procreate app and started adding colours to the face experimenting with different brushes and tools available within the app.

I could spend hours with Procreate. There are so many ways it can be used and I am eager to learn more about using other apps in combination with Procreate. Lots of fun!