The Cuckoo Bee

I started taking an art class last week.  It was exciting and new to have homework that involved drawing and rendering value.  I just learned that phrase.  It means shading.  So anyway of course I cannot show up in class next week without a cute pencil box! What would the teacher say!  Herewith is the step-by-step for this thing here:

1.

So, there are six faces to a box, and I used twelve different fabrics:  6 for the inside and 6 for the outside, you know.  The pieces I cut are 9 x 5.5 for the top and bottom, 9 x 3 for the front and back walls, and 5.5 x 3 for the sides.

2. 

I sewed a little hem around each side.  I didn’t pin or anything, just kind of measured against the little marks on the sewing machine plate.  They weren’t exactly the same but it all miraculously worked out anyway.

3.

Then I quilted directly onto each piece.  The reasoning for this is that we are going to put cardboard inside each wall, and I want it to be padded.

4.

This is the other side of that wall.  I did enjoy quilting different patterns on each one according to the fabric.

5.

Here we are in the process of making the wall sandwich.  I cut this cardboard out of a box.

6.

Sandwich.  I took the cardboard out to sew, and did three sides, and then put the cardboard in.  To sew it together I used the invisible ladder stitch that one uses for attaching quilt binding and that kind of thing.  That part was quite fun too.

7.

One finished side.  Five more to do.

8.

Side view.

9.

I was so happy to do this quilting I took a picture of some of the different sides.  There were no design issues with this at all.  Usually I fuss and stew over whether something should be this color or that, etc. but this time everything was speaking loud enough to drown out my thought process.

10.

Suddenly it’s finished.  After you do the other sides, assemble with more invisible ladder stitching.  I had a little latch that I cut off of a shirt sleeve a while back–you know how we rednecks love to cut the sleeves off our shirts.  I was saving it for just such an occasion as this.  It is actually kind of difficult to button but it does look cute–anyway the flap stays down nice and flat, because I made the padding on the inside half an inch too small (that was a fortuitous accident) (or I guess I could say serendipity) (if I wanted to repeat myself and never end this sentence)…anyway I only am going to use the button when I travel to drawing class.

11.

And here it is, full of pencils! The End.  Thanks for looking, reader.

I’m working on this.  It’s fun. I notice that the more time I spend drawing, the less able I am to talk or think of vocabulary words–I suppose that’s obvious, as usually I spend all day talking to myself and exercising that part of my brain whereas when I draw I am just humming “You are my flower” over and over again–the Flatt and Scruggs version, of course.  Of course.  Well the other first related thing I noticed was how unimportant it is to actually say a certain thing, or say the right thing, and how no one ever does say exactly the right thing (in my estimation, that is) but how irrelevant that is to their actual intent; like how your mommy and daddy are never able to adequately convey to you how important you are to them.   But no one else is able to convey that either, so it would be foolish to rely on their flawed communication, would it not? Since even if their communication were perfect, it would still leave a gap with their actual feeling?  And since most often there is not time to communicate, or we forget, and then when we remember it’s not the words that are important but the feeling.  Ahem.  Apparently I have a lot of things to tell you, reader, that I was not aware of five minutes ago.

Now my second revelation concerning what we say to each other is that I must never tell myself I shouldn’t have said something, or should have said something else.  In fact I must never judge myself for anything at all, either positive or negative, but just live.  Well.  That was revelatory for me.

Third, I mentioned earlier that our family is very annoying.  I now will add, in this same category of oral expression, that our family is also very loud.  My husband, if I do not constantly correct him, will start booming regardless of whether we are speaking together in an elevator, museum, or library, exactly as though he were trying to make himself heard over the noise of a crashing waterfall.  My younger son has a voice that I sometimes can feel literally causing the bones of my head to fracture–he has got both intensity and volume going for him.  The older boy is just loud.  I myself have a very piercing voice, and while I sometimes prefer not to speak, I never prefer not to shout.  I also like to sing very very loud, preferably something involving yodelling.  Now you know.  This concludes today’s thought process.  Adieu, reader.

Here is someone’s pattern that I made in about twenty minutes this morning.  The only painful part was sewing the buttons on because it is quite stuffed and one has to exert pressure with one’s sensitive little fingers. The tutorial is here:

http://www.instructables.com/id/SewUseful%2c-easy-and-practical-a-pin-cushion-made-u/

I believe there are 40 today.  Sigh.  Let’s go.

1  Here we have something I did a while ago, a silk screen print, and also a while ago added flowers…you know I do believe I posted this already.  No time to check, reader.  Must plow on.

2  Here is the second stuffed dachshund.  Rather larger than the other one.  I love the blue flowered fabric.

3  Here is front of doxie:

4 back of doxie:

5  Together with first one:

6  I have no idea why I never blogged about the first doxie except to mention it exists.  I love it and it is is good for hugging, nice to the children, etc.

