nanke's stuff

I haven't been doing much - the illness I had in March never completely went away and I've been trying to behave.  Behaving has never been my strong suit, but I've been doing my best.    Anyhow, I haven't worked on my man at all, but while sitting on the porch recently I decided to try my hand at something "arty".  I have to use the word loosely in this case.

So  first I did an ink sketch, and then later I used watercolors to fill it in a bit.   I'm not very happy with it, but on the other hand, at least I put an implement in my hand and did something with it!  So, without further adieu, here is my humble offering.

So, what do these two things have in common?  Well, if you're anything like me, there's a very strong similarity.  I'll start with exercise.  It's very good and healthy for me to do it .... ditto for art.  Sometimes I put off doing it .... ditto for art.   Once I finish doing it, I feel terrific .... ditto for art.   But, here's the biggest thing they have in common for me.   The longer I go without doing it, the harder it is for me to start up again.  Also, the more reasons and excuses I find not to do it, the worse I feel and the  more distressed I become.  

I haven't posted anything here for a month - I think that's a record for me.  It's not because I haven't thought about it.  It's not because I haven't had time, although we did a wee bit of traveling during that time and I also had a bit of a problem with my eye (the one that will be operated on this coming Wed.).  I can't even honestly say it's because I didn't have any art to show you - Vicki and I took a wonderful book binding class last weekend at Hollander's, and I could post pictures of the books I made (I will do that soon, though).  No, it's because I "fell off the camel" so to speak, and I just haven't been able to pick myself up, dust myself off, and jump back on again.   So, I decided that today's the day.  (Ironically, I have to hurry because we're going to a birthday party soon, and I still have to wrap the presents).

Just another quick thing.  I've been wanting to go back to the Ann Arbor Art Center to their life drawing studio.  It's been a really long time since I've been there, but I want to start going regularly on Friday afternoons (great timing - it's about to get really snowy here and the drive takes about 40 minutes in the summer).  Of course I haven't gone yet, but here are a couple of things I did back when I Was going regularly.  I post them here to give me the incentive to get off my tush and get myself going!

I have started avocado plants from pits before, and I decided I wanted to grow one again.  I know how to do it ..... toothpicks in their sides, hang them in water, they sprout roots and grow a shoot, and you plant them in dirt.  Well, I've been trying for several months to do it again.  I hung pits in water for weeks and weeks with nothing happening except they got rotten.  I don't like to give up once I start something, so I just kept at it.   Finally, one of the pits grew long roots.  It had about 5 of them, and I left it in the water until the roots were about 4 inches long.  It still didn't have a shoot coming out the top.   So, I put some dirt in a little pot and planted it, leaving the top of the pit uncovered.  All summer long I watered it, talked to it, turned it so different sides faced the sun, but still nothing. 
And then, one day I went outside and voila!!!! There was a tiny shoot sticking up!  It seemed to take forever, but little by little it began to grow.  And now, just look at its magnificent self!!!  It has leaves ...  it has a long "trunk" .... it's sturdy .... I love it!!!  I just hope I can keep it alive all winter.  Wish me luck!

Well, as always, things have been very busy.  We had a great time in Nashville (our son graduated from college, we got to hang out with our 2 year old grandson, both of our sons were there with us, and only one of our DILs was missing due to an unavoidable out of town trip..... more on that later!).  The weather was waaaaay too hot for those of us who live in the mitten, but no matter - we just stayed inside all the time.  And, just to add frosting to the cake, our new graduate got a new job today!!!!   Not easy in this economy, and we're really excited for him and his family.

On another note, my friend, Vicki, and I went to Ann Arbor on Tuesday for a bit of "drawing in the wild".  It was a lot of fun, although I'm not thrilled with my output.  The weather cooperated, it's always fun to hang out with her, and we had a great lunch together.  I tried out my new water pens (I think that's what they're called - those tubes you fill with water and they have brushes on the ends).  I bought a set of 4 - 3 sizes of round brushes and 1 flat brush.  So, here is the piece I did with them.  I've missed blogging, so I'm glad to be back.

