Rock climbing

 

These are some crummy cell phone photos, but you can still see what a great job she did climbing!  These are from a birthday party last week.

House Portrait drawing - sort of a rush job

 

 This drawing is 8 x 10 inches, black walnut ink on bristol.  I only had a small window to get it done, soI worked fast on this one. It's not quite a "polished" as I usually like, but I'm pleased with it nonetheless.

Still so many basic things to learn

  

Pretty frequently I'm startled by my lack of art knowledge.  Sure, most people I know really aren't into art, and have almost little working knowledge of any media.  To them, I'm sure I seem like I really know what I'm talking about most of the time.  And to other, more established, experienced artists, my lack of knowledge isn't surprising at all.  There is so much to learn that, even you are devoted full-time to learning about art, there is always something new to discover.

 

Still, I regularly learn something that makes me think, "Wow, how could I not have known that?"  The most recent example is pyrrole red.  This is a pigment that was developed in the 1980s, so it's been around a while.  It's a relatively inexpensive red, cheaper than the expensive cadmiums.  I've learned (through internet research) over the past week that it's a great, versatile color, and very bright.  Many artists consider it a very important tool.

 

I don't have this color.  I don't have any reds that have this pigment in it.  Get this: this color is also nick-named "Ferrari red."  Hey! And I'm painting a Ferrari right now.  I guess I'd better buy a tube and check it out.

 

Another thing I think about, related to the above:  I feel like the technical aspect of painting was largely glossed over in my university studies.  What did we talk about instead?  Well, there were a lot of generalities (don't over-mix the colors…perhaps you want to try more muted tones…etc.).  Most of all, I think there was discussion of the drawing aspects of painting, such as getting value right (something that, honestly, probably can't be over-emphasized), proportion, paint application and brush strokes.

 

I can recall very little discussion, however, of opaque pigments vs. transparent pigments, or having on hand cool and warm versions of the same hue.  There was certainly little information presented on glazing, which frankly I'm not sure any student I was with every really attempted.

 

I'm not at all faulting any of my professors.  They had their hands full just trying to coax us into the ability to paint a portrait with vaguely human features, and I am forever in their debt.  The information has always been available for me to learn.  Maybe I don't really every learn it until I truly need it.

Bird: Beginning and Intermediate Levels

 

 From a start of four robin eggs in the butterfly bush beside our house, only one hatched.  We saw it the same day it hatched, tiny and feeble and limp, but I failed to get a photo.  It didn't take long, though, for the bird to be big and feathered.  The day after I took this photo I saw it standing on the edge of its nest, and a couple of hours later, it was gone.

Ferrari Spider work in progress

Here is a painting commission I am working on. 16 x 20”.  I think the easiest part is done.  The upper layers of the painting will be the trickiest, but also the most satisfying.

Black walnut ink house portrait 5-20-12

 

 

I put in a little overtime on this drawing over this last weekend; it's another one of the multiple commissions I've accepted for a relatively short space of time.  It felt good to get it done!  I'm pretty pleased with the outcome.  This is 11 x 15 inches.

Shocking shopping

I shopped at Costco yesterday, and again I kept getting static electricity shocks from the shopping cart.  It happens on most of my trips there, but yesterday was particularly bad.  I'd say that less than once a minute, I'd be pushing the cart and ZAP!

 

What's weird about it is that the charge builds up with my hand on the cart.  The handle is plastic, and eventually the charge builds up enough to shock me through the plastic.  I'll be walking along with my hand on the handle, when I feel a sudden stinging crackle in my palm.

 

Sometimes it's not a single zap, but it'll manifest itself as a stream of electricity—like having my hand on a very low-voltage electric fence.  That's unpleasant, but not nearly as unpleasant as when big shock gets me right through the plastic handle.

 

This also used to happen to me at Sam's Club, and I've heard people say that it happens to them at Walmart.

 

It doesn't happen to Kim. I wonder if my shoes play a role?

Playhouse mural

Here are photos of the playhouse mural I did for some friends. They cleverly turned the recess beneath their basement steps into a play area for their little daughters, with molding around the door and square window, and a peaked “awning” over the door. Then they asked me to paint a house around it.

This is the result. The most time-consuming and tiring part was gridding in the bricks and then painting them in slightly varied reds. I guess they are what I’m proudest of, because they give a nice sense of sunlight and shadow, and I like the effect of having the “near” bricks slightly larger than the “far” bricks to give an illusion of depth.



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.