nanke's stuff

I can't believe it, but the studio is finished .... well, at least my part of it is. As soon as I get the computer and scanner moved in, it will be totally complete. What a job it was, but so worth it now that it's over. I can actually see the entire top of my drawing table for the first time in years (really)! Thank you, thank you, thank you to Vicki for all the help and encouragement. Now I'm ready to get back to the Fun of art! So, as promised, here are some pictures of the finished product.

So, now I'm off to play! See you later.

Yesterday I got tons done in the studio. My sweetie helped me put together a small computer table and a small printer stand .... well, the truth is, I helped him. Mostly I handed him screws. Anyhow, after that I went back to work sorting, filing, tossing, and agonizing over what to keep and what to toss. In one of the many unmarked boxes, I found this teensy purse I made about a year ago. I made several of them just because they were so much fun and so cute. This is the last one I have left (I think ... who knows if another one will surface!), and I'm going to give it to my friend Vicki for her grand daughter. I'll tuck a dime inside - that's about the largest thing it can hold! As soon as I finish here, I'm going right back into the pit (soon I'll have to stop calling it that) to keep going.
Bye for now!

Well, I'm still working on rearranging the studio and I can finally begin to see the possibility of actually finishing the job someday. In going through literally everything, I've run across lots of things I forgot I had. That part of it has been fun. At times I felt like an archaeologist digging through layer after layer of history. So, I thought I'd share 2 of the ink drawings I did a few years ago since I haven't been able to do anything new for awhile. One of the things I love to draw is pot pourri. There are so many interesting shapes and textures in those bags. Sometimes I buy a bag that really stinks just because it has stuff in it I want to draw. The other drawing is buttons that used to belong to my husband's mother. She really had a batch of different ones, and it was great fun to draw them. I think I'll spend some time with the ink pens again soon, but in the meantime, I'd better get back to the pit and start working again!

Well, I've been back from Nashville for over a week now, and I've started a project that has needed to be done for a long time, but I always found a reason to avoid doing it. The "it" is reorganizing my studio. Some of my pals have seen it. I took over a small bedroom in our house and made it mine. It was fun to do, and it's grown over the years .... well, the room hasn't, but the stuff in it has. When I first set it up 10 years ago, I was working almost exclusively in watercolor and ink. I also did some work in fabric (dolls, quilts, and Christmas ornaments, mainly), which required a small amount of rearranging.

Next, I decided to dabble in mixed media. Holy smokes! That's when the accumulation of stuff really took off. I couldn't throw away Anything. I'm sure those of you who work in mixed media can totally relate. My room got smaller and smaller, as did the available space on my drawing table. Every now and again I would sort of beat back the clutter, but it didn't take very long before it was just too much to contemplate doing anything major about it.

That changed when my sweetie announced that we were going to get a new computer. Our current one lives in his "at-home" office, along with the scanner and fax machine. My ears perked up. I want the old one for my studio (along with the scanner, of course). But, there was no place at all to put it. Nope, not one teensy empty inch. My friend Vicki volunteered to help me. I tried to warn her, but she insisted (let's all hear it for Vicki)! I've been working on it every day since last Sunday, and it's still a total disaster, but I can see progress. I'm beginning to feel hopeful that one day it will all work out.

Just in case any of you think you have a messy studio, here are some pictures to convince you otherwise. Oh, and I didn't tell you that the mess has over-flowed into the guest bedroom as well as the hall and guest bathroom!

I'll post pictures when it's all finished!

Well, I thought I'd show you some dolls I made a few years ago before I leave for Tennessee (to celebrate the first birthday of our first grandchild!). We're only going for the weekend - driving down Friday and driving back on Monday. I'd like to stay longer, but I'll take what I can get!

These dolls are not toys, they're strictly for display. I sold a number of them in a gallery in Ann Arbor, but the gallery closed due to some family obligations of the owner. I've thought about putting them in my Etsy shop .... well, I've signed on to Etsy, but I haven't done anything since, so there really isn't a shop yet. Anyhow, the dolls are made completely of fabric (except for the stuffing and filler). The heads and paws are gessoed, painted with several coats of paint, then varnished with several coats of varnish. The end result is that they feel very leathery. I have 3 of the larger cats and 2 or 3 of the smaller ones left unsold. I think it may be time to find them new homes - what do you think?

I've had a pad of Yupo (synthetic watercolor paper) for a long time, but I've never used it. It isn't really paper - it's made of 100% polypropylene. I don't know what polypropylene is, but it doesn't sound very earth friendly to me. My friend Kathy, artist extraordinaire, has been painting on Yupo for a long time, and she loves it. The thing about it is, because it's so slippery, you have very little control over the paint. Having been called somewhat of a control freak (I won't mention by whom, Michael), I've been avoiding trying it. A few weeks ago my sweetie and I were killing time in Royal Oak, having taken 1/2 hour less time than we thought to get to my son's house, and we discovered a wonderful art supply store right there on Woodward Ave (it's called Utrecht's, I think). Anyway, they had these really cute little "towers" of watercolor paints for $3 or $4 dollars. They're made by Koh-i-noor, and I couldn't resist getting them. Since I wanted to give them a go, I decided to try the Yupo, too.

I cut a piece of Yupo into 4 pieces - a whole sheet seemed too daunting to begin with, and I began to paint. Now the painting is nothing to write home about, and I didn't use anywhere near all the colors (there's 24 of them), but I found that working on the Yupo wasn't quite as difficult as I thought it would be. I couldn't help but fiddle with it, trying to gain more control than it was giving me, but now that I've tried it once, I'll try it again, I'm sure. Kathy says that if you don't like what you've done, you can just wash it off and start again. I didn't try that, but I did try to remove some paint that had gone outside the lines I had drawn to work within. While the paint came off, it stained the surface. I used plain water, then I tried Windex, which got a bit more off than just the plain water. Maybe soap would work better, but I didn't feel like getting up to try it.

So, my friend said I should draw a picture of myself to use in the "About Me" info. What an assignment! I ended up with a drawing that is sort of a reasonable facsimile, but I got really tired of working on it, so I just decided to post it anyway. I find it much easier to draw someone else than myself. We never really see ourselves the way others see us. For example, I look much older "in the flesh" than I do in the drawing. I just couldn't get it right - maybe due to wishful thinking? We travel around looking out at the world from inside these "packages" we live in, unable to see what we really look like. When we see ourselves in the mirror, it is through eyes that already "know" what we look like, and that's what we tend to see. By drawing one's own portrait, we are forced to see our faces in an entirely different way - trying to see as an artist rather than just looking at it in a "business as usual" way. It's quite an eye-opener, so to speak!