Blibber Blabber

No rhyme, no reason

 

I Was Supposed to Garden, But I Decided to Draw Instead

posted by: athenawj at 21:12 | link | comments (1) |
art

I convinced Mr. Calm to come with me to a lake/nature trail yesterday.  The weather was nice, about sixty-five degrees (it cooled off after a storm), and we'd been talking about doing something like that for awhile (after a childhood spent hiking all over the damn place, I eschewed it as a grownup).

I didn't take my camera.  I just wanted to walk and enjoy things.

We walked for a little over an hour.  Along the way, I: brushed a frog with my foot and knocked him ass over teakettle; saved five snails from certain squashings; watched turtles sunning themselves on logs on the lake; gazed at the beauty of blooming cottonwoods; watched as Mr. Calm touched the tail of a green snake (very cute- I like snakes), and attempted to see how long a half-buried centipede was (yuck- I hate centipedes).  And, we stood fifteen feet away from three deer and watched them graze, and watch us back.

That was TOO cool.  Like I said, I've avoided nature trails, because my parents really did burn me out on them, so I've never been so close to deer in the wild before.  And for them to be so calm, to let me stand there for five minutes and watch, was wondrous.  I realize they're just deer, but they're beautiful creatures.  And too cute when they wag their tails.

***

Mr. Calm and I had a really great day yesterday.  On the flip side, we've got some major Teenage Attitude going on in the house, and trying to deal with it takes up too much of my mind.  Yes, I know it's supposed to be "time".  I'm still trying to figure out how to deal with it, because frankly, I don't want the drama.

Sigh.  The yin and the yang of things?

posted by: athenawj at 06:55 | link | comments (1) |
spring, memories, wallowing in self-pity

I started thinking of Jim Jones and Jonestown yesterday while on my walk.  A little morbid and misplaced, but the path was strange-- where the day before caterpillars had been winding their way toward their final destinations, now there were only crushed and fried black and yellow husks.  Yes, nature is strange, especially if you're not a biologist or an... etymologist (?).  Do they just die?  I know they couldn't have all been crushed beneath sneakers and bike wheels- I could not have been the only one to extend the courtesy of not abruptly ending their little lives by pretending to be Godzilla.  Were they sizzled by the sun?  Did they drink spiked Kool-Aid?

Poor things.  I don't even know what they would have become, had they lived. 

posted by: athenawj at 06:40 | link | comments |
animals

"Mrs. Rigby Did Not Receive Her Raise, So Unfortunately, the Family Pet Bore the Brunt of Her Temporary Aggravated Insanity"

Yes, that is the title.

posted by: athenawj at 16:27 | link | comments (1) |
art

Promises Unkept

When I was seven, my left thumb was accidentally slammed shut in our car's back door.  For about thirty minutes, I was trapped there- no amount of kicking, pulling or yanking would get that door open.  And I screamed my head off- it felt like my finger had been cut clean off.  The only thing that got the door open was the jaws of life.

When I got to the hospital (and why don't I remember the ride in the ambulance?), a fireman told me if I calmed down, he would give me a sucker.  And I did calm down, once a sourpussed nurse forced me to look at my finger.  A little flat, and broken clean through, but still intact.

I never got that sucker.

Fireman should not promise children things if they aren't going to deliver.

posted by: athenawj at 07:19 | link | comments (1) |
memories

Still walking every day, though not twice, as I found that at this point, I don't need to.  I'm walking 1.8 miles a day.  Because of bad posture as a kid and early adult, I have lower back problems, so my back was very stiff over the weekend.  It's started to work itself out now, thank goodness.

I tend to whine to Mr. Calm sometimes, especially about exercise, since he used to body build when he was a teenager (nothing crazy- he was just in damn fine good shape).  "Is this working?" "Do you think it'll get better?"  He's nice enough not to tell me I've already asked that fifty-million times.  I keep asking because it seems the more days I walk, the worse I feel during the walks, and the intellectual part of me knows it's because my body's getting used to this again.  The whiny part hates it.  Yesterday it took me nearly an hour to walk that path, which is embarassing to someone who's always walked fast, spent her twenties walking all over the place.  But hey, I need to buck up-- with plantar fasciitis and a funky left knee, you do what you can.  I did manage to finish my entire trek.

When the weather gets too hot to stand, even at seven in the morning, I'll go over to the mall, which is only three miles away.  It's good to know it's there for when winter comes, too.

***

I drew another octopus picture yesterday. No scanning for this one- it's a pencil and ink drawing.  A very long title-- I had to write it down just to remember it.  I have one more to do-- a recreation of my original napkin doodle-- and then I'll be done with the octopii.  Unless I get more ideas, heh.

posted by: athenawj at 06:14 | link | comments (3) |
art

Evolution

I don't know that this'll be interesting to anyone but me, but I thought I'd post the beginning-to-end process of one of my pieces.  This one's called, "Trip on a Sunny Day", although it's working title was just "Octopus Bicycle".

