Anni Z, Author at Realmscapes

CanPlan Review

Today I had my first post-operative appointment, which was supposed to be for suture removal and port placement. It ended up being just the suture removal. I’m not sure why, but the office wasn’t prepared to put me under anesthesia to place the port. So I have to wait for them to call and reschedule […]

Thinking

While laid up in the hospital trauma center, there’s really not much a person can do. There’s TV, of course, or if you have a book you can read. Or if you have a tablet you can scan the internet; my hospital didn’t have great internet speed, so I doubt if I could’ve watched Netflix, […]

At Home (Cancer, Part 4)

I am finally home. The first night was tough. After my husband set up the shower chair, my first priority was to bathe and wash my hair. Even though I took sponge baths in the hospital, I could barely stand my stink. It would be wonderful if hospital toilets had bidets, but they don’t, and […]

Cancer, Part 3

Today’s post is about food. If you’ve ever gone a week without eating anything, maybe you can relate. Or if you’ve been in a hospital far longer than you wanted to be, you’ll be able to relate. I promise it’s the worst of the hospital stay. Things got better once I was able to go […]

Cancer, Part 2

On Friday I had a visit from a very nice doctor, a graduate student in the oncology center. He explained the technical aspects of my two types of tumors. THe first procedure was a segmental resection of the proximal jejunum and removal of a 4.5 cm lipoma. This was the intussception, the cause of most […]

Dealing with cancer, part 1

Hello friends! I’m sorry, I don’t have any artwork to share with you today. I haven’t had much opportunity to draw in the last couple of weeks. My life has turned completely upside down, and I need to process what is going on, so I thought I’d share this journey that I recently started. Let […]

Sketches from Cumberland Mountain State Park

Sketches from a camping trip.

February through May Compilation

2026 Post Script: I wrote several blog posts in 2021 that were lost when I transitioned the blog from annettezimmerman.com to realmscapes.world. I’ve been able to find the images that were in the posts, but not the actual posts themselves. For my own archive, I’m posting the images here with what I can remember about […]

Lost and Found: An Art Adventure

Step 1: Materials Selection (#materials)Step 2: Discovering Inspiration and Choosing a Guide (#guide)Stop 3: Preparing for the Journey (#prepare)Step 4: The Sketch (#sketch)Step 5: The Background and Major Landscape Features (#background)Step 6: Adding Details (#details)Step 7: Learning From Your Practice (#learn) Are you ready for a 6 Supplies Challenge? Today’s post is the first of […]

How to Make a Randomized Materials List

Hi there! Today I’m going to show you how I make my materials selections for the art adventures. If you want to try an adventure of your own, you might want to make your own selection generator. It’s nothing more than a series of three lists and a way to randomly choose items on them. […]

Make It Moody

Do you like limited supply challenges? Me too! They help me practice while making me stretch as an artist. This week I’m excited to announce the first of a new series of posts called Art Adventures. Each week I’ll post a new adventure called a Mission. Each Mission’s goal will be to apply a specified […]

Art Adventures!

Cardinal Bookmark

A handmade cardinal bookmark from November 2020, inspired by winter walks in Tennessee and the bright flash of cardinals against the bare cold-weather landscape.

How to combine watercolor and colored pencil

Hello there! Happy November to you. Today I have a quick post about a portrait study that I just finished. A couple of weeks ago I discovered a wonderful artist on YouTube – Kendyll Hillegas. She’s an illustrator who specializes in food. I checked out her Patreon channel, too, and once I added her to […]

SoCS: Collar

Hello again! Summer is almost over. The yellow coneflowers are gone, the cornflowers are almost done. Goldenrod and morning glories are in their height, climbing the banks along the fields, and the corn is ripe. About a third of the houses I see have autumn decorations on the porch already. They remind me of my […]

#SoCS: A New Friend

I just discovered a WordPress blog by Linda G Hill with a post called “Stream of Consciousness Saturday”. I think she might have started this in March of 2014, it was the oldest post I could find although I confess I didn’t read all of the posts she’s written since then. In her own words, […]

How many ways can you knit a sock?

