School building drawing - black walnut ink

Whew! I finished the drawing of the school.  I’ve crammed in a lot of work over the past couple of weeks.  This is black walnut ink, 11 x 15 inches.

The rats like to sleep all piled up.  The girls at at top; they crowd together on the wooden ledge.  I just thought this was a funny picture.  The second photo is the boys, napping in their hammock.

Germantown street view

 

 

This painting is about eight years old, 16 x 20", oil on panel.  I am just putting it up here because I never put it up here before, and I sold it recently to a co-worker.

 

I painted these shotgun houses just off Ellison Avenue, next to Gnadinger Park, the smallest park in Louisville.  It might be the smallest park in the history of humanity.

Another black walnut ink drawing

 Here's another work-in-progress, one of several projects I am working on right now.  This is 11 x 15 inches.  It's getting there.

Thick black walnut ink

 

I just started using some of the black walnut ink I made last November.  I have four jars from that batch.  The first one I opened was oddly thick.  I could still use a paint brush with it, but it was too viscous to use with a dip pen.

The second jar I opened was normal, and worked wonderfully with a dip pen.

I wonder what happened with the first jar? (I haven't checked the other jars yet.)  It was pretty weird; not crusty at the top like it had dried out, just uniformly thickened.  That jar did have a small film of mold growing in it, but I've had mold in jars of ink before and not had it affect the ink flow.  I wonder if the gum Arabic I added did something strange?  But if so, why didn't it do that to the second jar?

I might be able to re-thin it with water, and even if I can't, it's not a great loss, and like I said, I can still use it with a brush.

I had the idea of obtaining a large number of small bottles and making ink to sell, but if I do that, I guess I better establish some quality controls!

Easter Goofy

 

 

Immortal

 

 "The Meat That Won't Die" would be a great premise for a scary religious cult, or a very cheapo horror film, or a scary cheapo rock band.

Pen and ink beginnings

 

 

I'm trying to remember how I got involved in pen-and-ink drawing.  It wasn't a very deliberate thing, and just enough time has passed that I'm on the verge of forgetting.

 

Of course, I've always used ink to some degree, for sketches and doodles.  However, I wasn't ever really what I would call a pen-and-ink artist until about four years ago.  I drew mostly with graphite, and preferred to paint with oils.

 

I think this is how it happened:

 

In the spring of 2007, the office I work for changed locations, and our new building has behind it a wooded area with a walking trail.  That summer, on the walking trail, I found some fallen, immature green walnuts.

 

I didn't know what they were, and identification was difficult because they were still small.  They didn't yet look like ripe walnuts.  After some research and discussion, I figured out they were black walnuts, and learned that the wooded area had a bunch of black walnut trees.

 

I think that somewhere along the way while I was researching this, I saw that black walnuts could be used to make ink.  That prompted me to do a little more internet research on the process.  I read that the ink was good artist ink, lightfast, and archival.  The process for making it was pretty straightforward.  Since at the time I had no cash for art supplies and I'm a cheapskate at heart, I thought I'd try it.

 

I do recall being a little bit preoccupied with it.  I learned to identify walnut trees and started spotting them all around town.  In the autumn, when the nuts fell from the trees, I picked up a bunch and made some ink.

 

During this time period, I was occasionally spending my lunch breaks doing graphite (and occasionally charcoal) sketches of buildings and trees near my office.  I was also, from time to time, doing quick sketches of people with black ink felt-tip pens, mainly because I enjoyed the crisp, clean contrast as opposed to graphite.

 

Late in the spring 2008, I took some walnut ink with me on my lunch break, and began a small drawing of the old Bellevoir mansion near my office.  I spent a couple of days on it.

 

In July, co-worker saw that drawing, and asked me to draw his house.  A friend of mine saw the Bellevoir drawing and bought it.  The house drawing I did for the co-worked led to a few more commissions from the co-worker's friends.  That, in turn, led to more commissions over the course of the next couple years.

 

I was taking these drawings to a gallery frame shop to have window mats cut for them.  The owner of the frame shop expressed interest in my work and recommended that I draw some local scenes to try to sell.

 

As I worked on these commissions, I developed a deeper appreciation for, and enjoyment of, pen-and-ink.

 

So, there you go.  I became a pen-and-ink artist because one day on my lunch break I found a nut I couldn't identify.

Dental Correspondence

Erin left a not for the Tooth Fairy a couple of nights ago, and she got a response along with the dollar that was left.  Very interesting!  The note was, unsurprisingly, quite small; only about an inch tall.

Erin, Jill, and I were playing soccer in the back yard. Jill said she would be the referee. We were all standing pretty far apart.



Jill: “First, what are your team names?”


Erin: “Lightning!”


Jill: “Lightning. Got it. What about you, Dada?”


Me: “The Tornadoes!”


(pause)


Jill: “The Potatoes?!”

This year's garden, so far

 

I haven't really been bitten by the gardening bug this year.  I think that with my slight backlog of artwork commissions, backlog of baby rats, and backlog of housecleaning chores, I just haven't been in the mood.  For the past eight years, I've been eager to start planting every spring.  This year, I feel like I just need to get the perennials taken care of, and phooey on the rest.

The asparagus I planted last year is coming back. Some of the plants look more vigorous than others, but I like them.  I'll have to read up again about how to properly maintain the plants. 

My friend Gregg, who is much more into gardening than I am, informed me that the reason my fennel doesn't form bulbs is because it just gets too hot too quickly in Kentucky, causing the fennel to bolt.  I'll keep it for the seeds, though.  And for the swallowtail butterflies.

I'll still plant some other things, but only things I really want, and things that are pretty easy.  I must plant tomatoes, that's a given.  I'll probably plant more basil.

A couple of weeks ago I spread out some of my glad bulbs, and I might buy some more mulch to put around them and the Asiatic lilies that are coming up.  I plan to put a greater emphasis on mulching all around this year, just because it's so much less work in the long run.

Yesterday I finally bought a new string trimmer.  After much research, I went with a Black & Decker 18 volt rechargeable cordless trimmer.  I had a list of five or six models I was looking for, and that was at the bottom of the list (my default selection).  It got good reviews, but the main complaint that kept popping up was about battery longevity.  I couldn't find any of the other models, so I bought that one.  What really sealed the deal was that the package came with two batteries, and the hardware store was having a sale in which they gave me a third battery for free.  I bought it with the proceeds from my Ottawa drag saw drawing, which seems somewhat fitting.

School sketch

Here's a sketch I did in preparation for a larger drawing in walnut ink.  The hardest thing to work out, for me, is how to configure the trees.  I've edited out a few trees, and made some others a little skinnier, but I want to leave in as much as I can because the trees are an attractive and distinctive feature.  I'm also diggin' the steps.  This is my favorite view of the building, because of the stairs; they will be the funnest part to draw, I'm sure.

Weeds and books

Well, I think I'll use my payment from the drag saw drawing to buy a new weed trimmer. Weeds need whacking.

I accidentally started reading the third book in the Game of Thrones series. I was going to wait, but I read the prologue just to tease myself. Then, a week later, I was looking for something short to read while I ate lunch, so I read the first chapter. Then I saw the second chapter just sitting there and read a few pages. A day later, I wanted to see what happened, so I finished that chapter, then read the next. Now, if I put it down, will I remember what's happening when I pick it up again? Maybe not! I'm six chapters in, and it would be a shame to waste all that work, so I may as well finish it.
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Ottawa Drag Saw - finished!

 I think I'm done. This is 8 x 11" on cold press watercolor paper.

Wall painting commission, in progress

 Some friends of ours turned the area beneath their basement steps into a playhouse for their daughters, and they asked me to paint a mural on the outside of it.  I was happy to oblige, although I don't think they realized what they were getting into when they asked me.  They probably expected me to just whip up a quick cartoon house.  Instead, I have been camping out in their basement drawing grids for bricks.

Painting and shading bricks is actually sort of meditative (the gridding and drawing, though, is a pain in the ass).  I like it much better than drawing tiny bricks with pen and ink.  For one thing, the color red is fun.  For another thing, creating the illusion of sunlight and shadow with paint is very satisfying.  I just hope my friends aren't frustrated with my slow pace.

The bricks are pretty much done, and that's the slow part.  Just after I took the second photo, I added some vines to the lower right side of the house, and put yellow black-eyed Susan blooms on the green plants at left.  All the plants together took much less time than even a small area of bricks.  I'll take shortcuts on the roof, also.  The rest will just be butterflies and stuff.  I think I'll put an illusory bas-relief sun above the door; that should be fun, and also easier than the bricks.  I'll probably cut a stencil for it.

March Madness

I'm pretty satisfied with my picks, though I'm more nervous about the final four. Oh well! Antibiotic-resistant staph will probably have killed me by then, anyway!

Such a pretty evening. Go play outside!

Worked stone?

 I found this out at Camp Shantituck.  I looks like knapped stone to me.  Perhaps it's a Native American relic.  It was sitting right on top of the ground in a gravelly area, so maybe it came in with the gravel, or maybe it's residue from a recent knapping demonstration, or maybe someone found it elsewhere and was showing it off to some Girl Scout friends and lost it.

Ottawa Drag Saw, Progressing

 

 

First (and probably last) chance to use the sled for the winter

 Before school, 7:44 a.m., March 5. You have to enjoy it while you can. 

Superfluous Rats

Daddy rat

Mommy Rat

Daddy rat again

And a couple of babies.

Ottawa Drag Saw drawing in progress

 This is a commissioned drawing I'm working on. It is about 8 x 10 inches. I hope to have it done in the next couple of weeks.

A Post About Baby Rats (in which Mark talks at length about rat balls)

 

 

In early January we purchased two dumbo rats for the girls to have as pets.  I called around to different pet shops, and finally settled on the Feeders Supply at Holiday Manor because they were one of the few places that had a pair of males for sale.  Of the stores who had pairs of males, they had the lowest price.

 

We bought all our supplies there, and selected the two rats we wanted. The sign on the cage said they were males; I asked the lady who caught them and boxed them for us to be sure.

 

That's how we ended up with Sharkie and Snowball.

 

In my reading about fancy rats, I learned that it's not too difficult to tell males from females.  Early on, it's more of a challenge, as they haven't really developed; but if you know what to look for, you can tell.  Nipples are not visible on the male.  On the female, they might be hard to see, but you can see them.  Also, on boy rats, the genital opening is spaced farther from the anus.

 

Now, I have to admit, I never looked.  I guess, in hindsight, I should have.  However, in my defense, I was told by the young lady at the pet store—and she really seemed to know what she was talking about—that we had a same-sex couple.  The person on the phone said it, the sign said it.  Also in my defense, we were getting used to the rats, and the rats were getting used to us.  Sharkie and Snowball weren't very habituated to human handling.  They were skittish.  Holding one to examine its underside would have been possible if I had thought it was important, but doing it simply to "make sure" would have been stressful for both me and the rats.  (They are both much more used to us now, and easier to handle, but they cow has left the barn.)

 

The experts said that as the rats get older and more developed, boys are easier to tell from girls because they have very visible scrota.  And that's true.  After a month, I could see the sizable nutsack as the rat passed by.  I would think to myself, "Gosh, yes, that is pretty visible. No way that's a girl."

 

The thing is, it never even crossed my mind to pay attention to which rat I was looking at when I saw the scrotum.  I just assumed I was seeing scrota on both rats.  Wrong.  I was only seeing Sharkie's balls.  I was not seeing Snowball's scrotum, because Snowball did not have one.  And I never really noticed that I wasn't noticing it.

 

Last Monday, after I got to work, Kim called and said she was concerned about Snowball.  She didn't come over when the cage door was opened, like she usually does; and she looked bloated.  Mindful of the fact that rat's don't burp or vomit like we do, and can have severe digestive issues if they eat the wrong thing, Kim asked me to take off work, go home, and take Snowball to the vet.