7  One more of first doxie.

8  Now on to drawings.  I did this last night in my new Moleskine sketchbook, the paper of which is very smooth and wonderful and more cream colored than white, as is not apparent in this photo.  Husband.

9  Then son.  Husband was “helping” son play Super Mario Paper, chapter 2-4 I believe.

10  Mommy’s hand clutching Moleskine.

11  I got a whole bunch of Pigma Micron pens, and also Pitt Artist pens.  These are what they call technical pens, which give you a kind of technical line, as opposed to a brush pen or dip pen or other line that is more organic.  There is a guy whose art blog I found, whose name is Chris Hack, and he does amazing things with shading and cross-hatching using technical pens, which I find totally difficult and breathtaking the way he does em.  So one of his sketches is of a little stuffed dog, so I tried one like it, or started rather.

12  Then I tried to figure out how he does the shading.  Did not work so well here.

13  On the other hand, just using a #2 pencil gave fine results.  I like this one. Tivo changed my life.

14  Then using a more organic shading method, still with the technical pen, yielded better results, or perhaps it was the subject matter speaking as it apparently does directly to my heart.

15  I got some Caran D’Ache colored pencils that you can also use as watercolors.  Here is first attempt at coloring.  Some things okay, on the whole not so hot.

16  Also got a dip pen.  Comments are as recorded.

17  Another essay at shading with pencil plus palm tree in two tones of technical pen.

18 An early self-portrait.  Early meaning last month.

19  Not too crazy about this one that I did two days ago.  It bores me a little.

20  On the other hand I love this one, as you will see again three more times below.

21  Here is another self-portrait.  I was sitting in the bathroom on the step-stool watching my son take a bath and this is all I could see of my head.

22  Miscounted somewhere.  Good job, me!  Mistakes are our duty.

23  Same as above.  This was actually the first one I did.

24  Here is Huckle.  I did this years ago.  Isn’t that odd? I thought I never drew before. Huh.

25  This is my dorm room in my 3rd year of law school.  It was huge.

26  Pastel mis-tinte paper or whatever it’s called, can’t look now.  This was like a 6B pencil.  Very textured paper, as you can see.

27  Here is another early attempt at using the technical pen, actually it was my first because this was the Pigma Micron Sepia and I used the entire thing on this one drawing.  It kept getting darker and darker and I think I would have filled in the entire page as all one tone if the pen had not run out.  There are a lot of problems with this drawing but I did enjoy doing it.

28  My son lying in bed complaining about something.

29  I love this doodle of robot dog.

30  So here is the first time I ever used ink and a brush, and I decided to go ahead and use the illustration board I bought because my motto in art is “don’t be a pussy”.  I like to tell myself as I’m drawing to make the darks as dark as they really are and the highlights as white as they are, and the colors as rich as they really are.  Because otherwise the whole think would be pussified.  Anyway, this was experimenting with dry brush and wet brush, and I don’t know, I guess it’s okay for a first try.

31  I believe I used the kids’ pastels for this next one.  It has that waxy look.  Not much to say here.

32  And this is the same as the pencil drawing, or the original version, just gone over in a sepia technical pen.  I like this one.

33  So here I cheated and traced, just quickly leaning on the window, the outline of a cat, and then worked with a Pitt brush pen and filled in some hatching on the face and other places with a technical pen.  I like it.

34  This is also the kids’ pastels, not really thinking while I did this, but at least the colors are not pussified (although the picture is–a pussy cat–HA. Uh.)

35 First time using Caran D’Ache.  I converted it into watercolor, unlike the Coach purse picture above.  I used a black pen on the eyes because they were a little dull with the watercolor only.

36  I think this was the first time I used color.  Also kids’ pastels, before I bought the Sennelier ones.

37  And here is the first time I used the Sennelier, last night, on pastel paper.  The way these pastels go across the paper is ridiculous.  It’s like butter.  I think I only have 12 colors so may have to invest in more.  I blended it with my finger on the paper and maybe a blender I made myself for the edges, don’t remember now.

38  Just did these next two.  My son said this morning he wanted to eat some pears after I showed him the above picture, so I got two and then of course had to draw them.  I really hate eating pears but I really love their shape.  I tried to scratch away some that went outside the lines here with a knife–worked okay.  After that I stopped drawing the edges with the blunt pastels and used other tools, as discussed below.  Also for this one, unlike the other two, I used the smoother side of the mis-teint paper and it had much less tooth, colors started to get muddy and slick and did not blend.  On the other side you really have to lay it on to cover up the tooth and it holds a lot of pastel.

39  And the other pear I just did.  This one I also used Q tips, a little knife, paper blenders I made, and whatever else was around–a popsicle stick I broke and used the pointy shards of to do the fine lines around the edges.

