nanke's stuff

Here's the first of the "stuff".  We've been in Nashville visiting our grandchildren and their parents.  Now, don't get me wrong - we went to visit their parents in Nashville long before there were children, and we love seeing the grownups just as much as ever.  That said, there's nothing like being a grandparent and hanging out with the babes.  (Our almost-four-year-old wouldn't like being referred to as a "babe" at all, so please don't tell him).  As always, we had a wonderful time with everyone, but especially the boys (one 4, and one just 1).  I won't bore you with all the fun things we did with them (like many, many, trips to Kroger - one of the 4 yo's faves), but suffice it to say that I would go back in a heartbeat just to hug those little guys one more time!

Anyhow, I did manage to do just one drawing while we were there.  It's a drawing of a table in their front room (which used to be my husband's parents), using a sketchbook I haven't used in years (literally) and a Micron pen.  When we got home I tried to scan it and post to my blog.  I can't even begin to tell you all the problems I had with the scanner - suffice it to say that I'm grateful that I still have hair on my head!

So, even though I have a lot of grandchildren stories,  I'll spare you and just show you the sketch.   For some reason it's reversed, but after all the trouble I had, I wasn't about to try to fix it...

As some of you may know,  cataract surgery a couple of months ago on both eyes.  One works fine, the other needed a bit of "tweaking" (the doctor's word, not mine), which I had done on Tuesday of this week.   As it turns out, it really was a kind of tweak.  He did it in his office, as opposed to an operating room where the first surgery was done), and it took about 5 or 10 minutes.  Since I had an astigmatism in that eye, he needed to make a couple of cuts in my cornea to make it round again.  I know, it sounds awful, but really, it was a piece of cake.    I can see better out of that eye now, it feels a bit scratchy (not itchy, but more like there's a bit of something in it), and I have had no pain in it at all.

As some of you also may know, I pass the time in waiting rooms by sketching the other folks who are also waiting for something or someone.  While I didn't do any sketching Tuesday (I got taken right in), I had to go back yesterday for my "post-op" check.  I did have a bit of waiting to do for that appointment, so I did a bit of sketching.  These aren't the best sketches I've done in similar circumstances (the light was dim and the room was crowded, so I had people right next to me, causing me to assume a rather awkward position to keep my drawing rather hidden).   But in the interest of Truth in Posting, here they are.  Oh, and by the way, I'm in the process of figuring out exactly how I want to construct Mobile 2, so I'll post a picture of that when I have something to show you! 





Unfortunately, as you can see, the paper in this book is quite thin, and you can see shadows of what's behind each drawing.  Also, my favorite Micron pen was nowhere to be found, so these were done with ballpoint pen .... not my fave!

When I sat down with my sketchbook I was not in the best of moods.   Nothing was wrong except that I was out of sorts..... restless .... unfocused .... thinking negatively.  I couldn't think of a single thing I wanted to do - I mean not one single thing.  So, I sat with my sketchbook and stared at the blank page.  Finally I drew a rectangle with pencil, drew a single looped line from one edge to the other, and started  with my trusty Micron 01 pen to make marks.  You may be able to tell by looking at it where I began making marks, but just in case you can't guess, I'll tell you.  I started filling in the loop.  I looked at what I had done and felt even worse.   It was dark and cramped - in other words, it looked just like I felt.  I kept going - another line, more shapes.  Little by little the drawing doodle began to change.  I didn't notice it at first, but then I got interrupted by a phone call, and when I came back to it, I realized that not only had the drawing changed, but so had my mood.  I was feeling better.  I decided to start adding a bit of color to it.  The color I started with was blue .... surprised?  After awhile other colors began to show up until, in the end, both the drawing and I were appearing quite cheery.

There's a definite lesson here for me.  It's not a new one, mind you, but it is one that I seem to have great difficulty remembering.  Maybe I should take out this page, frame it, and hang it where I can see it each and every time I come into my studio ..... what do you think?

