curry powder

A First: an animated map

I took the plunge yesterday and started learning to do animation--applied to a map. Why? My daughter and her business partner are offering a musicians' showcase concert in Manhattan on January 7. This is for the benefit of attendees of the international APAP conference who are looking for talented bands and groups to hire. Here's my map, destined to be edited but still fun to view at this stage:

Sketching at the Shore: Edmonds Windsock

The Drawing Group always looks forward to the warming days of summer when we meet up on a driftwood log or picnic table near the beach in Edmonds, WA. This year we perched along the walkway by the marina there, our thermoses and treats spread out within reach as we sketched what was before us. Here's what we did as we sat side-by-side, happy to be outside with pens, paint, and our individual news to share:

 

 

Three views: we all enjoy the journaling method of creating small squares for our quick sketches. It's great practice for capturing a lot of information about one's immediate surroundings.

 

My sketch. I think I was chatting a lot and, well, didn't quite get the work done that my chums did.

 

The foreground, middle ground, and background in this drawing show the whole scene with good success.

Ink Spills Become Faces

During the past couple of weeks I have been doing a lot of experimenting with different pens and writing fluids. FYI, this is part of a big map project I'm working on. Jet black India ink tends to get everywhere when one is dipping into little containers of it...some of you are very familiar with this messy phenomenon, I'm sure. Well, yesterday, when I was not working with ink but with harmless pencil, I looked beyond my drawing and saw three random ink blobs (dried and until then unnoticed) left from a previous, inky session. For the sheer fun of it I picked up a regular, commercial ink pen and quickly made faces that incorporated the blobs. I'm liking these three new friends!

Summer Sketches: Little Floral Portraits

Many of my sketching time-outs are taken with my little drawing group. These are always held to two hours, and always include baked goods and coffee, as regular readers may know. Every fourth gettogether is an outing, either spent in a café or on a trail or at the beach. Last time we went out, we stopped first at The Red Twig, followed by a floral sketching session at Old Mill Town in Edmonds, WA. Perfect! Here are our sketches:

Yellow rose

 

Mixed sprigs. This sketch is mine.

Geraniums

Art Tools in a Mug: Drawing Group Exercise

A handful of brushes and some miscellaneous calligraphic writing tools stuck in a mug provided the perfect subject for a drawing group sketch. In this case, the three of us sat around my dining room table, our drawings revealing our varying perspectives depending on where we sat. The forms and textures provided just enough challenge to make this a fun exercise.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Peppers Three: Drawing Group + 1

In spite of the holiday to-do lists we all entertained at the time, the drawing group came together in my sunny dining room for drawing practice just a few days before Christmas. And, who should be on hand to join us but my beautiful, New York City-dwelling daughter Emily who flew west to be with the family and friends for a week. She was happy to be invited to draw three peppers with our left hands. Why do this? A focus on "drawing what we see, not what we think we see" is well served by drawing with the non-dominant hand. Further, a degree of detachment exists so that adults, especially, become less critical of their drawing skills when drawing with the left hand. 

The peppers and the paintings.

 

Emily paints the peppers with her right hand after drawing them with her left.

Raggedy Ann Restored

A very few toys from my childhood have survived the 6+ decades of my life. One of these is the Raggedy Ann made for me and my sister by our loving and skilled seamstress mother in the early 1950's. Yes, there was also a Raggedy Andy but none of us know what happened to him. I always loved peeking under Raggedy Ann's dress to see the heart embroidered with "I Love You." What child doesn't need to be reminded of this, often?

About 18 months ago Rick and I were helping my mother prepare to move out of her house when I came across our old Raggedy Ann. She was completely bald, her rusty orange hair having been shorn by moths, I assumed. Her soft blue button eyes were as wistful as ever, but her original bloomers, calico frock and crisp white apron were no longer on her faded pink body. Replacing them were a different dress and a wilted apron. Right then and there I decided to restore her. Before I did, I took this photo of her:

 

Smiling, even in her naked state, Raggedy Ann rests against Mom's antique French clock in Berkeley, CA, July, 2016. I took her down there with me from Seattle so I could cut out new clothes for her while keeping Mom company in her new apartment at my sister's house.

