Sliding into Home Plate . . .

It seems that these past two months have been about craziness. Or cascade effects – one thing leading to another.

I got my sewing cabinet by paying for it and leaving 3 weeks between purchase and delivery. To make it work I had to move a book case and a tansu; the book case to the garage, the tansu to the studio. To put the book case into the garage meant at least 5 trips to the Goodwill donation site, and moving around and discarding more crap than anyone else should be allowed to have. To put the tansu into the studio meant moving photography equipment into the garage and into the studio, taking up the space of a displaced book case.

To move stuff into the studio meant moving stuff out of the studio, consolidating art and photography supplies, moving books into the living room.

To make more room in the garage for book cases and photography stuff meant moving boxes of books from the garage into the living room. Boxes of books in the bedroom closet leapt out and moved into the living room as well. A call to the book buyer meant setting up a date for him to come by, and sorting out 25 boxes of keep and sell. Most were sell. Two book cases in the living room joined the sell pile, as did 3/4 of a book case in the family room.

The living room became the unliving room.

Meanwhile, the sewing cabinet was delivered and set up. Next, figuring out how to position it – facing the wall? facing the sliding doors? (The latter won out.)

Time for the book buyer. He arrived. He bought. I threw in what he didn’t want to buy. Now the living room is once more a room with room, and only one book case full of books.

In this mix, a quilting class is ongoing, my Pencil Portrait class ended, my painting continues, and a colored pencil drawing class begins tomorrow. I have to put together my drawing box with supplies for a new class, some different things, some new things, some old things. The class begins tomorrow at 9:30 a.m., and like the good kiddie I am, I want to be ready for the first day of school.

The finale came this morning. I took to the road, to a real, live, professional office store 30 miles away and got the last item: the chair for the sewing cabinet. Not some rinky-dink piece of junk, but a real chair that should last a long time, and keep me comfy for hours of sewing. Mine is the one in the middle.

Finally, time for a breath, coffee, step out to admire the flowers, and then tidy up all that was left in chaos these past few days.

I have room on my book shelves, closet space, living room space, sewing space, art space, and enough room in the garage to swing a cat under the full moon.

More still needs be done, such as hanging pictures and more garage purging, but the big struggle is done. Time now to settle in and see how it all works out.

Yay!

WWM #14: Furry Things

WWM #14: Furry Things – A “Wooley Bear” Caterpillar

Furry things – what could that be?  A weird bit of fabric, fuzzy socks, your husband’s bewhiskered face.  For me, caterpillars!  When I was a kid in the middle of nowhere, furry caterpillars were our playmates.  They were so beautiful and soft, and you couldn’t tell which end was the front until it moved.  We used to race them.

WWM #14: Furry Things – From a Video by Maria Raczynska

Besides caterpillars, cats are wonderfully soft and fuzzy.  I really like cats, but with a household more inclined to dogs at present, I admire them from afar.  Cats are such characters – nutty, languid, predatory.  A cat’s personality is unique and their expressions priceless.

When I was thinking of the prompt for today’s prompt for #WorldWatercolorMonth2019, I realized I could use a bit of thought about how to paint fur.  For the caterpillar, it was clear in my mind – I just referred to some photos to see how they might look.  On YouTube, of course I looked up “fur watercolor” – so many came up.  The one I thought was best was the one below, by Maria Raczynska.  One reason it is a good video is that the final painting is well executed, and she also shows you the reference photo at the beginning.  Watching this video – which is rather longish – was worthwhile.  I actually learned a lot from it while still doing my own thing.  Resources like videos make learning anything so much better.

For “Furry Things” I have two items this time.  Both worked out really well and I felt really confident while I painted.  Some days it just comes together – and today was one of them.

Kitty Bliss

Charlie over at Doodlewash set up a September paint-along calendar – something I think he does every month.  September 1st is orange cats.  September is Pet Rocks.  Initially, I thought I would combine the two, but the fact is, Pet Rocks are not in my lexicon of “things I like” so I thought I’d just go with the orange cat.

I think it will be fun to at least get some inspiration from whatever subject near the date I pick up a brush.  Sometimes some structure or direction helps you get off your dupa and get moving.

Have you ever tried drawing animals?  Cats and rats or mice seem to be ones I “get”!

 

Retrospective Introspection

Admittedly I have been feeling rather sorry for myself.  I get like this when I have no time to sit down and think about life and what I want to do with it.  Thursday I walked into my office at work and was just unable to make choices as to what to pursue next.  Oh, there were a lot of things to be done, but it seemed just so overwhelming and the mere act of choosing what to do was impossible.   The best thing to do in these circumstances – for me, at least – is to sit down with paper and pen and begin to write.  Five pages later, the world was in order once more.

Writing is therapeutic.  It’s like the pensieve of the Harry Potter stories.  I pull out thoughts and ideas and frustrations, and when they are all placed onto paper, there is structure found amidst the chaos.

Painting is much the same process as writing; however, I often feel pulled into different directions.  I never focus on one style.  The consistent factor is my use of water-soluble media and paper, but other than that, I don’t have a particular style.  Consequently, I am not as accomplished as I would like to be in watercolor.  I like many of my ink paintings and the simpler watercolors that are based on sumi-e.  Traditional watercolors are often disastrous failures.  Acrylic paints are not my favorite medium, but there are times when I have used them to create more graphic pictures.

Today, I went through my hard drive to look at some of the paintings I have scanned or photographed over the past year or two, and pulled out some which appealed to me for whatever reason – sort of a retrospective of the work of the last few years.  Here they are, not in any particular order, but just for me and anyone who wants to look at them to see and consider.