In the Studio

I counted the pages in the six books in one and found there are over 400 paintable surfaces. Filling it up with small watercolors will take some time…lots of time. But it is such a nice meditation time to put some pencil guidelines down and then wet the brush with color.

After the dandelion came these.

The brush strokes of the gesso affect the lines and edges. I need to constantly remind myself to go lightly and layer color from very pale to intense….I just need to be better at doing this and having over 400 pages should give me time and space to improve.

The Drawings a Day continue. The kitchen drawer is getting boring. And also a reminder that I have several things in there that I don’t use. Why do we save this stuff? If I lived in an area to have a garage sale I could get rid of so much! But we are at the top of a hill at the end of a dirt road. As soon as our kids and friend come down, I am going to load them up and they can have their own garage sales. They have been warned.

With no bartender

this fish will aptly open

our favorite beers.

 

Or we reach beyond

the fish and get this rusty

stove tool to do it.

 

This is my second

choice for getting the citrus

juice minus the pits.

 

A while back I was

absolutely sure that I

needed a zester.

I am looking over my blogs and think I would like to talk about the students that I have had and their work that has stayed with me long after they have gone.

Without the art group I miss talking about what drives some of us to make art. Not whether it is marketable, but how in the making of something, the building of a physical form makes tangible the thing, the feeling that just will not stop struggling to get out.

So at least once a week the blog won’t be simply my own record of drawing and paintings in sketch books but the passionate results of things not meant for marketing, not meant to sell a workshop, not consumed by excellence in technical skill, but makes you look and question what you are looking at and why you want to learn more.

And the best part is it will let me revisit those artists that took chances, took advantage of being in a safe place to express their inner feelings.

Some of those blogs will also let me revisit the person I was before…the one I have lost touch with.

Having a minder come in three times a week so I have four uninterrupted hours to be back in the studio has been a good thing. But it is hard to settle into something.

Our son gave me a stack of linoleum blocks for Christmas. I am gouging away to make some sort of textile-ish background for another more solid and contrasting image to print in front of. Australian artist/printmaker, Dianne Fogwell’s excellent book sits next to me. All my carving tools are scattered around. Chips of linoleum are all over the place. My only purpose seems to be to keep busy, make marks, test the tools, let my mind wander down unknown avenues…..

The only thing I know for sure is that I will get another four hours on Monday to see what happens next.

Til later.

 

Remember this six books in one binding that I made last fall? Well I have now decided to not write in it (at least for now) but do my wildflower paintings in it.

There are many, many pages gessoed on both sides in all of the six book configurations. The color glides over this gesso much easier than on the other concertina book I started. So now I have folded that one all up and put it away. Almost threw it away but there is something salvageable in almost anything….so it is tucked in with all my stacked up drawing a day books.

And right this minute there is lots of laughter coming from upstairs as Lee and his new friend, Lilly, get to know each other. She is a physical therapist as well as his part time caregiver. And is scheduled to come three times a week for four hours in the afternoon while I work down in the studio or office with uninterrupted time. Bliss.

So far I have had a good forty-five minutes on my Migun massage bed (a luxury I have not been able to have since Christmas). Now I am downloading photos onto this larger computer where it seems my life is kept in pictures. Next I move across the hall and start to clean up my studio to prepare for some printmaking that has been put off for a very long time.

Lily will help Lee with leg cramps and work with doing exercises with him. She seems to be a very upbeat person, loves cats, showed us pictures of her own, brings her own food, and is getting along great with him.

The best thing is that the long term care insurance that we took out in 1993 is going to cover the cost. Both Lee and I passed our annual physicals this past week….seems we are both going to continue on…..no issues other than his dementia.

I will finish this in the morning when I can add in the drawings a day.

Okay it is now a day later. Lee is outside working on his rocks again while there is no rain. He liked Lilly and asked when she comes back. Tomorrow I will reintroduce him again and soon he will remember who she is.

The last four days of drawings and haiku.

This will crush garlic.

But most of the clove will be

left behind inside.

 

Now this spatula

is used solely to scoop out

orange marmalade.

This can pit olives,

and does a nice job of it –

but pinched my finger!

 

Bean “stringer/slicer”

was found in the back bottom

of a crowded drawer.

The things in that drawer are getting boring. How excited can one get over too many useless things that have no interesting shapes and way too many close relatives crammed in there with them? Soon I may have to find another drawer…then after that just go outside where the really interesting things are just laying around.

I did get the studio put back into a working order. Tomorrow when Lilly returns I might just start designing a print block. But for now while I wait for the butter to get to room temperature so I can make those delicious malt cookies, I might do another wildflower in the book.

Tonight company comes for dinner….a rare occurrence anymore. Puttanesca over pasta and baby spinach. An Aussie red and a single malt to start or finish.

