nanke's stuff

I've read about a project involving doing 100 portraits.  I'm so impressed by the very idea, but I have to say, I find the thought of it quite daunting.  I've been pondering the whole thing for quite some time, and this is what I've come up with.  I've decided to commit to doing 5 portraits.   Then I'll try 5 more.   Is it cowardice?  Fear of commitment?  Fear of failure?  Lack of stamina?  ...... I don't know.  Probably a bit of all of that, and depending on the day, more of 1 thing than another.   But right now, that approach feels much more doable.

So, today I started.  I did this one in ink in my 5.5 x 8.5 sketchbook.  That's the book I rely on when I'm feeling less than secure about what I'm doing.  I decided to use ink, even though I dearly love graphite for portraits, because with ink what you put down stays.  For me that inevitably leads to less than perfect images (as though I've ever achieved perfection in anything I've done, regardless of the medium) which is both a challenge and a comfort.  The challenge is obvious, but the comfort for me is that the expectation I have of myself is a tad lower than if I'm using pencil.

Even though the sketchbook is small, the sketch itself is even smaller (about 2.5 x 4).  I expect that as I get more confident the sketches will get larger ... or not.  So, here he is.....

 Well, I'm still trying to draw something everyday, but I'm finding that it's so far Most days at best..  I have spent this weekend shredding.  No, not Shedding, Shredding ... as in papers.   About 12 years ago we were involved in a lawsuit dealing with insurance fraud.  In the capacity of Powers of Attorney for my parents, my sweetie and I bought a home here in Michigan for them while they made all the arrangements to move back here from Nevada.  The broker offered credit life insurance as part of the deal - my parents wanted it, so we went ahead and bought it.  To make a long story short, it was a scam.  The broker took the money in a lump sum for the insurance, never filed the paperwork with the insurance company, and when my stepfather died a few months later, they wanted to refund the premium money rather than honor the policy (no surprise, since there wasn't a policy).  A lawsuit ensued which the "enemy" lost, ending in a much larger payout than if they had just paid the face value of the policy in the first place.

Fast forward to this weekend.  As a result of having to have a new furnace installed, I had to clean out the furnace room.  There are many boxes filled with who knows what, but a prominent one contained all the paperwork from the lawsuit.  I shredded that paper all day Friday while the furnace guys were here.  I shredded most of the day yesterday.  I shredded a good part of the day today.  I filled 13 large trash bags with the shredded paper!  My sweetie walked by me yesterday while I was shredding (using a terrible shredder that kept jamming in the process) and remarked that it was like a prison sentence.  That made me feel a lot better about it.

Anyhow, a moment ago I took up my ballpoint pen, looked down and there was Abby - she's an old, faithful Springer Spaniel who only wants to be loved on and petted.  Well, she also wants cookies, but other than that, she makes no demands. And yes, she sees herself as the Queen of the Domain ... which she is.   I took a wee bit of paper (2 x 2) and did this quick sketch of her face.  It's not much, but it's what I have today.  I figure at least it's something.

Today my sweetie had an appointment with his doctor, so we went to Ann Arbor.  While he was in with the doc, I sat in the waiting room and did a couple of quick sketches of others who were waiting.  I also had a book with me (an anniversary present from my sweetie, and I've been savoring it - it's called Clare and Mr. Tiffany  [yes, of Tiffany glass]) so I also spent some of my waiting time reading.  Then, after we got home, because tomorrow is the day our new furnace is going to be installed, I went right to work on clearing space in the furnace/storage room in the basement.

Now, I don't know about your storage area, but ours tends to get a tad cluttered over the years.  Since our younger son and his wife and our grandchildren live in Tennessee, I find myself hoarding boxes that I can use to mail things.  I think I had enough boxes down there to pack the children's things when they go off to college (1 of them is an infant, and the other one is 3).   In addition, there were/are all sorts of things that seemed necessary to keep once, but in light of actually having to move them for work to be done, their importance quickly diminished greatly.  That said, I couldn't exactly bring myself to toss them since many of them are perfectly good, so I ended up moving them into the "library" in order to pack them up and take them to the Salvation Army.   In writing this, I also realized that the boxes I could use to transport the things to the S. Army are now neatly collapsed and in the trunk of my car so that I can take them to the recycle center. ...... Sigh.... 

So, without further adieu, here are the modest sketches I did today. 