 

When I got home, I found that Snowball was hiding in the chewed-out center of her hammock, hard to see.  I could hear strange squeaking, the hammock was moving.  I peeked in, and saw her eating something dark, pawing at it; it was pretty gross.  I was quite alarmed and thought she was having some kind of fit, and that I would have to reach in and pull her out while she was sick and in distress.

 

After a few minutes of trying to coax her out, I got a better view, and realized she had baby rats in there with her.  That was the point at which I thought: "Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Now I get it! Snowball is a girl."  She had been eating the placenta like a good little mammal.  I had missed the birth by minutes.

 

That was a week ago today.  Sharkie is now in a separate cage, because female rats go into heat within 24 hours of giving birth.  We have 14 baby rats that, though still naked and pink, are growing quickly.  We are doing our best to ask everyone we know to help us find homes for them.

 

Now that Sharkie and Snowball are used to us, they are much more fun to play with.  I have both of them trained to run up the inside of my sweat shirt sleeve when I hold it open.  They both seem to enjoy climbing around inside my sweatshirts and sweaters.  They come to the cage door and climb into your hand.  Sharkie enjoys having his neck rubbed.

 

We've been handling the babies to get them used to humans.  It has to be done while Snowball is distracted, otherwise she gets a little freaked out.  She'll grab a baby out of my hands and run with it back to her nest.  Several times, after doing that, she has come back to my hand and gently sniffed and nipped my fingers one at a time to make sure they weren't baby rats.  I don't think her eyesight is very good.

 

The end. For now.

 

 

Theft

This artwork was stolen from The Comfy Cow on Frankfort Avenue on February 5 . If you have any knowledge of its whereabouts or who took it, please call The Louisville Metro Police Department at 574-7111; or contact me.




The stole artwork was an original pen and ink drawing; the framed size is approximately 11 x 14 (image size 7 x 10 inches).

Minor triumphs

 

 

Went roller skating last week and only fell down 1 ½ times (fell once, almost fell but caught myself on my fingertips and righted myself another time.)

 

Went ice skating today and didn't fall at all.

 

Checked at Half Price Books for the fifth time yesterday and finally found a used copy of the second book in the "Song of Fire and Ice" series (the sequel to "Game of Thrones.")

 

…and that's about it.

Books

 

 

A couple of weeks ago I finished reading A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin, and I really enjoyed it.  I'm eager to read the next book, although I'll try not to hurry, because he's only written five books of the projected seven –book series.  Even if it takes me a couple of years to read all five books, I might have to wait a few years for book six.

 

It took me a few chapters to get into it.  I'm not super impressed with Martin's style of prose, though it's not bad.  It never seemed very creative or evocative.

 

The characters and story, though, were great.  At first, it didn't seem any better than a typical fantasy story, but as details accrued and character portraits developed it became very engrossing.  I especially appreciated the organic feel of the complexity:  The characters all have natural-feeling personalities and react in believable ways within a detailed setting, so the way the story progresses never feels forced.

 

I also appreciate the refreshing lack of romanticization.  The whole setting is believably gritty and dirty, and people who are motivated by honor are at a disadvantage.  There are characters I like quite a bit, and I'm worried they are going to die, or worse, turn dislikable.

 

Right now I am simultaneously reading two books: Who Wrote the Gospels by Gary Greenberg, and Who Wrote the Bible by Richard Friedman.  Both are pretty interesting.  I enjoy reading about the linguistic analysis and side-by-side text comparisons that went into the detective work.

Along Main Street

Showing at The Comfy Cow

Yesterday I put up nine drawings and paintings at a local dessert place, The Comfy Cow, on Frankfort Avenue. One of their rooms has an area designated for display of local artists, and the manager there was helpful and gave me the freedom to put up a selection of artwork. I put up most of what I wanted to hang, including all of my local landmark pen-and-ink drawings.




It will be up through the end of March.



After I was done putting up my works (and drinking a chocolate malt), I stopped at the nearby B. Deemer Gallery and enjoyed a retrospective of painter Robert Knipschild, who (I learned) was an instructor to well-known Louisville oil pastel artist Martin Rollins, as well as to two of my former university professors, Ying Kit Chan and Guinever Smith.



