100 things and a question

When I was coughing fit to break last week I did work on alot of the 100 things. It was something to do while at my folks, it was very relaxing, and while I sat at the table drawing, Dad talked alot, sort of like he was thinking out loud. I took advantage of it. Many of the 100 things are active projects so I picked most of the quieter projects and did them sitting at the outside table, out of the sun but in a light area, and drew, coughed and listened.







My mom went hysterical laughing over the flying saucer oreo cookie, and I went hysterical over the egg that looks more like a haystack. The "almond" also started out as an egg - but turned into an almond pretty quickly. Eggs are hard to draw. What the hell color are they? The tomato-y thing is supposed to be an orange which I didn't buy but PICKED in the back yard.

I did offer to do the grocery shopping and while my actual list did not include all of these items, I liked drawing them so made allowances.




Please check out Casey's blog - she's joining the project with her wonderful style. We hope Ms. K will still play as she is about to be a published artiste.

So the question is this (and it has nothing to do with a grocery list) . Does your significant other/husband/wife/lover/whatever, know that you have a blog and do they ever read it? or leave comments? Kerstin you can't answer cause we know B is very blog-supportive.

100 things - circles - # 34

Kerstin and I now have a new partner, Casey Toussiant - who will join us in the 100 things project. I've said before how much I like this project, both Kerstin and I are finding that one thing/project leads to another. A drawing of a tree leads to thoughts about trees, and drawings of more trees, and thoughts about growing up in the city or in India. I'm finding that it's a bit of a 100 things journal - more than just a project. Casey's wonderful drawings will be a treat to see.

So, I did # 34 - "draw small circles and fill them in with color". This was a great exercise for me, I started off in my usual slapdash manner and found myself slowing down, adding color, outlining some circles and not others. Even as I look at this today, I think I might add some shadows ("where's your light source mim?" - continuous question from Tony). But the other thing that I like about this project is that it's totally on our own time, no deadlines, no competition - and I can add color as I please. Lovely project.

Tagged

My good friend, Ms. Forever Young tagged me to tell 5 random or weird things about myself. Okay FY - here I goes.

1) I too am a member of the mile high club
2) Underneath my frantic activities I am lazy, lazy, lazy!
3) I love early mornings, before anyone get's up, before the cars are driving.
4) I think I suck at just about everything but that makes me try even harder.
5) I like and love my family from mom and dad to littlest grand niece.

I am not going to tag anyone cause they've all been tagged! Maybe later -

Tree Love

In one of my last posts, I wrote about my favorite trees and showed a picture of one of my little fir buddies. A lot of people have commented on what their favorite tree is, and Kerstin has gone onto drawing different trees for our 100 things project.

My relationship with trees in interesting when I think back onto it. As I've mentioned, I grew up in Brooklyn, New York - where we actually did have magnificent trees lining the streets. I was a very nearsighted child (my parents didn't figure this out until I was 10 - but that's another story) and because my world was circumscribed by what I could see, I tended to be dreamy and did a lot of reading. We all played outdoors in our cement courtyard - stoop ball and the like and I didn't interact with trees much aside from using them as bases for stick ball, and walking the dog near the tiny patch of green around the base of the tree. Google earth comes in handy to show a picture of our old apartment building. We actually did have more trees on the streets when I was a kid.

But I did spend time on the fire escape in our building which overlooked the wide avenue in front of the house. We lived on the fourth floor of the building and I would spend hours looking down into the leafy head of the street trees. I distinctly remember seeing a fuzzy, dreamy swath of green - no distinct set of leaves, but just light and dark green, usually dappled by sunlight. To me this was nature, and I would imagine who might live in those leafy houses - little beings? Magical creatures?

In later years, I established different relationships with trees; awe at their color changing abilities and caring for the trees at my old house - but this first fuzzy tree relationship started me off on what I consider to be the right foot.

Illustration Friday - November 23rd - ZOO

This drawing was inspired by Forever Young's post. Her post reminded me of the time that I was 4 years old and at the zoo with my dad. I was feeding the elephant some peanuts, and he reached out and took my entire hand into his trunk. Way into! I don't remember being scared, just thinking that I must not have held the peanuts correctly. Of course my dad was panicked and yanked my hand out of the animals nose! Perhaps that elephant was really just reaching out for a touch, some connection with another animal. I'm sure he didn't want to be in the zoo.

I've always had a soft spot for elephants, and love to watch their pack habits. They have a matriarchal society and are very social animals, with aunts and cousins and mom's. I feel so sorry for elephants in the zoo, mostly because they are alone and must be so lonely. It just breaks my heart.

As a sideline discussion, while we were at Disney, they have an Animal Kingdom area and I took pictures of this elephant. The guide assured me that this bull needed to be a loner - but I'm just not buying it.

100 things - Favorite Tree

I love Kerstins drawing of her favorite tree, and wanted to get mine done while I still can get out to the trees without stomping thru snow.



Picking my favorite tree here at this house was easy, we mostly have pines around the house and I'm not in love with the tall white pines, but do love the Blue spruce so drew that. I was tempted to go back to my old house, as that house was surrounded by wonderful trees. We had a giant, beautiful, useful maple right in front of the house. Besides being beautiful, it shaded the house in the summer and let the light thru in the winter. I just love(d) that tree. We also had a beautifully flowered catalpa tree, a horse chestnut, a plum tree, and two apple trees, two butternut trees, a rowan tree, multiple ash trees and for many years, an old and wonderful elm tree that had not yet succumbed to Dutch Elm Disease. That tree was just magnificent - tall and reaching it's branches upwards, just inspiring to see. It finally did succumb to the disease and we had to have it cut down, if it had fallen it might have taken the house or barn down. I didn't go home the day it was cut, and then had a young cousin come over to split and stack the wood.



So, the decision of which tree to draw here was easy. I would have been hard pressed to choose at the old house - each and every tree was my buddy.

100 things - Drawing Red things

We're back from Florida, and I'm now feeling exhausted. I have the sort of constitution that will keep on going until I get a chance to relax and them ....wooph. Down time needed! So Sunday will be a true day of rest for me this week, before going back to work.

But I did get a chance to do alot of 100 things this week. Here are examples from "Drawing Red Things" ;
Cherries


Red Grapes (kinda purple)

A red silicon potholder - more about the words later

Red Purse

and of course, Cranberries

and an apple...

I sat at the kitchen table in Mom's house drawing - it wasn't the best place in the house but Dad would sit at the kitchen table and talk to me while I was drawing. He told me about an uncle of his named Tony Pinelli, who was a musician and artist. Tony would draw pictograms letters from his travels and send them to my grandmother. He'd draw a little picture of each of the aunts (there were 5) and incorporated them into his letter somehow. The actual letter's haven't survived but Dad told me that his mother got such a kick out of them. He also told me that Tony Pinelli was a guest conductor at the Met, and that somewhere there was a picture of him and Toscanini at the Met. I don't know who has that picture now. Tony Pinelli died in Mexico after being hit on the head with a large bell. This story sounded strange to me, and Dad said that his father (who was a doctor) was very suspicious of this story also but no one could prove foul play.

Interesting the things you can learn while sitting quietly, doing a quiet task and just listening.

Here is the link to Kerstins latest post. I got a giggle this morning comparing our two notebooks. Mine is becoming smudged and worn out. Kerstins still looks beautiful and clean. There is more to this project than just doing drawings and posts. I'm likin' it.