OK, I'll start with the recycling part.  I have lots of paper from my printer of things that for one reason or another didn't work out for me.  Some things I used and then didn't need anymore, others just made crummy copies ... it doesn't matter - I just kept all that paper.  I use it sometimes to test colors on when I'm painting, I use it when I glue things to protect my drawing table, but mostly it just sits in a pile.  Then I started doing contour drawings (mostly blind).  I really didn't want to use my good sketch books for them, and then I had this idea.  I would make little books out of the used copy paper!

What I did was put two sheets together, printed sides facing each other.  Then I used double sided tape to tape together the 4 corners.  I folded them in 1/2, also folded an 8.5" x 11" piece of card stock in half, and then used my sewing machine to sew them together.  I put 3 of my folded sheets in each booklet, giving me 12 pages to draw on!

Here's a picture of my first booklet, along with a couple of my blind contours.  I've made notes to myself on some of the drawings if I took a peek along the way.  I marked where each line started and ended, numbering them so I can tell later on what I did.  Hope this makes some sort of sense to you!

It was suggested that I do a drawing with my left hand (dominant) to compare it with the one done with my right hand (non-dom),  so today I took a bit of time to do just that.  My brush marker is almost out of ink, so I did minimal work on her hair.  As a result it looks like she has a new hair style.  Actually what happened is that the humidity got so high (90% here), that her hair fell.   I can relate, and she has my full sympathy.  I may do a few more pairs of drawings, just for the fun of it.    There are different things I think work with each of them.  I thought about using pencil, but to make a better comparison, using ink again seemed like the way to go.

I do love using pencil, as you know, so maybe with the next set I'll do that.  Although, that could very well make me  crazy  crazier what with all the erasing, shading, changing, fretting and fussing.

OK, so all of the non-dominant  hand drawings have been pretty small so far.  In the world of large drawings, this one is also small, but it is quite a bit larger than the other ones I've done.   Even tho it doesn't look like the model I used, I'm pleased with the way it turned out.  The proportions are pretty accurate and it just works better than the other ones.  I anticipated that doing a drawing larger would be more difficult, but actually it wasn't any harder than the other ones were.

I did find that I had to turn the paper upside down to work on the right side of the drawing.  Also, I found it interesting to find that sometimes my hand was in the "left-handed" position while I drew ... that is sort of curved over the top of what I was doing, with my hand above where I was drawing.  Oddly, I don't do that with my left hand when drawing or writing, unlike many lefties.  (My sister, Maryanne  almost always wrote that way,  unless she had her hand in some sort of crab-like position under the line of writing and wrote backhand).   So, here is my "large" drawing ... 5.5" x 8.5", done with Micron pens and a Micron brush pen.

Today was beastly hot and humid ... finally it rained, which helped.  I was home in the morning, then off with a friend in the afternoon - thankfully everywhere I was had air conditioning (wimp that I am).  After dinner (homemade pizza which we have almost every Friday, being somewhat boring bears), I did 2 very quick sketches with my right hand.  Considering how long I spent on the 2 of them (maybe 6 or 7 minutes), I think they're not too bad.  But here's the thing.  Spending such a short time on them gives me the illusion of having an excuse for their not being being very good - pretty sly!  Except it's not working since I can see right through me.

One of these days soon I'll spend more time on doing just one to see what happens.  Until then, here's what I've got.

I've been sick since last week and haven't done a bit of art.  Hence I haven't posted anything on my blog.  As I'm sure all of you know, Haiti has suffered a catastrophic earthquake killing thousands of people.  At times like this it's so hard to know how best to help.  I'm a registered nurse (retired), but whenever I see and hear about things like this I feel like I should join an organization that sends nurses into disaster areas to assist.  I know that for a number of reasons, this would not be a good thing to do - not for those who need help, and not for me.  So, what I can do is send a bit of money.