Til later.

The view out the front door today. And Sadie staying warm makes me warm just looking at her.

And earlier this week an anonymous card came from Tasmania. I keep it where I work in the den with sewing or doing my drawing a day or just watching TV with Lee. I pick it up and smell it. There is Eucalyptus in there. There is a flat white. There is just a touch of the Salamanca Market. There is the many friends who could have sent it. It is absolutely crowded with what I need right now. Thank you so much, “Anonymous”.

And look at this stamp!

If I went into the den right now and opened that envelope, I bet a kangaroo would hop out and I would hear laughing. But I am going to save it for later. I don’t want to let the magic escape.

That thought reminds me of one of my Zulu baskets. A friend wanted to take the lid off and look inside. I told her, “No, don’t. There is the smell of where it was made in Africa and the woman who wove it. If it opens up too much, I will lose her.”

Silly isn’t it? The ultimate hoarding ….of objects that hold the invisible of an overactive imagination  and make longings come to life.

I had Lee help me make pages for new sketchbooks. I am on the last one I made for my Drawing a Day/ Haiku books. It took him awhile to figure out how to tear them free of the spiral binding…but eventually he tore out enough for me to size into folios for four new sketchbooks.

He is wearing my old Arrowmont sweatshirt. It is his favorite and misses it when it is in the wash. I think I will write to them and see if they have another one for him. With the design on the front he knows how to place it to slip into.

And here are the last four days of Drawing a Day with Haiku.

Another pairing

from the many foundry molds –

one of them numbered.

 

This one’s a beauty

but its metal counterpart

would be so boring.

 

The two of us are

painted black and share the same

red painted number.

 

Finally! The last

of these difficult to draw

little foundry molds.

 

And here is a bit of the Wildflowers Bush Book.

And this morning after the trillium I drew in some acorns to be painted later. I think I need some things along the ground area of the book so will put in sticks, seeds, stones, etc….at least I think I will.

Years ago I was taking a class on how to use Caran d’ Ache crayons and my teacher told me this was the best eraser…Magic Rub by Prismacolor. I had always assumed it was those kneaded ones. But no, she was right. This eraser is the kindest to your paper and gets the job done. And if you slice off a corner you have a great little eraser to get in those tight spots.

The snow has stopped but it may not get warm enough to get down the driveway to go to our Sunday breakfast tomorrow.

Now I am going to bake oatmeal cookies.

Til later.

PS I did think I would have done more drawings in my Responsibility Hands book. I did get it brought upstairs from the studio. Lee is used to me drawing all the time so will not notice what it is about.

Slowly things are coming upstairs. I even bound three of the new sketchbooks yesterday. Bringing my tool bag up feels right.

Later.

 

Lee needs to spend time outside every day…regardless of the weather. Here he is re-stacking his rocks down below. He is constantly rearranging them. Keeping an order to something is very important.

By the time I got back from the gym this morning,fixed his breakfast and filled the feed buckets for him to feed the birds and deer, we had this sunrise. It quickly turned cloudy and dull.

So this morning I decided we should cook up some meals for the freezer. Lee is still fairly good at chopping up vegetables and pulling chicken off the bones. So a big pot of chicken soup, a meatloaf, lots of french toast cooked up and placed in waxed paper before freezing, and the start of a puttanesca sauce to finish Sunday. The house smells wonderful.

Last week we had two meals from four chicken thighs over dressing.

Pure comfort foods.

I also had time to work in the Bush Book. A mole and Canadian goose were added to the bear pages.

And a good start on the next section.

There is a bobcat, hummingbird and tufted titmouse joining the skunk and cardinal. I have now drawn in all but the last double page with all the critters on my list. Then I went to the studio and cut all the sections for the next book that will have wildflowers painted within the marks. It is a bad time of year to make contact prints, but I will use what I have here in the yard. I don’t think it is a worry to get good images…just some suggestion of place through marks.

And of course the Drawings A Day with Haiku.

I cut the basket

short in this drawing because

I ran out of room.

 

From Indonesia

a small and intricately

woven container.

Another hand-carved

wooden box from the kitchen

holds some essentials.

 

A basket-like box

waits to collect small odd bits

that then go nowhere.

Two chickens pecking

away at nothing with strings

below being pulled.

 

He raises his axe

and slams it down on the log

with little result.

I am going to do all the kinetic toys that Lee and I collected or made. Such good memories of us working together in the shop. Me coming up with ideas and Lee cutting out all the parts. A carver in Ann Arbor made the wood chopper and the next two I will draw. He had a distinctive style. Then I will move on to the ones we made. I must say that holding the paddle and swinging the weight below just to hear and see the resulting action is very satisfying.

I might bring them all back upstairs for both of us to play with.

Til later.