Well, it's been way too long since I've posted to my blog, but I've been totally in the midst of artistic doldrums.   No whining ... no complaining .... no explaining .... we've all heard it (and some have experienced it) countless times before.  Suffice it to say that even though what is here isn't a drawing, I did manage to get something down on paper (it took me a long time - not because of degree of difficulty, but because of ... well, You know).  Then, after I got finished with the ink doodles, I decided to put color in it.  That was fun, but another way to procrastinate, if truth be told.

In the meantime, during my angst, we had a bunch of work done on the house, all of which started with a crack in the caulk around the bathtub that I became worried about - I just kept having visions of the dreaded black mold.  Since we've caulked it before, I thought we should maybe hire someone to do put some ceramic tile around the tub to take care of the problem once and for all (assuming there wasn't any mold).  Well, to make a long story short, $4000 later we got that crack in the caulk taken care of, along with a number of other things involving a plumber, tile men, painters, a drywall man, and a wonderful carpenter!!!  And, thankfully, there wasn't a speck of  mold to be found.  God help us if I notice a burned out lightbulb!  Then, a couple of weeks ago we had our annual well-baby check on our furnace.  Baby isn't so well after all.  We have to get a new one ... goodby $5400 more!!!!  ouch!  (Is it any wonder I've been a tad out of sorts?  lol)

So, now I'm back.  Yes, please note the declarative tone of that last sentence.  I've done my time in the Cave of Uncertainty, so now I think it's Abby's turn.  Abby is our dog, and she's not uncertain about anything, so I think she'll do just fine, thank you!

Last Thursday my friend Vicki and I went to a life drawing group of the  Jackson Civic Art Association.  I hadn't done any life drawing for years, and was a tad nervous about doing it, especially with a group of people I'd never met before.  They couldn't have been any nicer!  Both Vicki and I were welcomed by a small group of very friendly women (later a man named Gordon joined us), and I felt comfortable being with them right away.  The model was a beautiful young woman named Iris, a daughter of one of the artists.  Iris was an experienced model, and she was a joy to draw.  This group uses clothed models, and they pose for 20 minutes at a time - no short warm up poses to start with.  So, my first drawing was my warm-up.

I decided to focus on doing portraits.  Iris has the most beautiful face and hair, and it was a real pleasure to draw her.   I only took charcoal pencils with me,  and I think next time I'll take along some graphite pencils, too.   I did get interrupted by a phone call that I had to take (I had my phone on "vibrate only", in case you're clucking at my rudeness), so I tiptoed out to the hall to take the call, then tiptoed back in when I was finished.  Because of the call, I only spent 10 or 12 minutes on one of the poses, and it shows.  I'm thinking I might play around with at least one of them a bit more, now that I've shown them to you "in the raw",  just to see how far I can take it.  If I do, I'll post it  so you can see if there's any improvement.  I'm not entirely pleased with them, but maybe playing  a bit will make a difference.

I hope you have a super week .... that's what I'm planning on doing!



 

I wanted to draw, but as often happens, not much was appealing to me to do.   Personally, I think it's my inner critic in a snit, but today I ignored her.  So, after wandering around for awhile actually talking right out loud to myself (to the confusion of the dog who  thinks that all conversations are to and about her).  Fortunately my sweetie wasn't here.

I decided to start small, so I got out one of my sketch books, divided a page into sections with a Micron pen (.005, my favorite) and chose one of my necklaces to sketch.  It didn't take long before I was immersed in what I was doing, so when I finished the first one, I chose another one.  After all the sections were filled on the page with different necklaces, I decided to forge ahead by adding color.  When all the color was added I, rather compulsively, proceeded to fool around with a border.  I'm not sure it adds anything to the thing as a whole, but I had a good time doing it.  And, I just might start adding color to it when I'm finished with this post .....

We've been having a lot of problems with our internet connection, and finally got a whole new system.  I think this one will work better than the last one (meaning faster).  We live in an area where our choices are dial-up (we've had that and it's slow enough to make you crazy), satellite, or wireless.  There's actually another choice which we've tried,  it's like another cell phone or something.  Can you tell I'm not very skilled or informed about these things?  We just switched to wireless which we began yesterday, and after having a wee problem with it, I think maybe now it's working ..... I really, really, hope so.

Anyhow, I've finished the Man.  Well, that is, I've done as much on him as I'm going to do this go around.  I'll probably tackle him again, but it may be years .... no really, before this dance with him, it had been many years since we connected.  As you can see, his hat and clothing weren't the focus of this drawing.  I find his face both compelling and challenging to draw, and as interesting as I find him, I also lose patience with him after awhile.  He really doesn't say much, though I talk to him constantly when we're together.  So, without further ado, here he is: