House portrait, 11 x 15 inches

Finished a couple of nights ago

Drawing on a Saturday night

Coming along

Wings of Glory

A couple of months ago I realized I had spent almost no money over the previous year on my primary hobby, games, so I felt like it was OK to spend a little money I had saved up.  I ordered a Wings of Glory WW1 Rules and Accessories Pack with a starter set of four airplanes.  This would go with the two planes I bought about 18 months ago to use while playing with Aaron, who already had the rules and some planes.

I was excited when it all came in the mail, and happily read the rule book.

Not long after that, just a few weeks ago, my old friend Kelly posted on Facebook that he was going to sell his Wings of War (same thing as Wings of Glory, just an earlier edition) planes, and asked if any of his friends were interested.  I jumped at that.  I didn’t even know he had the game.  He offered me a very good price, but even so, I told him it would be a little while before I had the money.  He said that was no problem.

I requested that he just hold them until I could pay him for them, but shortly after that I came home from work to find a box from him on my front porch.  He had gone ahead and mailed the planes to me, knowing that I would like to have them for a Veterans Day game I was planning.  What a super nice thing to do!  And I was thrilled to get them.  I love them.

And to top that off, just a few days after that, one of my co-workers just gave me two more planes.  He’d had them sitting on his desk, having bought them just to have models sitting in his cubicle, but had decided he wanted something larger.  He knew I was into the game, so he handed them to me.

It has been a biplane bonanza.

This is a photo of all my Wings of Glory planes.

Wings of Glory/Wings of War

Balrog Pumpkin

I did this last weekend. I can't wait to see it lit up!

Millennium Falcon Pumpkin

This is one I did last week

Frodo Pumpkin

Here is one that I drew, but since there was a rush to get it out on display, somebody else did the cutting.  She did a good job!  I am very happy with how this pumpkin lit up.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind Pumpkin

My Brain While Drawing on Pumpkins

I probably would have this same idea of how my brain is working on pumpkins, even if I had never seen the movie "Inside Out."


Brain area 1: "All right, I need to use a two-dimensional medium to create an image that gives the illusion of three dimensions. And people have to be able to tell what it represents."

Brain area 2: "OK, I will work with you on this. I have some technical information on your materials."

Brain area 3: "Hold on. You are trying to create the illusion of the 3D image, but you are working on a rounded, lumpy surface. So the surface is already 3D."

Brain area 1: "Huh, you're right. Brain area 3, you be in charge of moving the head around and shifting the eyes and getting that parallax-stuff going to compensate for distortion."

Brain area 2: "This is effed up. I bet you could just use a can lid to draw circles."

Brain area 1: "Store that for later, area 2. Just keep track of the paper towels and rubbing alcohol and stuff. Hey, area 3, let's draw a long rectangle with a little bit of single-point perspective."

Brain area 3: "But this is a curved surface…and you want to taper it downwards, even though it is on the upward curve of the spherical pumpkin? Brain area 2 is right, this really is effed up."

Brain area 4: "Hey, what are you guys—oh, shit. I don't even want to know what's going on here. I'm going back to bed."

Brain area 1: "I drew the rectangle while you weren't looking, Brain area 3. Tell me how you think it looks."

Brain area 2: "I have some alcohol, want me to wipe it out..?"

Brain area 3: "Huh, that might work. Keep going and I will re-evaluate."


And so it goes as a committee process for three to seven hours.

The Shining Pumpkin

Here is a photo from before it was quite finished. I still had to cut around the bottom of the door and the lettering on the sides ("all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy")

Last of my garden produce

I picked these Sunday morning in the frost. I made some fried green tomatoes. There are still some cayenne peppers and little onions outside, so this might not be the last, but this us just about it for the garden this year. I am so busy with other stuff, but I need to divide perennials. When will I do that?

Wings on my desk

Wings of Glory

Martian Pumpkin, Flying Monkey Pumpkin

I cut these the night before last for the Jack o' Lantern Spectacular

Flying Monkey Pumpkin

Connie Moose

I was looking for some old paperwork in my cubicle yesterday, and looked in a binder pocket I had not looked at for a while. There was a piece of notebook paper with this note. I have been puzzling over it ever since. I don't know why I wrote it, and maybe I would be disappointed if I figured it out.

Hiking and wading at the Parklands

We took a little family stroll this evening at the park at Beckley Station. I waded in the creek a little but failed to catch a crawdad ( almost did, though), saw lots of darters, found a little toad (seen here on my daughter's thumb), caught big grasshoppers, looked at tons of pretty wildflowers, saw a big turtle and a big carp. Nice evening to be out.

Carcassonne

I was in Oklahoma City last week and brought some games in case I had a chance to play someone after class. The last night I was able to play Carcassonne with my co-worker. She caught on pretty quickly and seemed to enjoy it. This was the board state at the end.

Giant Wings of Glory board (work in progress)

I have a big piece of scrap MDF board in the garage, and lots of old gritty house paint in rusting buckets. So I decided to start making a game board for Wings of Glory. I am just making it up as I go, but the look I am going for is an aerial view of farmlands. It is 71 x 44 inches, and very hard to carry by myself. I am excited to be working on it and can't wait to see the finished product, though it will have to wait. It won't take much time, since it is pretty abstract and does not require much detail, but I will be working on house portraits and pumpkins every chance I get for a few months.

Cross country meet in Georgetown today

Carrots!

Last week I finally dug up my carrots. They were tiny, but delicious--sweet and crunchy.

Pen & ink, 7 x 10 inches

This was a combination of sumi ink with dip pens, bamboo pens, ink wash, and Pigma Micron-style pens.

pen and ink- commission

detail