First off, naturally, I draw the piece.  It doesn't matter what size because I scan it in at the dimensions I want it.  I just use a #2 pencil and a separate gum eraser.  For paper, my choice is 70# Canson drawing paper.  A lot of times I just leave my mistakes.  I drew this piece from the bottom up, right to left, bicycle first-- pretty much opposite of what I usually do.

Next up is inking.  I've used the same kind of ink pen for over ten years: a Sanford Uni-Ball fine tip pen, something you can get at pretty much any CVS, Walmart or office supply store.  If I'm doing a straight pencil and ink drawing, I use Prismacolor markers and coloring pencils, and occasionally a generic watercolor pencil.  After I'm done inking, I wait a minute, then erase any pencil marks.  That means erasing the whole picture, so nothing shows up under the inking.

Then I scan the picture, load it into Paint Shop Pro (version 12 right now), and after doing a magic erase (taking a quick trip over to PhotoShop), I color.  First I use the paint bucket to fill in everything, including white.  Then I create a new layer and, with the paint brush, cover any flaws.  The next layer is "crayon", which I use to create shading and the circling around the eyes.  Lastly, I create the pupils with the paint brush feature, and use an airbrush to blush the cheeks.  I save everything in psp, psd and jpeg versions, leaving the psp layers unmerged, so if I need to go back and fix anything, I'll be able to.

Voila!  A finished piece.  This, with a border and on canvas, is now at the Art and Invention Gallery.  Here are my other pieces that I dropped off yesterday:

"A Girl and Her Octopus"

"Enjoli"

And what were all these octopus pictures inspired by?  A doodle I did the other day while waiting for my lunch.

posted by: athenawj at 08:59 | link | comments (4) |
art

Thanks for the well wishes about my tailbone, ladies.  It still feels a little swollen, but the pain disappeared yesterday morning.  Of course, I got bad lower back cricks last night, probably from being hunched over most of the day drawing and coloring, but Mr. Calm was nice enough to try to work some of those out.

I made myself walk twice yesterday- once in the morning, once in the evening.  I found a stretch of the nearby park that only has a couple of gentle slopes- with my plantar fasciitis, I can't really handle anything bigger at this point.  However, I hate my pedometer.  I thought I had the thing set up, but after twenty-five minutes of walking, it said I'd only walked 187 steps.  Uh, excuse me?  I've never walked that slow in my life, even with broken toes.  Plus, I counted yesterday morning after forgetting the pedometer, and Point A to Point B is three-hundred-and-seventy-two steps.

I managed almost two miles yesterday.  Proud of myself. :)  But I'm not pushing it.  I'm telling myself I'm slowly training for a marathon.  I'm not, not really, but it's motivation.

I did two pieces of artwork today, and want to do two more today, all to take to the gallery tomorrow or Sunday.  I drew an antique Firestone bicycle yesterday.  I told Mr. Calm that I was so glad I drew every day growing up, because I don't draw much realism anymore, but the skills come in handy sometimes, and thankfully, they don't seem to rust.  I'll post a picture later, because I loooooove it!  I kept staring at it.  I don't know what the hell that means.

YD came in while I was gluing my border onto that picture and said, "You're artwork's been really great lately." I chuckled, because that could be taken as a back-handed compliment, and she clarified that she didn't mean it'd been bad before, but it was still funny.

Tuesday night was OD's final wind ensemble concert as a high schooler.  She had three solos (clarinet), which she handled beautifully.  The songs were fantastic.  First up was a Sousa march.  Second was a piece with three movements (two solos in there).  Third was a medley from "Grease" (one solo): "Summer Lovin'", "Greased Lightning", "Hand Jive", and "We Go Together".  I was really hoping for "Grease", but it was still terrific.  And then the student teacher, an alumni, got up and the wind ensemble did a medley of Prince songs.  "1999", "When Doves Cry", "Purple Rain", and "Let's Go Crazy".  Instead of the guitar solo at the end of that one, it was solos on the drum kit and timpani drums.  That medley was fantastic.  The kids earned their standing ovation.

She's trying out for the concert band in college, and a possible music scholarship (one where she won't have to major in music), so we may be travelling for more concerts in the future.

Here's hoping for a good weekend for me and everyone reading.

posted by: athenawj at 06:36 | link | comments (1) |
music, art , exercise, pain, kids, memories

IML and funny: thanks for the cake comments.  merserene: thanks for stopping by.  I'm not doing too good.  I bruised my tailbone and right now I'm sitting on a big pillow, but I've got to get up- it's started to sting.  I actually feel better than I have in the last two days, but the pain's not completely gone.