There is a website that rates charitable organizations to help donors decide which charity will make the best use of the money they receive.  It is www.charitywatch.org  There you can check out any group you are considering to make sure that the maximum amount you donate will actually get to the people who need it.    If your mailbox is like mine, not a day goes by without some organization asking for money.  The problem is that most of them are very worthwhile causes.  We have narrowed our charitable giving to a few select groups, as I'm sure most of you have.  Haiti is one of, if not The, poorest country in the western world.  They are desperate and need all the help we can give them.  If you can spare $5 or $10, you can make a difference.  There's power in numbers.  Please help if you can.

I hope I haven't offended any of you with this request.  This is the first time I've ever asked anyone to do anything like this.  But the magnitude of this tragedy is more than I can comprehend and I just felt compelled to do something.  Thanks for taking the time to read this long post, and thanks to all of you who are able to help.

I recently signed up for an on-line class taught by Nicolette Anderson.  The class was organized through Artists of the Round Table, an on-line art group I belong to.  I've wanted to learn how to do calligraphy for many years, but the problem is, I'm left-handed.  I know, I know ..... some of the best calligraphers are lefties.  But - here's the thing.  Every book I've either bought or just picked up and read pertaining to left-handed calligraphy says pretty much the same thing.  You have to put your paper in a really odd position (some even said upside down!), in order to keep from dragging your hand over the letters as you make them.  I'm not a leftie who does that keep-your-hand-above-your-writing thing by crabbing your hand all around.  (My sister, Maryanne, did that, and it always looked so painful to me). 

So, when this class came up, I decided I'd give it a go.  Here's what I decided:  I would learn how to do it with my right hand!  It just seems to me that if I want to do it at all, it's going to take some major brain work getting accustomed to working in a whole new way.   So, since that was going to be the case, why not just learn how to do it with my right hand?  Of course, this may just be one of those hairpin ideas you get in the middle of the night, but what the heck - if it works I'm ecstatic, if not, well, I will probably have plucked out all my hair in frustration, but then think of all the money I'll save on haircuts ..... enough to buy some more of those calligraphy for lefties books!

The first assignment was to print a standard basic alphabet, then do 4 more that we modified in some way.  There's a couple of mistakes that I just crossed out (I had already done them several times and didn't want to start them all over again), but all in all, for my first right-handed try, I feel pretty OK with them.  So, here they are:

Well, here are 3 more of the ATCs I've made to send to the Canadian exhibit. The one on the top is made from a scrap of denim material that I cut from an old pair of jeans I was getting rid of. I embroidered the clouds, flowers, and grass, added the sheep and sun charms, then used a blanket stitch to both attach the backing fabric and to keep it from fraying. I wasn't sure how I was going to add all the info to the back of this one, so what I ended up doing was spraying the fabric with workable fixative and then using my trusty Micron Pen. It worked really well!

The one on the bottom left has a page of text from an old book, a snippet of an old letter (I bought a pack of old letters at a garage sale), 2 old foreign postage stamps, and a packing tape transfer. I forget whose face it is, but I think he was a contemporary of Queen Elizabeth I ..... sorry about that, old chap.

The last one is ink and colored pencil. The shells were collected in Florida by a friend of mine who generously shared them with me .... Thanks Judy!

Well, these are the first ATCs for the Canadian swap that I'm planning to participate in. As I mentioned before, I'm going to try to use different techniques on each one of them (I have to send in 9). The bird is done with watercolor pencils with a wee bit of ink on the wisps of the plant. The "Peace Is Possible" card has a background made of paper towel painted with Lumiere paint, a postage stamp, words typed on my really old manual typewriter, and a bird image cut from an old greeting card. And the last card has a chalk background with a stamp that has been colored in with colored pencils (my apologies - I haven't recorded where Any of my stamps came from, but I will start doing that), stamped words, and a small charm glued in the corner.

I don't know what I'm going to do next - maybe a few different transfer methods. Suggestions are always welcome!