Manga Kids Portrait

I am exhausted, but in a good way. I decided it is finally going to be Spring, since the snow is ALMOST gone from the ground, and there is sign of daffodils and tulips breaking the surface and starting to sprout. So today I took advantage of beautiful clear weather, to wash down the driveway.

It might sound funny, but this is one of my favourite jobs. There is something therapeutic about shooting out all the grime and dirt which has accumulated on the concrete, and in the cracks between. Our builder gave us a high-pressure hose connection (i.e. it takes advantage of the pressure from the City supply, prior to the pressure being reduced for our home's drinking/water system). So while it is not a real pressure washer, it does a pretty good job of blasting the driveway.

I ended up doing the driveway, a section of the road, both sidewalks, and the back stairwell. While I was doing that, the kids helped clean up fallen leaves and pull the old grass out of our blue oat grasses. Then I did some trimming of plants, bushes, pulled weeds, and cleaned up the beds at the front of our yard. With the grasses and cuttings, we ended up with two full clear garden bags. The kids lasted for about an hour and a half, but I was out there for almost 4 hours, working non-stop. Then I fought with the hose, which is very stiff, to put is away. By the end of it, I was pretty exhausted.

However, I still had energy for my manga (anime) portrait of the kids. I had finished the black & white of it while at soccer practice this morning (I "watched" from the car). I think I had put in about 4 hours total on the B&W drawing, so pretty quick progress. Here is the result (click image for a larger view):

I wanted to try colouring it also, but wasn't sure if I would destroy the drawing, or have trouble colouring some of the areas which I had drawn & erased (sometimes it leaves a trace), so I scanned a copy of the black & white, then used this scan to colour on. I think it turned out pretty good, too (although the scan doesn't render the colours and details very well - it looks a bit better in real life):

My husband says he doesn't really recognize the kids, but I think it is a pretty reasonable likeness of them. It has their favourite bunnies (stuffed toys) and my daughter's hamster also. My daughter has boots like that. So to me, it represents them fairly well. If I have my way, I'll plan to frame it and hang it someplace where I can look at it often.