Does it ever seem odd that the month at the end of summer is often thought of as a time for new beginnings? September is here, and, for me, it’s always been back-to-school time, even though it’s been a long time since I’ve sat in a classroom. The time to begin a new grade year. […]

How to Make an Artist Trading Card

Last week I posted a brief essay on the history of the artist trading card. You can re-read that here if you like. Briefly, Artist Trading Cards (ATC) started back in the 1990s when an artist from Zurich decided to catalogue his art on trading cards that could be swapped with other artists. It’s become […]

What Are Artist Trading Cards?

If you’ve seen my Instagram lately, you know that I’ve been focused on making “little” art: 2 1/2 by 3 1/2 inch cards created with watercolor, ink or colored pencil. These are Artist Trading Cards (ATC), a fun hobby I stumbled across in 2018 and have recently returned to. Today I thought it would be […]

My Frustrating Attempts to Learn Watercolor

How was your week? I hope it was a good one. This week I’ve been learning how to improve my watercolor painting. It isn’t going very well. Do you ever feel like sometimes there is nothing that goes right in your artwork? That’s how this whole experience is going. When I draw, it’s easy to […]

Did You Know It’s World Watercolor Month?

Hello there! Are you enjoying your summer? We’re in our mid-summer weather pattern now, full blast, with beautiful sunrises and sunsets and thick humid heat in between. But our morning walks have been lovely – there’s just enough of a gentle breeze in spots near the creek that make me wish I could stay out […]

A Prayer for Cleaning the Bathroom

This is just a little something that came into my head while I was doing my weekly cleaning. I thought I’d share it along with a couple of recent practice watercolor pictures. It seemed appropriate to add a picture with some kind of water subject, hence the koi. But the coneflower seemed like something you’d […]

Baby Portrait

A graphite and charcoal portrait based on a baby picture from around age two, completed in May 2020 and tied to a family memory about the plaid dress in the photograph.

Hello everyone! Today I want to share a few things with you. The weather is just gorgeous here in Tennessee, too beautiful to pass up an outdoor sketching trip, so I thought I’d share some pics from that. I’ve been working on improving my watercolor skills and have a whole list of free online courses […]

Dealing With Fear in a Pandemic

How having a baby compares to the changes we’ve been going through in the COVID pandemic. Performed at Storytown Radio Show on April 27, 2020.

Camp Nanowrimo and the 100 Day Project

Today I’m going to steer away from the serious art thinking that I’ve been discussing in the last few posts and switch to some fun things. We all can use some fun in our lives, right? April is almost here, which means Camp NaNoWriMo will be starting soon, as well as the 100 Day Project, […]

How Storytelling Can Help Your Art

To me, storytelling and art go hand in hand, but I didn’t always think this way. In fact, I never heard of storytelling prior to three years ago when I moved here. It was in 2017. We’d been searching for a new home that would suit us for life in retirement and found a beautiful […]

A floral practice piece using watercolor with colored pencil layered on top, focused on bright color and petal detail.

How to Find Your Lost “Why” in Art

Are you struggling with your art? It’s fun to draw and paint, no doubt about it. It’s nice when your artwork can also earn a few dollars. But what do you do when your creative work is no longer satisfying? Worse yet, what can you do when your creative time becomes a source of frustration? […]

How the Bauhaus Influenced Modern Perceptions of Art

Hello!In last week’s post I mentioned that my little art studio has been displaced during our basement finishing project, so I’m stuck in the living room unable to really do anything more than some light drawing and studying. We’re still “enduring” our project; the three weeks completion time now looks more like seven, and I’m […]

Derwent Graphitint Experiment (My Search for the Perfect Colored Pencils)

Hello again! February is here already and the days are flying by faster than I can count. I have a hard time believing January is gone, but then I spent most of it traveling, and that always seems to pass quickly. I managed to get a good bit of writing done while I was gone, […]

Sculpting a Website: Reviewing 2019, Changes and Setting 2020 Goals

Developing your personal website is like sculpting something out of clay. Eventually, you get enough experience to form a shape, then you pinch it here and there to find a nice form. Finally, you can shave some little pieces off to see the details.

What to Do After NaNoWriMo

After finishing NaNoWriMo with more than 51,000 words, I found myself wondering what comes next: rest, reflection, prompts, and the strange emptiness after a creative sprint.