On another quick note - someone is using my email address to post on some of the art groups I belong to.  I think it's really a shabby thing to do, and I don't know if there's on darn thing I can do about it.  Whoever you are ..... shame on you!!  Use your own address to post your phony baloney things.  Enuf said!!!!


This is called, "The Talking Head" .... my model up and left me.  : ( so I just added the background.  I see that the chair seems to be floating .... perhaps I'll add a shadow or 2!

Yesterday I was meeting a friend at Panera Bread Co. for lunch, and I got there early.  I knew I would be early as I had an appointment in the area that I was certain would finish in plenty of time for me to get there before my friend.  I wanted to score a booth - I like the privacy and comfort of booths, but they can be hard to get.  Sure enough, when I got there all the booths were filled, so I took a small table where I could eyeball the booths, whipped out my new sketchbook, and settled in.  I just got going on my first sketch when  a booth emptied - I was on it in a flash!  The cost of the booth was a partially finished sketch, and I was sitting where I couldn't see my subject anymore. 

Undaunted, I just started a new one, and soon my friend arrived.  (We had a great lunch, a great chat, but sadly, no dessert).  But, I digress.  Back to my new journal.  It's by Savoir Faire and it's filled with handmade paper.  I had no idea what it would be like to draw or paint in, so I was very interested in what happened.  I used my .005 Micron pen which was a bit too fine for the roughness of the paper, but it wasn't all bad.  I did the painting at home tonite, and I used a Very Old Set of pan watercolors by Pelikan. (It's the first set of watercolors I bought as an adult, and I think I've had them about 30 years ... no lie!)  The paintings are nothing to write home about, but I think I do like the sketchbook and the paper.  I have to work with it a bit more to be sure - it's very different from what I'm used to, but it was fun to play with.   So, here they are - the guy who got stood up (I made that up), and the woman who had such a great story to tell, her friend's hair stood on end (I made the story part up, but her hair really was standing up on end).

I've been hungry for watercolor for quite some time.  I think about it, eat,  pace around pondering, eat, read about it, eat, ..... well, I bet you get the idea.  I've been avoiding it.  Why?  Well, the truth is Fear.  Yes, that old voice in the head that keeps saying, "You don't know how to do it.   You can't even think of what to paint.  Just get out a pencil (with a Big Eraser), or maybe do a collage".  It causes great anxiety in me sometimes.  My reasonable self knows what's happening, and also, there's always my mantra (it's only a piece of paper, what's the big deal), and yet, here I am dithering and blithering around. 

So, today I bit the bullet.  I decided to start out small .... just dip a toe in, so to speak.  I got out my jar of shells and my trusty .005 Micron pen and went to work.  It's modest .... small .... tentative.  But, It's Watercolor!!   Hooray for me!!!  I have to go lie down now with a cool cloth on my head to recover.

Yesterday my dear friend Vicki and I went to a wonderful resale shop in Jackson, Mi, where I bought a punch bowl.  No, I'm not making any punch, but I've been wanting a couple of goldfish for quite awhile, and having learned that each goldfish needs one gallon of water (!) to swim in, and not wanting to pay $12 for a 2 gallon bowl if I could help it, I decided to look for one while we were out.  Success!  It's  a perfect bowl for them - even has roses sort of embossed in the glass ... all for only $4.  Such a deal!

Anyhow, when I got home (early because it was snowing and the roads were getting pretty dicey), I decided to try my hand at a Mandala.  Now, if I were more computer savvy, I would have a great video right here that you could click on, but since I'm not, I'll direct you to Vicki's blog where you can click on it.  You really need to visit her blog anyway - it's so interesting, informative, and wonderful.  You can visit her blog here and find the link to the Mandala video: http://vickiholdwick.blogspot.com/2010/01/doodling.html

I did quite a bit on the Mandala yesterday, then at 1:00 AM, Abby (our sweet, but sometimes annoying dog) decided it was a good idea to go out, so since I knew my turn at sleeping was over, I got up and noodled about in the studio.  After finishing the drawing, I tried out some of the different inks that my sweetie gave me when he cleaned out his home office over the weekend.  I had to supplement them with yellow watercolor since there wasn't any yellow ink, and I watered them down quite a bit because the color was more intense than I wanted it, but it was fun to play with.   As Mandalas go, this is about as basic as they get, but for my first attempt, I'm pretty happy with it!  Thank you, Vicki!