I've done quite a bit of standing these last two days, and finished the artwork for my solo show.

All of the backgrounds were created with handmade paper.  Thanks, Jerry's Artorama!

posted by: athenawj at 08:38 | link | comments (2) |
art , bullshit, sicky

Did I Take the Cake?

Wow, 0/0 again!  Time to write, I s'pose.

I went to my Fondant Basics class yesterday.  Three-and-a-half hours to learn how to drape and decorate my eight-inch cake dummy.  We also learned a cool way to decorate cookies, but I didn't take a picture.  I ate the cookie I made.

I guess it was okay.  I didn't particularly care for the assistant, but whatever.  The teacher was good-- much friendlier than in the store I go for supplies.  I forgot to cut my friggin' fingernails, which is horrible when you're working with putty-like stuff.  I think I'm more bothered with myself because I'm so friggin' slow- I looked around while trying to drape the fondant on my dummy and realized that I was way behind the other fourteen people in the room.  But since the teacher went fast so we wouldn't be rushed at the end of the class, I guess in reality I was right on course.

I guess I should amend it to say that it was better than okay, because I learned the one thing I took the class for: I learned how to drape a cake with fondant.  I'm ready to take on the cakes I want to make for the fair.  So, yay. ;)

We all made eight-inch decorated cakes, but since there was no directive for how the decorations should be laid out (or colored- some people showed up with huge tackle boxes of supplies... not moi), we all had different-looking cakes.  Here's mine:

Sorry, but... BORING. It makes me think of a baby shower cake.  I guess after coming off OD and YD's cakes, it's not spectacular.  Then again, what else was I expecting?  The cake was topped with "whimsical" roses (bah), leaves (i used a silicon mold to get the veining), a bow and daisies.  I colored the daisies with a mix of Everclear and edible luster dust.  I got a couple of good comments about it.  Blech.  You can't see the way it has stretch marks and fingernail indentations along the bottom.

Anyway.  Glad I took the class; I am way too anal to enjoy my fruits of it.

However, here is a totally cool way to decorate cookies: buy a box/bag of round cookies, such as oatmeal.  Give the top a light smear of buttercream.  Take a cookie cutter/cup of corresponding size and cut out a round of fondant.  Put that on top of the cookie and press the edges lightly to adhere.  Take an unused stamp (for inking) and press into the fondant.  Then, take a luster dust, preferably silver or gold or pearl, and brush over the fondant, giving the cookie a glittery sheen.

The great idea she gave the class is that you can individually package these in cellophane bags and tie off with a twist tie.  You can emboss them with "Thank You" or "Happy Birthday", or whatever theme you're going for.

I'm sure that's an old idea, but it's new to me, and since she gave us a "homework" assignment to use the fondant in some way this week, I think I'll drag out some of my Edward Gorey stamps that I haven't used yet and emboss some cookies.  This fondant doesn't taste like shit, like Wilton's brand, but the Fond-X I bought for the class tastes marshmallow-y.  It's yummy.

posted by: athenawj at 09:10 | link | comments (2) |

Well, I'm here all by myself, and I must say, it's nice to have a week mostly by myself here in this old house.  Mr. Calm's down in TX (I think he must be there by now- he stopped in AR for the night- maybe he's back on the road now) until Friday.  The house is clean, and it'll STAY that way.  Why is it when one spouse is gone, the house stays clean, even with two messy teenage daughters there, too?

I'm going to Jerry's Artorama this morning to pick up a few more canvases*, and it'll be an artwork week. In a clean house!

YD is on the mend (thanks for the commisserations, ladies :)).  I had to reverse down the street and go back to the house so she could get her doctor's notes, which she'd missed completely this morning. Even though they were right under her lunch money, which she DID get.  Ah, kids.

Our new hermit crabs aren't much fun.  They like to burrow deep in the sand.  At this moment, Mr. Man is burrowing beneath the food shell.  He's a bit entertaining, though- at least I know he's alive because every time he comes up, he changes shells.  Right now he's in the "giraffe" shell-- it's spotted just like a giraffe.

When I'm done with my art, I'll post pix here of it.  I think it'll be good.

*I'm getting canvases for the show instead of wood because all the pieces have to be hung from the ceiling.  When I went to look at the space, I had visions of the wood crashing down on the heads of the people sipping coffee below.  NOT good.  So, it's lightweight canvas this time!

posted by: athenawj at 07:51 | link | comments |
art , kids

YD is very sick again.  She didn't tell us she'd been feeling bad for three weeks, so by the time we got her to the doctor yesterday, it was a, "You came in just in time" situation.  Two infections and she's most likely going to pass another kidney stone again.  It seems that she may be one of those people who are genetically predisposed to getting them.