Jack Sprat’s Dilemma

Jack Sprat and his wife face the age-old dilemma of sharing a roast so small it’s practically theoretical. With riddles, clever bickering, and an unexpected guest, their Saturday supper proves that in the grand scheme of things, fairness is as elusive as the perfect cut of beef.

Owl ATC Studies in Graphite and Charcoal

A small series of owl artist trading cards made with graphite and pressed charcoal, exploring texture, contrast, and character in a tiny format.

Colored Pencil Studies

Medium: Colored Pencil The fruits of practice.

Shhhh…She’s Sleeping!

A soft pastel piece completed for a local art show in July 2019, inspired by the idea that people might care more deeply about wildlife habitats if animals were seen with a little more empathy and kinship.

Aw, Mom!

A pastel wildlife piece completed in June 2019, inspired by the familiar feeling of a mother tidying up her child before sending him out into the world.

Lists. And the Flu.

I have a “To Do” list. It’s helpful when I have so many things to do that I can’t keep track of them all. This same feature is also the worst aspect of my To Do list, generally because the list makes it quite obvious that fulfilling my ambitions would require more time than is […]

A Cruise to Panama, Part I

There are about three times during the year when I really crave the ocean, especially if I haven’t been anywhere near a coast for a few months. It’s kind of like being a salmon, only backwards, because instead of wanting to return to a river I feel this crazy need to hear the surf, smell […]

Snow Leopard

Medium: Charcoal and White Charcoal Size: 9.5 x 11 inches I used the toned paper as a middle value, then worked darker with charcoal and lighter with white charcoal to build the form and texture. The spots, whiskers, and fur gave me a chance to explore how much detail to include and how much to […]

Clean Knitting

January is a time for new beginnings and an accepted month for starting anew. Since the weather is not amenable for outside activity, it’s a good time for indoor activities like knitting. Or cleaning up the house, or the blog. To combine the two, I knitted a pile of new dishcloths from leftover yarn in […]

If I Were President

It’s Thursday, which means it’s time to write right…so to speak. Think Write Thursday. This week’s topic from Carole Knits is to write about 3 things I would do if I were President of the United States. Go read her blog. She makes good points. I support Carole for President! All joking aside, being President […]

A Visit to Knoxville

I visited the Knoxville Museum of Art for the first time last weekend. My husband and I had tickets for an evening performance of the Knoxville Symphony and decided to extend the trip so that we could see some of the city sights. The art museum was one of the places that I’ve had on […]

Bristol Caverns

It was time for a day trip! My son, husband and I piled into our Titan and drove to Bristol. After paying $15 each for a ticket, we waited in the gift shop until the tour began. The shop had the typical trinkets: bags of rocks (polished and unpolished), figurines cut from quartz, kids books, […]

Review of the Derwent Superpoint Sharpener

Happy Holidays! I hope you are having a lovely holiday season. Mine has been absolutely wonderful. My family is happy and healthy, and lately I am full of gratitude for this time with them. My son presented me with a couple of great gifts yesterday, and I am so impressed with their quality that I […]

Choosing a New Studio Name

What’s in a name? A lot, actually. Or not enough. Or maybe, if you’re lucky, nothing much. That’s when you know you’ve got a good imagination. I can hear you asking: Anni, what the heck are you talking about? I’m talking about pen names. Store names. Art studio names. Blog names. If you’ve ever had […]

Blueberries on a Spoon: Colored Pencil Texture Study

A colored pencil study focused on texture: a leather-like background, a worn golden spoon, and the bloom and shine of blueberries.

Graphite Sneaker Study

A graphite drawing of a worn high-top sneaker, completed as a study in texture, shadow, and form.

Texture Studies

This month I’m focusing on developing my graphite technique. I began with a drawing of a rose but am not happy with the blending result. To gain additional practice with blending, I decided not to use any tissue or tortillon aids and create the drawing using only pencils and erasers. I used the same technique […]

Rose Texture Study

A graphite rose study from September 2018, focused on capturing the textures, folds, and tonal shifts of layered petals.