40  So this cat I did draw myself, and it’s on larger illustration board with 6b, 4b, 2b, and b pencils.  These are all the same cat picture, by the way, which I found on the internet.

41  This is a thank-you note card I am going to send to my grandma.  I cheated again on this and traced the outline of the cat, then did ink and brush and my first essay at ink wash.  I think I will get some sepia and blue inks next time I’m at Dick Blick.   My God.  I’m so late picking up the kids. Thanks for looking, reader!

Why hello there! It sure has been a while hasn’t it? I want to let you know a couple things, reader:  1. I can’t find my camera charger, though I have searched high and low, and that is why I have not been informing you of my doings 2.  you are special 3.  I am also special (don’t forget that) 4. I am still in love, terribly in love, with Earl Scruggs, as well as slightly less in love with Del McCoury and his son Ronnie McCoury; 5. I have been drawing day and night as well as using my new oil pastels, dip pen and India ink, watercolors, colored pencils, charcoal pencils, technical pens and brushes in black and sepia inks, and using a variety of surfaces such as my new Moleskine sketchbook, my old sketchbook, my other old sketchbook with actual drawing paper, illustration board, pastel paper in a variety of hues, and whatever else is around, and I have started wallpapering our house with my essays, and I have three new books on sculpture, and I got an oil painting kit for the class I may or may not take next month.  Do yourself a favor, reader, and go over to youtube and watch Flatt and Scruggs playing Jimmy Brown the Newsboy.  This was very pleasant!  I’ll be sure to visit again real soon, hear!

You left me a comment asking if I find you hot, and then told me where to find your profile.  Yes, I do find you hot.

There is little more dear to my heart than my memories of watching afternoon tv in the 1980s.  It is a profound tickle to see things like the old Gobot commercial is it not?  Just now, reader, I was about to lose my mind because I found the old Chef Combo and Captain 20 show that used to play on WDCA every afternoon, and I thought for a couple sensational minutes that Captain 20 was Brent Spiner of Star Trek: The Next Generation fame.  As it turns out, Captain 20 is Dick Dyszel.  He is much better than I remember.  I was always annoyed/saddened/creeped out by him as a kid–on the other hand, thirty seconds of youtube is not equivalent to an hour every afternoon of your life.  There is nothing particularly creepy about him, by the way, nothing at all.  I was always creeped out by adults, men with their hairy arms and faces and women with their boobs, hair spray and makeup.  I don’t know yet if I am still creeped out by adults or not.

Cat

Shoes

I believe I have 18 pictures to bring to you today.  These are things I did over Christmas vacation until this morning.  Let’s go!

1.  This is for my Grandma’s birthday.  Small cat magnet.

2  I just realized how long this is going to take me and how out of order it will be.  Below is one of my first, perhaps the first, attempt at drawing using just pen and ink.  No erasing permitted.  Then I did a little of the kids’ watercolors on top.  I do believe I will invest in a waterproof ink pen.

3  This is a near-replica of a red cat just like this I made for Grandma, also for her birthday.  This one here was the product of an attempt to streamline the cat-making process.  It was somewhat successful although needs further modification.

4 A Lizard Mitten.

5 I made a quilt, which is still en route to France, for my mother-in-law.  These are the fabrics I used from Capital Quilt in Gaithersburg, Md, a lovely outpost in the middle of that rednecky part of Maryland that I find so disheartening.

6 I’ll tell you what, reader.  Crocheting next to a fire in a fireplace, I mean when the fire is in the fireplace and I am crocheting next to it, is mighty fine.  Duck pin bowling is also mighty fine, followed by dinner at Applebee’s–oh the deep Americana of it all.  The larger crochet square is now about 16 inches.  It’s not done yet.  The others are 10  inches.

7  Here is the doodle for the cat magnet.

8  Another drawing in pencil.

9  The old schoolteacher.  Thinner than pictured, but it’s my memory intervening I suppose.

10  Scary!  He always looks like that when I draw him.  I’m failing to capture something, or else I am capturing something very well.

11  Scary part two!! This is very light because I was terrified the entire time I was drawing.

12  Less scary, same person.

13 What’s this? Not again? Oh yes again!

14  Another foray into eraserless drawing.

15  Fuzzy doodles of palm trees

16  More of the same

17  Hummingbird

18  The shading is way off here but unfortunately my model was snatched away long before I was finished.

There is more, but it’s secret.  In other news, I have applied for two jobs, neither of which I will get, and I found a Buddhist meditation technique that takes away your road rage and your sin.  Whether you want to take away your sin is another question.  I tend to think that sin is a great and important part of myself and the planet and I like it–oh, I do like sin.  Maybe not mortal sin, but then again maybe mortal sin.  Must stop endless blog post.  Must go surfing.  Must use Wacom.  Must get equipment for silk screening.  Must visit volcano.