Thing is, she has gotten sick a lot over the last year or so.  Lots of stomachaches, too, and I wonder if it's where she carries her stress, or it's something else.  Then things like this, and recurrences of the flu, and I hate feeling so helpless that I don't know how to keep my child healthier.  And frankly, doctors aren't much help.  Vitamins.  Eating better.  Well, yeah, we've tried that!

***

I got the book "Hello, Cupcake!" Oh, my God, this thing is the best.  Sorry, but it blows any other cupcake book out of the water, if only just for the fact that it uses accessible decorations and equipment to create wonderful cupcakes. Definitely using this one to create some cupcake entries for the fair.  TV dinner? Vegetable garden?  Wreath?  Gah, the choices!

***

I also got Amphigorey Too.  I need some inspiration.  My sketching yesterday was a near-complete bust.

***

I'm happy "Hell's Kitchen" is back on the air, but good God, could they have found people who know how to cook?  Uck.  I know if I went on that show (and that's a fat chance in hell), I'd learn to cook risotto and scallops in my friggin' sleep.  Yes, I would totally cry if Ramsay yelled at me.  Though I might snicker if he called me a donkey.

***

I started back on the tapping, and finished learning the Waltz Clog routine last night.  It's fun, though I still forget half of one of the steps when doing the entire routine.  Afterward, I used the flourish finish to remind OD to do the dishes.  I thought I'd pep up the bad news a little. ;)

It's off to try to walk for an hour this morning.  See ya.

posted by: athenawj at 06:33 | link | comments (2) |
art , books, television, kids, sicky, tapping

A few facts about the Sweet Sixteener:

She is the "baby".  Our looking at her that way, and how she was the youngest grandchild for eight whole years before another one came along, probably wasn't the best thing, but hey, there you go. ;)

She is a shorty. I'm 5'8".  OD is 5'9".  But we have some short folks in the family, too- my granny was 4'11", and her nana is 5'2".  YD inherited the short genes, although she's the tallest at 5'3".

She is a redhead, which no one saw coming.  When she was little, she had a red 'fro.

She was fifteen days late.  60 hours of labor.  Kid NEVER wanted to come out.  She is late to this day.

I think she loves her viola.

She is very quick-witted, and prone to joking.  A little *too* quick-witted, sometimes.

She used to have 20/10 vision.  Now she's sunk down to the level of mere mortals and has 20/20 vision.  (all the rest of us have glasses)

She was once a red belt three in taekwondo.  She quit right before her black belt test.  She could kick the shit out of you.

Once when she was four, I got mad at her.  I went into the kitchen, leaving her in the dining room.  Suddenly, I hear her sadly singing, "You Are My Sunshine".  She was singing it to me, hoping I wouldn't be mad at her anymore.  I wasn't.  And for a few years after that, she would do that.  And I would melt every time.

Happy Birthday, YD!

(by the way, the picture's too funky to see, but she's holding a quarter up.  We gave her a quarter to go into the cornfield so we could get a picture.  Intercourse, Pennsylvania, Summer 1997)

posted by: athenawj at 07:31 | link | comments (3) |
kids, memories

Yesterday, I stepped outside for some fresh air, looked up, and saw that the topmost branches of my crabapple tree are blooming.  Every two years, this is one of my most welcome spring sights.  A happy, pink tree.  I think by this time next week it'll be in full bloom.

I spent part of yesterday "drawing" a hot pink viola (tracing it onto wax paper) with colored candy melts.  Except for the strings-- I could only fit three-- it turned out really good.  Today it's filling and crumb-coating the cake, then sticking it in the freezer.  It will be a tilted cake.  Hot pink, with lime green borders, and spotted with lime green and light purple dots (I made those yesterday, too).

The middle fingernail on my left hand is hot pink.  I couldn't scrub even half of the candy coloring out of it.  Sigh.

I signed up to take a basic fondant class on April 13.  I make things with fondant every year, but I'm not good at covering a cake.  Now, hopefully I'll learn.  It's at the local cake decorating supplies shop.

I bought Rocco DiSpirito's latest cookbook.  I made the first dish last night.  Oh, goodness- YUMMY!  I can't wait to try more.

Over the weekend, I was inadvertently insulted when someone looked at my artwork, and started going on about when *they* were bored, they painted an archway in their house.  That's not the whole of it, but the gist was 'when I'm bored, I like to decorate my house, too'.  Er, whuh?

I'm babbling because yesterday wasn't so hot, the last half filled with arguments, and the next couple of days probably aren't going to be good, either, despite the milestone birthday.

 

posted by: athenawj at 06:26 | link | comments (3) |
art , wallowing in self-pity