This Week on the Drawing Board

It’s Friday! At one time in my life, Friday was the highlight of the week. I loved Friday because I knew that the night would be spent either at the local bar, a friend’s place, or maybe with a movie, because I didn’t have to get up early the next day! Now that I’m retired…well, […]

A Portrait Prep Challenge

In art, as with most hobbies or sports, or really just about anything, I believe it’s important to have challenges. I’m not referring to competition; I’m referring to the kind of challenge that tests the perception we have about our personal ability to do something. The kind of challenge that makes us prove to ourselves […]

Being Content

Isn’t it neat when you experience an “a-ha!” moment? Maybe it’s because we don’t have them very often. I can’t figure out what makes them unique…is it because (as Robert Wight puts it) we have fulfilled something we’re curious about, and by ending this state of ignorance we experience a subtle moment of bliss? What […]

Floppy Shoes

I’ve been a sometime-runner most of my life. It started in high school, when I discovered that running, unlike softball or basketball, was a sport I really could do. I’ve never had the skill for team sports, so when my friend suggested I run at the track with her, I almost didn’t do it. In […]

Pencil Portrait of My Sons

A graphite portrait of my two sons, drawn in 2018 from a photograph I loved and wanted to preserve in pencil.

Eddies

“What the world needs now…” Sometimes I wonder if what the world needs now is spiritual unification. Not another reformation, not an attempt to purify an ideology “gone bad”. And something more than bringing in a prophet who promises something new and amazing. The type of unification I think about would do a deep dive […]

Book Review: Stonehenge

A couple of days ago I finished reading Stonehenge: A New Understanding by Mike Parker Pearson. It was a pretty amazing book, not quite what I expected, although far too long for a non-archaeologist like me to fully appreciate. I don’t know what made me chose it. It has a nice cover illustration depicting today’s […]

Make Art that Matters

There are artists, and then there are the people who can draw, color, or paint. Which category do you want to be in? The purpose of art is to communicate a message. It can be obvious or subtle, but without a message, without the emotion that creates the message, there is no impetus to shape […]

Learning to Illustrate a Story

Last week I wrote a short story about a koi and an otter. I think it would be fun to illustrate it and put it on the blog. I already have a few ideas in my head about what I want the pictures to look like. But how do I get those ideas out of […]

Friday Fundamentals

Fundamentals: a central or primary principle on which something is based My intent for this blog isn’t to include a bunch of tutorials. I think there are many well-qualified experts who have already produced enough tutorials, and I’ll list some of them when applicable. However, I do think it’s important to have some guidance when […]

Why Art Matters

This week was full of breakthroughs and visions. I’ll have to take you through them the long way, though. If I just set it out plainly it probably won’t make much sense and might even sound a bit ludicrous. So here we go. CommunityI signed up for a workshop called “Sketchbook Revival”. It’s hosted by […]

A Cruise to Panama, Part 6

Sooner or later, a cruise comes to an end. It kind of makes me sad. No more buffet. No more nightly martini tasting. No more waking up to the sounds and smell of the ocean. There’s only been one time when I was looking forward to going home. But it wasn’t this cruise. We’d been […]

A Cruise to Panama, Part 5

Bucket lists. If you’re over a certain age, you probably have one. AARP has statistics that half of all US citizens over the age of 37 have a bucket list, and most of the items on the list are travel-related. I’ll bet the Panama Canal was on the majority of those. It was on mine! […]

A Cruise to Panama, Part 4

Did you know… The Beach Boys “Kokomo” was written as a theme song for the 1988 Tom Cruise movie Cocktail? There’s a scene where Tom moves from New York to a bartender position in Jamaica. Terry Melcher was in the studio. Mike Love was on the phone. They had a few bars of music, and […]

A Cruise to Panama, Part 3

It’s better in the Bahamas! Or so they say. There are over 700 islands in this nation archipelago, so “better” is absolutely a matter of relativity. However, there are some features that apply to the area in general; the water is clear and an average of 80 degF all year long, the beaches are awesome, […]

A Cruise to Panama, Part 2

Last month Hubby and I decided to book a last minute cruise to the Panama Canal. Neither of us have ever been there, and it was on my bucket list. It seemed like a good thing to do at the time. And it was! We had a great time, enjoyed the trip and highly recommend […]

The 100 Day Project

The 100 Day Project https://www.the100dayproject.org/ This is the fifth year for a social collaboration called The 100 Day Project. It’s goal is to get you into the habit of making something for 100 days in a row. What can you do in 100 days? Just about anything you want. Every day after you create your […]