Here’s a picture I took yesterday when I was done putting up the artwork. It’s a cell phone photo, so it’s not very high quality.

Glads in winter

 

 I have glads coming up, and not just barely poking out; this one is about eight inches tall. I noticed it when I was playing soccer in the back yard with the girls over the weekend.  It looks like the only ones coming up are ones that were in a bare patch of soil; I actually can't remember there being glads there last year, but I know there were some the year before last.  This is a spot in which I tried to dig up all the bulbs two autumns ago, and I don't know if I planted bulbs there since.  So these are either ones that I missed when I was digging (and which where dormant until now), or I planted them there last spring or summer and they never grew until now.  I really don't remember.  Anyway, I piled leaves around the glads to give them some shelter from the cold.

 

I did some garden work for the first time in months: cut down the dead fennel, tore up old tomatoe vines, raked out some dead vegetation, poured some old compost into the garden, cut down the asters.  It was a pretty day yesterday, but windy.

Still more old student work

 

I don't have any new artwork to put up.  I have just been commissioned to do a pen-and-ink drawing of some people using an Ottawa dragsaw (I had no idea what that was until I was commissioned to draw it.)  I'm working on another local landmark drawing.  I'm still working on the oil painting I started on Shippingport Island back in October.  And I'm slated to begin some mural work over at Candy and Will's house.  So I have a lot to do, but nothing finished to take pictures of.

Here's another really old student drawing.  This is a painting of a model from one of our classes, back around 1992.  I thought it was coming along OK, but I was very unhappy with the face, so I wiped it off to repaint it.  Our time for the day ran out, and we put up our work for discussion.  I explained that I was still working on the face, but my instructor, Ying Kit Chan, said, "Are you sure? It's kind of interesting like that."  That's why I never finished.  I was frustrated and my professor gave me an excuse to stop.

The painting of the buildings was done outside on campus at U of L.  This was done with large flat areas of bright color, which contrasts with my very painterly paintings of the same time period.  This one ended up with Ed and Loraine, and they might still have it somewhere.

Jan. 17 Tornado

 

 I lifted this off of John Belski's blog; it's a map of the path of the EF-1 tornado that came through the area yesterday.  I just thought it was interesting.  This passed along the edge of my neighborhood.  The map shows it ending before it reached Brian's neighborhood, but his street had a fair amount of damage anyway.  There was nothing damaged around our house at all, just a few twigs down, but all along Brownsboro Road and Highway 22 it made a mess.

 

At work, pretty much everyone in the building was in the lower level for 20 minutes waiting for the storm to pass.  That's the first time I've ever seen so many people from my building at once.

Very very very very very

 

 

I got this rock last Fathers Day.  It was found by my youngest daughter on the playground.  In the couple of weeks before Fathers Day, she told me she had a present for me.  I pressed her for hints as to what it was, and she finally told me it was a "Very very very very very very blank blank."

 

What a surprise! A very very very very very very orange rock!

 

The funniest part is, she didn't even paint it. She found it this way.  Such a treasure!

Three (old) self portraits

Here are three more of my paintings from 20 years ago. (And by the way, I do acknowledge that it’s especially narcissistic to post pictures of my old student work on my blog. However, I just haven’t had anything else worth posting.)




The first painting is probably my first self-portrait in oil. Again, the raw meat look. Pretty harsh lighting.

The second is titled “El REY del MARk.” I don’t remember what inspired it. Aaron McQueen had it for quite a few years; he might still, unless Michelle very sensibly convinced  him to throw it out.

The last one is actually life-size, and was never finished. The thing that I’m proudest of is that I manufactured the stretchers for it myself, and assembled it with corner nails and braces. It’s pretty heavy-duty. I tore off and threw away the painting itself 15 or more years ago, but I still have the assembled stretchers in my garage; someday, I’ll paint something huge on it!

Research

 

 Here's a small section of old map compared with a recent satellite image.  It looks like in 1912 there was a building next to a pond in what is now a vacant field.  The field is now reported to be caught up in lawsuit between a bank and a developer; it was slated to be condominiums until the recession hit.  It's been untouched for years.  Sounds like a good place to go detecting to me.