Raggedy Ann went on another trip in August of this year. Here is Ann in her new outfit which I completed while vacationing in Seaside, OR.

 

Today, September 28, I completed Raggedy Ann's new acrylic yarn hair while waiting for my car to be serviced. I plunked her down on the desk and got the impression that she rather liked her updated appearance! She's been the ideal portable handwork project.

 

One Garden, Three Views

On Tuesday morning, our little drawing group settled in the garden of one of our members. It's spectacular there what with the many verdant areas featuring a wide variety of plants, trees, water features and clipped lawn paths. We picked our chosen spots in this wonderland, and met up 40 or so minutes later to compare sketches. I love how different the three are! They represent such different aspects of this beautiful place. Please take a look:

Here is "the bird bowl" which attracted a flurry of visiting black-capped chickadees as I sketched. One reason I am happy with my drawing (pen, ink and watercolor) is that by some small miracle the water actually looks like water!

 

Two infant apples emerge from the fresh foliage. This member's goal: to keep it loose.

 

A newly transplanted Golden Cypress, seen left of center, makes an architectural statement in this landscape sketch. To capture so many forms and textures in 40 short minutes is an admirable achievement! Color will be added.

A Quilt Completed

Later in her life, my maternal grandmother collected antique china and lace, some of which she gave to me when I was a young woman. Authentic keepsakes from her own childhood were few due to multiple moves she had made leading up to her permanent move to California in the 1960's. But early in the 1970's she gave me a bag filled with small, pieced squares of very old calicoes, chintzes and homespuns. According to Grandma, these quilt pieces were cut and stitched by her mother and her aunt Maida (a beloved family member) on the family farm in Pella, Iowa. Amidst these were a couple of grubby, pieced squares that look as though they may have been stitched by a child. One of these is pictured below.

This little square appears to have been stitched by a child (very likely by my Grandma). A blood spot on the lower right conjures up the possible, tearful scene that could have ended the sewing lesson.

 

Here is the back of one of the small, striped chintz squares hand-stitched and ready to be pieced.

 

This hexagon is cut from what was referred to as "homespun." In the late 70's I used the hexagons also in the bag for a set of placemats.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the 1970's I didn't like the earthen colors of most of the antique squares Grandma gave me so I put them back in the bag and forgot about them. In February of this year as I was clearing out unwanted fabrics in my own stash, I took a look at all the squares, thinking, "I'll never get around to using these," so I winced, tossed the bag into the giveaway box and reminded myself that I ought not "confuse people with things." A day or two later, I changed my mind and retrieved them. How could I cast away something that my grandmother had kept, that dated from the 1800's, the story of which she herself had told me? The fabrics were all apparently unused and still crisp, dating from the 1850's-1900. Many of the fabrics are classic, collectible and rare Victorian prints. 

 

I did take a shortcut in sewing the pieces together by machine into rows. The individual squares are a dainty 2.6" square. The whole quilt measures 22" x 24." I used cotton batting between the pieced front and the solid red backing. The three layers are secured with vintage buttons.

The end of the story: I did get the quilt made! The color palette that I found dreary in earlier years I now find interesting and historic. That these pieces were hand cut and pieced by my great grandmother and my great great aunt moves me. And to think I'd tossed them heartlessly into a pile for the donation truck before I came to my senses!

Petite Paper Houses

For our first architecture project ever, the Drawing Group enjoyed embellishing flat, white cut-outs (precisely pre-done by hand using Arches 90lb hot press paper) that once folded and secured with tape turned into little luminarias. One Tuesday morning in November, one of our members surprised us with this drawing and folding project. It was pure fun. Here are the three autumn and Christmas-inspired houses we completed. This trio was followed by another batch with distinctly Christmas themes, all. Thank you, _____! (Members prefer to remain anonymous.)

 

My house luminaria with an electronic candle within.