Artsy Hobbies

I want to share my latest hobby. Artist Trading Cards! I don’t remember how I discovered this wicked addiction, but last month I signed up at ATCs For All (www.atcforall.com) and began participating in swaps this month. The concept is that you create a card and exchange it with another artist for their card. The […]

New Goals and Objectives

Hello again! My last post explained some of my thoughts about the new objective of this blog. This post is about planning the road map. I’m not going to go into a lengthy discussion about why planning is necessary. I’m not going to cover the topic of planning at all, really. Instead, I’m going to […]

Planning the New Blog

Hello! Confession: I am not the kind of person who feels compelled to blog regularly. I like using the web site as a journal, and I’m eager to explore different ways to use the medium creatively, but I have no motivation to update it regularly. I’ve used the past couple of months to explore various […]

Lotus Socks WIP

Salutations!It’s wonderfully warm here today even though it is overcast and a little drizzly. The cowbirds are congregating on the fields in large black flocks and moving like a giant wiper from one end to the other to nab tasty insects. This morning I enjoyed a short dove concert as I meditated. It seems that […]

Personal Thoughts on Small Appliances

January is finally over. I think I can honestly say that January is my least favorite month. I don’t care for short, cold days, feeling trapped in the house because of the weather. When I lived in California, January rained. And rained. And then it rained some more. Here in Tennessee we got some snow, […]

Unraveled Wednesday January 3

The Roan Highlands sweater is progressing nicely. I finished the main body and one sleeve, and nearly finished the second sleeve. Thanks to this very cold weather, any time spent outdoors is limited to 40 minutes or less of walking, and without an oven (yes, it’s still inoperative) I can’t bake anything. So I’ve loads […]

2017 Year End Review

Things I Learned in 2017 ‘Tis the season for year end reviews, resolutions for the new year, and the top 10 lists for favorite whatevers. I think it’s necessary to have a time of the year dedicated to reviewing the recent past. How better is it to learn than from experience? So, for today’s post, […]

On the Eighth Day o Yuletide

On the Eighth Day o Yuletide… My true luve geid tae meEight skaters skooshin! So goes the Scot version. And it’s is cold enough here that we have an ice patch on our back porch. It isn’t big enough to skate on, but brrrr….the weather forecast is for a high of 36 deg F today. […]

20 December Unraveled Wednesday

‘Twas the Wednesday before Christmas and all through the houseThe humans were stirring… CHRISTMAS COOKIE DOUGH! At least I hope it will be that way this time tomorrow. Since I am actually writing this blog a day in advance, I don’t know if the oven repair man will be here today or not. If he […]

Changes

Change. Life as we know it can’t exist without it. I suppose that’s why humans feel this innate need to control everything. To influence how things change. I’ve been thinking about this lately. ‘Tis the season when changes are hidden from us outside, but we all know that spring will be here soon enough and […]

To Be Human

A poem.

22 November Unraveled Wednesday

It’s the day before Thanksgiving but I’m already thinking of all the things I’m grateful for this year! Here are a few of them, in no particular order: I’m so thankful that life is so good! Knitting Progress This week’s knitting has been productive. I’ve put the Roan Highlands sweater on hold while I work […]

Childhood Ambitions

So here it is, the 20th of November already. Isn’t it funny how time seems to pass more quickly the older one gets? I missed blogging last week. That is, I didn’t write anything, mostly because I wanted to write something profound and impactive regarding current events and the unfortunate plight of our national state […]

Unraveled Wednesday for 8 Nov

This week’s update includes meager progress in the Knitting Department and some background into my fondness for cozy mysteries, as well as a book recommendation for writers.

Old Stone Mountain Highland Games

Guid gear comes in sma’ bulk… proved true this last weekend at the Stone Mountain Highland Games! It really wasn’t that small, but there was so much to do and we had such a great time that I can’t wait for the next one. It was the 45th gathering of the Clans at this beautiful […]

Unraveled Wednesday: My First Shawl

This week on Unraveled Wednesday

Roan Mountain Hike

How was your weekend? We took a long drive with a short hike on Thursday to Roan Mountain. I heard a lot of good things about it and thought we’d pack a lunch and check it out. The mountain straddles the border between Tennessee and North Carolina. We wanted to take a look at the […]

Unraveled Wednesday Sweater Sampler

This week I’ve been making progress on the Sweater Sampler. But I haven’t been spending a lot of time knitting. We’ve run out of shows to watch on Netflix and CBS All Access, so I’ve picked up books to read or have been playing video games instead. I’m also feeling a little homesick for California. […]

Epic Knitting

This week’s Unraveled Wednesday includes the Heroes of Yarnia Scarf, the Sweater Sampler, and the discovery of an unexpected treasure trove. Can knitting get more fun than this?