It's been too long since I've posted - things have been pretty busy around here. Most recently, we discovered we've become the home for yellow jackets and another kind of wasp. Now I don't mind the bees and things, as long as they stay in their place - which is outside!! Last week I started seeing (and killing) bees in our kitchen. At first just one or two a day, but by Friday, I was killing several of them a day. Then I discovered the floor of the furnace room in the basement littered with their little yellow jacket bodies, and several of them hovering around inside the window. Time to call the exterminator!
It took several phone calls: "sorry, mam, we only kill mammals", "sorry, mam, we can't come for a couple of days", "sorry mam, we don't go out as far as you live". You'd think that exterminators would do a great business out here in Hooterville where all the critters live, but nooo. Finally this morning I found a nice man who would come out today! Yea!!! They're called Maples Exterminators, for anyone who lives in Livingston County, Michigan (they go to other counties, too). So, as the nice man in his space suit was outside spraying the dickens out of the little buggers, I stayed in the studio playing. I could hear the buzzing in the walls - it was a bit disconcerting, but I kept at it, working on a mixed media page in my journal. I had to go to the window in the guest room and watch from time to time, but I was afraid he would look up and be startled to find me staring at him and fall off his ladder, poison and all. He went around the house and ended up spraying 3 separate places outside and then came in to spray in the furnace room. He said it could take up to a week for all the bees to die ... I'm betting they'll be gone before then.
So, here is what I did while he worked. I like parts of it, and parts of it I don't like at all, but all things considered, it's a wonder I got it finished!


P.S. I just noticed that I spelled the name of the plant wrong .... it's Caladium!

Well, the last 2 days have been pretty busy, and I haven't really done much drawing. I've been working on an ATC (I'm sooo slow) that isn't finished yet, and I want to complete it and one other before I post them. I do have some rather quick ink and watercolor sketches of a few more garden dwellers. The ivy is done with colored pencil, everything else is ink and watercolor.

I really had trouble with the leaves of the begonia plant. I was using a very limited set of watercolors and just couldn't get the color right. Oh well, one more thing to practice, right? I have a wee vase on my drawing table with some flowers in it to draw, but I fear they may wilt before I can get to them. Maybe I'll draw them anyway ..... nah, probably not!

Sometimes I have a hard time trying to decide what to do in my art journal. I live pretty far out in the country, and it takes about half an hour to get to someplace where I can sit and unobtrusively draw people, which I dearly love to do. So, recently I decided that I would start to document the various plants we have growing around our house. I called this post "Garden Plants" (originally it was called "Garden Flowers", until I realized that many of the things growing here are weeds ... like the green stuff we call our lawn), so that I can include drawings of plants that are no longer flowering, or maybe never will. Anyhow, all of the things I drew for this first of a series are blooming as I write this, and I'm going to try to add at least 1 plant each day. All of these were done with ink and watercolor.

I'm also working on the ATCs I'm going to send to Canada soon for an exhibit in Richmond, British Columbia. I have enough cards that I've made in the past, but I'd sort of like to send 9 (the required amount) that I made just for the exhibit and trade. I'm finishing the second one now, and will post them 3 at a time as they are completed. I'm going to try to do them using 9 different styles and techniques. More on that later!
So, here's the first 3 plant drawings!

Today it's hot and humid, the sky is gray, and it's threatening to rain. The wind is blowing so hard I can't sit out on the porch .... even Abby the dog wants to stay inside. But here inside, it feels really good. It's cool, smells like the banana bread I made this morning, dinner will be easy (salad with leftover steak in it, smothered in homemade blue cheese dressing and really good, crusty bread which I didn't make), and the house is more or less in order. I don't even have to iron anything to wear for my day at the Health Dept. tomorrow! I talked on the phone with my son Andrew, who will be coming over Saturday with his wonderful, fun wife Carrie, to cook dinner for us. "Us" being Michael and I, Ben, Sarah, and super-baby Clyde. What more could a woman want?
So, as I sat with my trusty Micron Pens, I found myself doing a whimsical nothing that just begged to be colored in with a variety of watercolor pencils. What a great day!