…and still more old paintings…

 

These two paintings are early favorites.  The painting of the chairs was done on paper, and it's one of the very first paintings I did in college, so it's probably 1991.  I was quite proud of it at the time, and I still find a lot to admire about it.  The biggest problem is my handling of the background shadow.  Regarding composition and paint application, I'm still pleased with it and sort of wish I still had it.  I dumpsterized it when I was moving to Wyoming.

The tree painting, dated 1991, is a counterpart to the tree painting that is currently hanging in Chris and Helga's house; they were painted at the same time.  I think this was first. I was also very proud of this one.  My boss at St. Matthews Blueprint bought it from me. I wonder if he still has it?

More old paintings

 

Here is some more of my student work from 20 years ago.  The "raw meat" effect is interesting.

 

The highlight of the painting of Suzanne, the woman in black, is the cigarette ashes on the table.  Unfortunately, you can't see them in this picture.  They looked realistic and had little shadows.  I remember this as being a pretty large painting, about 36 x 48 inches, but it's been a long time and I don't have a written record of the dimensions.

 

The painting of Erika, who looks raw and angry in the flower dress, was also large.  I think she looked angry because I painted her looking raw and angry, and with football player shoulders.  I think the paint was an inch thick.

 

Food order

 

 

Two Saws

  

Here's some 20-year-old art.

For this blog post, I owe thanks to Chris Gilbert times two.  First of all, on one night back in the early Nineties, he very generously set up his camera in the photo lab at U of L and spent a few hours with me shooting slides of my artwork.  He was a photography student; I was not.

Second, he recently loaned me his slide scanner so that Kim and I could make digital scans of some old slides we had sitting around.  Kim scanned some old family pictures before Christmas.  Yesterday, I dug out my old painting slides and scanned them.  So thanks again, Chris!

These are slides from back when I was a student at U of L, and I think they all date to 1994 and earlier.

The pseudo-folk art I created as a joke; "The Great Louisville Earthquake" is a painting on a circular saw blade and given to my friend Mike.

The other is a portrait of the same Mike, holding a saw.  Note that I used the same saw to cut partly through the hardboard panel on which it's painted.  That's what the brown line is descending from top center.  I like how Mike appears to have just cut the panel upon which he's painted, and is inspecting his handiwork.

It's also interesting to me to look at these to see the quality of my work.  I still have room for vast improvement, but it's hard for me to understand how I could have painted in such a clumsy way as this.  It's so imprecise and insensitive.  At the same time, I admire the way I really attacked the subject.  I popped the paint on there and forced it all to hold together despite my lack of finesse.

New Year update

 

 

Happy New Year!  We celebrated New Year's Eve by staying up too late and eating too much food at the Gilbert's.  The place was awash in merriment, cookies, chips, and pleasant company.  I lost at Scrabble, took our sleepy daughters home, and slept late the next day.

 

New Year's Day we mostly hung out in our pajamas and played games.  In the afternoon I finally put on some work clothes, took down the outside decorations, and crawled beneath the house to close up the ventilation for the winter (normally I'd do it earlier, but it's been so mild I was able to delay.)

 

I finished reading The Poisonwood Bible, by Barbara Kingsolver, yesterday.  I thought it was excellent.  I would have finished it sooner, but I had to put it down for a while because it was getting to me.  I suppose that's because it's well-written, but I'm worried I'm just getting more emotional as I age and soon I'll be crying while reading The Guide to U.S. Coins or watching reruns of "Parks & Recreation."

 

I've started Game of Thrones.  I've never heard a bad review, and the series is very popular; so far, I find it enjoyable but not great.  I'm only a little way into it, though, and I gather the main attraction is the complexity of the characters and the story, not necessarily the style of prose, which I find acceptable but not compelling.

White elephant

 

 Here are the pointy shoes and hat that Kim ended up with at the Jerus white elephant gift exchange the weekend before Christmas.  Apologies for the crummy photo, but Kim's adorableness makes up for it.

Riding helmet