Pete’s Branch Falls Hike

Pete’s Branch Falls trail in the Cherokee National Forest is an easy two hour hike along Horse Creek. It is prettier after a rainfall, but if you’re in the area it’s a nice way to get away for a couple of hours.

Making Corn Shocks

Have you ever made a corn shock?
It sounds like electricity would be involved, but no batteries or jumper cables are needed. A corn shock is a way to stack and store corn stalks, but I didn’t know that until this past weekend. Making them is hard work!

Autumn Knitting

My eldest son arrived last night from California! My kitties are finished! And today is the day for blogging about knitting! Yay! Autumn Kitties Ta da! Here they are, posing for a picture by the mums on the front porch. I’m calling them Pumkin and Spyce. Guess you can figure out which is which! Spyce […]

Easy Peasy September Apple Butter

September is one of my favorite months of the year. I love when fall decorations appear on porches and Main Street is decked out in corn stalks and pumpkins. It’s the month that’s still warm enough for wearing shorts but cool enough for the apples to be harvested. Yay! It’s time for yummy apple treats! […]

Hiking the Margarette Falls Trail

This week I hiked the Margarette Falls Trail with a group of spry seniors from the local Senior Center. It’s a moderate hiking trail located in the Cherokee National Forest near Greeneville. It was named for Margaret Doak, who is credited for enjoying the waterfalls at the top of the trail in the early 1920s. […]

Back to Blogging!

So here I am again, after a long summer hiatus and lots of changes. In April we left California on our cross-country journey to find our retirement home. In May, we found a house we liked and in July it became ours. We moved in on August 2 and have mostly unpacked. We’re becoming familiar […]

Thoughts Before our Trip

Tomorrow we leave on an extended trip in the RV. We plan on visiting the Grand Canyon before traveling east in search of our new home. I jokingly call it “The Great Cross Country Home Hunt”, but it is, really. Great, I mean. As in “no small feat”. We’ll be crossing through many states, searching […]

The RV Shakedown Trip: Epilogue

Rain started by the time we hitched the trailer to the truck on our last day. We’d cleaned and stowed everything the night before, so really all that was needed was to disconnect the landlines and connect to the tow vehicle. The weather forecast showed that rain was expected for most of the week, so […]

The RV Shakedown Trip Day 7: Mackerricher State Park

Mackerricher is a California state park located a little north of Fort Bragg. When our boys were little, we brought them here on camping trips to see the seals and the tide pools. Our last visit was many years ago, so I was slightly concerned when we saw on the website that the park was […]

The RV Shakedown Trip Day 5: A Rainy Day

This morning we woke to a light rain staccato on the roof of the RV. It wasn’t a surprise, but the forecast is so often wrong this time of year that we were disappointed it was right this time! Nevertheless, a rainy day on the coast is better than one in the apartment. We don’t […]

Read Write Thursday: My Irish Heritage and St. Patrick’s Day

Tomorrow is St. Patrick’s Day. I’m not Catholic or Presbyterian, but I do have a wee bit of Irish in my blood, so I presume some of my ancestors celebrated the Feast of St. Patrick! By the way, do you know what the colors in the flag of Ireland symbolize? Green is for the revolutionaries; […]

The RV Shakedown Trip Day 6: Jughandle State Natural Reserve

I became intrigued with Jug Handle when we first arrived at Caspar. A blurb on the map of the RV park bragged that the trail was particularly interesting because it went through a unique “ecological staircase”. So when today dawned clear and sunny, we packed a lunch and drove to the Reserve to investigate. It […]

The RV Shakedown Trip Day 4: Surf Fishing!

We woke up this morning to heavy fog. So instead of going on the hike at Jughandle, we decided to go to Westport for some fishing. This was my very first time surf fishing. I found that it’s not as easy as it looks. My biggest problem was getting the hooks cast out far enough […]

Author: Anni Z