Illustration Friday Night - January 5th

Topic: How I eventually came to know nothing at all.

Difficult one I think. My initial thought was books, then I picked one up and started to draw. That's it. Done. Post.

Religion is always controversial, if not alternative. It can fall under a number of acceptable IFN concepts such as :

Politically incorrect, simple, sacrilegious, literate, existential, brooding and candid.

ha HA - let's see if anyone comments about kitties on this post.

Circles - January 5th

I don't know what defines a Mandala but started drawing some circles this week just to play with colors and markers. It is very soothing to work within a circle, and I'm going to investigate this more - Teri has a Mandala site that is wonderful. My are all DVD sized - that' s what was to hand.

First one above and then scanned in and color enhanced. I love the fact that you can adjust colors to see what they look like when changed. Sometimes it's a bad feature, sometimes it fun to play with a different color scheme without going back and redoing everything. Cheating? maybe - what do you think?

It's not meant to be a "7" in the circle about, it's just the way it turned out. But since it supposed to be a lucky number, maybe I'll take it as a sign.

Home Alone !

Hubby is still down in warmer climes so I have the house to myself. It's too quiet and I miss the feeling of being looked after. I'm really not so spoiled, but when he is not here I have to think about snow on the bulkhead door, and locking doors at night, closing windows etc. I know I sound spoiled, but I think that after so many years together you simply fall into "favorite" tasks and take ownership of those. He is better off than I since I travel so much he is much more used to being on his own. We got a new coffeepot recently, and I didn't even know how to use it (yes, I figured it out!)

So...since I have the house to myself I am going to do some things that are impossible when we are both home. I am going to continue to CUT things out of my closets, cubby holes, hidey places, attics. Unused and battered suitcases will be going to Goodwill. Along with out of style and non-fitting jeans and shirts. MAYBE I'll get onto the photographs but I'm not sure about that one, that's a task that is daunting and practically overwhelming. What I like and hate about tasks like these are the starting...and the total mess in between...but I like the resorting and putting things back all organized. Then I can start throwing things into the closets again and 5 years later will sort it all out again. Don't even ask why I don't keep it organized in between. I just don't. It's a luxury to me to just Throw a suitcase into the attic and walk away. Hey, if that's where I get my thrills...then let me be!

I drew that scissor down at Mom's house. I draw lightly and tentatively with pencil and then when I scan it in, it's too light to see. So I have to darken it and then all of the squiggles and drawings on the other side of the paper show thru. I guess I have two options - live with the darkened version or draw more emphatically with pencil. I'll try the emphatic approach first.

IF - 100% - January 4th, 2008

If you win this game, you get 100%....but of what?

Sorry for the repeat post, I should have saved this picture for IF - but didn't know it would be applicable.

Fruit - December 2007

Since I am trying to eat more healthy fruit, I figure that I should also draw it. Heres a quick study of a pear, quick because I was hungry.

And also 3 pears and a squash. I didn't eat these.

Blogger Game - January 1st

This idea came to me on the plane home tonight but I couldn't do anything about it cause I needed markers. So came right home, toasted up a bagel and started the New Blogger Game. Just for fun.

A great way to start the new year - with a story

Deb just did a nice post about her excitement about chickens and this made me want to post my chicken story.

Let me set the scene. Many years ago we bought our first house - and had to go WAY out into what was then the country to be able to afford a house. And since we were in the country we bought an antique house, surrounded by apple orchards, with our closest neighbor about 1/4 mile away. Now picture a girl from NYC moving to rural Massachusetts, I was such a rube. The first night we moved in I went to take my dog for a walk, went to the end of the driveway and thought "what now - there are no sidewalks?". Poor Parker got walked in the yard only that night.
Anyway, our wonderful neighbors across the street had a huge old house and barn and they kept sheep and chickens. We would trade pet sitting and one year they went away and I got to take care of the sheep and the chickens - and to keep the eggs if I wanted them.
I came home from work the first night and ALL the chickens had gotten out of their coop somehow and were all clustered around the front barn doors, clucking and scratching, and making a general racket. Mr. Rooster was hiding somewhere, not protecting his girls at all. I had NO idea how to get them back into the barn. I opened the doors but they couldn't figure out how to get thru the doors and back into their little space. I wouldn't touch them - I thought they would bite. So, since I was wearing a red coat, which was long and beautiful and by a famous designer - I held open the flaps of the coat, and scrunched down and HERDED the damn chickens back into their coop. My husband was across the street HYSTERICAL with laughter. But he didn't offer to help, cause he was scared of them also. But it worked, they all moseyed back into the barn and into their section.
I didn't take the eggs, I was so scared that the chickens would bite me and fly at me, and peck my eyes out that I just left the eggs as they were. My neighbor collected them when she got home, and brought them over.
So that's my chicken story. I think that all chickens in the world share about 2 or 3 brain cells and just shuffle them around. I know that there are alot of chicken lovers out there who might take offence, maybe these were specially dopey chickens, but every time I took care of those animals I made sure they were well locked up and would never get out again. And I still never collected the eggs.