Goof, or goofy?

Today I felt like just doing something random and maybe wonkier than I've done for a while. My friend Phoebe in art class remarked, back a few months, on a fleeting likeness between my guy in "The Earth is wobbling on its axis" and her husband's best friend, who is also a twin. She shared a photo of him and I said then, "I might steal him, he's cute and already a little wonky looking." So today I did just that. I hope, if he sees it, that he's not offended by the liberties I took with his already expressive face. She never mentioned his name, so I guess he will be
"The Goof."

Daler Rowney inks, pencil, watercolor, Uniball Vision pen, white gesso,

white gel pen, stencil, bubble wrap, on 140-lb. Fluid watercolor paper, 9x12.

I used a crimson Daler Rowney ink for the background, but it came out really pink, which didn't suit the portrait, in my opinion, so I have since gone back and added another layer of magenta. It did take out some of the interesting background effects, but I feel like it is more effective with the image itself. Here is the revised version.

What do you think?

Readers

 I decided this afternoon to do another in my "People Reading" series. At first I was going to redo one with which I was dissatisfied and try to do it better; it was one of the ones with a coat of gesso on the paper before I did the drawing and painting, which is great for texture but really wreaked havoc on my ability to get the kind of detail I wanted. It was a struggle, start to finish, and even though others liked it, I just couldn't. It felt plasticky and unsubtle, and I didn't like the way the paint beaded up on the gesso.

I started by making the background I had planned for that one—pale pink, with bright spatters of lime, turquoise, and orange. But after I pulled out the reference photo and started looking it over again, I decided that part of the problem was, I didn't like the subject! She was skinny and critical looking with flat, boring hair, and didn't look happy at all to be reading her book—in fact, she looked like she was on the verge of shouting at it and throwing it across the room. So I went looking for a photo of someone who seemed to be genuinely engrossed in and enjoying what she was reading, and painted her instead! 

This is "Emmaline reads."

As it turned out, that pale pink background really turned out to be a passive tool to light up everything on top of it. I'll have to remember that.

Gel pen, pencil, Daler Rowney inks, India ink, Uniball Vision pen, Signo white gel pen, white gesso, on 140-lb. Fluid watercolor paper, 9x12 inches.

Choices

 I made no secret, all year, of the fact that Joe Biden was not my first choice for President. I initially had high hopes this was the election that would give us our first woman president, and I wanted her to be Elizabeth Warren. But the primary process wended its inevitable way towards the winnowing, and eventually it became clear that Biden was going to be our guy, like it or not. At first, I didn't, much; I thought he was too old, too centrist, too connected, too set in his ways to do the kinds of things that need doing right now in these United States if we are going to overcome the disastrous double fallout of the Trump administration and the Covid-19 pandemic. But with his selection of Kamala Harris as his vice president and his strong, steady, and resolute demeanor since the election, I have substantially shifted my attitude and now believe that he may indeed be the person best suited to be in office at this moment.

One of the things that has most reassured me has been his thoughtful and surprisingly innovative appointments to certain offices, the best of which has been the designation of New Mexico's U.S. Representative Deb Haaland as our next Secretary of the Interior. The 60-year-old congresswoman will be the first Native American cabinet secretary ever when she takes office next month; where better to place her than in charge of the country's land and natural resources, as well as making her the primary negotiator of treaty obligations between the tribes and the U.S. government, not previously famous for keeping its promises to indigenous peoples. Referencing the past four years of devastating environmental rollbacks, Haaland said in her acceptance speech, "I'll be fierce for all of us, for our planet and for our protected land." As long as Biden keeps appointing women like this to public office, I know we will be all right.

Since I'm giving Uncle Joe props, you'd think I'd be painting him, but let's face it, Deb Haaland is a more deserving subject of a portrait, given the disregard shown to indigenous women, to women of color, to women period, in this man's world. So here is my impression of a fierce but smiling advocate for the sacred lands that many of us who are not indigenous also hold dear.

Daler Rowney inks, pencil, Uniball pen, watercolors, India ink, white Signo gel pen, on 140-lb. Fluid watercolor paper, 9x12 inches.

Paris Raspberry

 I was feeling a bit blue-purple today, wanting to paint something but not knowing what. I ultimately went through some old photos from 2013 and found the quintessential one that everyone who visits Notre Dame seems to take—this guy, with the city as backdrop. Gargoyle-ish seemed to express my mood, so here he is. As I painted him, though, I realized how very human they are in many respects—it's really more like a somewhat delicate youth (slender fingers) with a nice physique (chest) has just put on a mask and posed for the artist as a jest. Perhaps that's what happened. I called it "Paris Raspberry" because of the tongue.

Daler Rowney inks, Pelikan India ink, pencil, white gouache, Uniball pen, on 140-lb. Fluid watercolor paper, about 9x11 inches.

Surprise gift

 Now that I have given it away, I can share this portrait of my cousin Heidi's beloved dog, Louie, who is sadly no longer with us. I hesitated to paint his portrait—you never know how people are grieving—until she said to me one day that she'd love it if I did one, so that was her main Christmas gift today. Here's Louie, with his cheerful expression and ever-present tongue.

Pencil, watercolor, and Daler Rowney inks on 140-lb. Fluid watercolor paper, about 8x8?

Watch the birdie

Yesterday, on Messenger, apropos of nothing in particular, one of my new artist friends from Deb Weiers's class (so not that new, we "met" in August) sends me a message:

"What is the deal with putting birds on ladies' shoulders (and heads) in SO much artwork by SO many different people? Is it symbolic of something? Did it just become a trend because some people saw other people doing it and did likewise?"

I couldn't really tell her, so I went to Google and asked about bird symbolism in art and discovered quite a lot of information, both pagan and religious, about the meanings of various birds. I found it kind of fascinating; I was also surprised when my friend pointed out that I had at least three recent paintings with birds in them, one of which was a shoulder bird.

 

Since she asked, and since I hadn't thought of someone else I wanted to paint yesterday, and since her name IS Phoebe (like the bird), here is "Phoebe on Phoebe," with her question spelled out in case anyone else has ideas other than mine!

I feel like I ruined this; she was originally on a plain white background, and I liked the stark purity of it, but I used too soft a pencil when creating my base drawing and then dragged my hand through it so that the white was smudged all over the place, and wouldn't erase properly. I had already done my black lettering on the white background, so when I decided to put in a background color, I almost went with a light Cobalt blue watercolor, but at the last minute decided instead to use one of the Daler Rowney inks.

I was sorry I did; the inks are staining, and even with water on the paper the Marine Blue dried faster than I could move it around, leaving darker and lighter spots and looking splotchy. After it dried, I decided I would have to go over it with something else to make it look like it was streaky on purpose, so after trying two other inks on a test swatch over the Marine Blue, I ended up putting the Cobalt watercolor over the top, which I liked.

That, however, was so dark that it made the black writing almost invisible, so I put a white outline on it, which bolloxed it up completely. What I should have done was write exactly over the top of the black with the white, but instead I tried to outline/shadow it, and it turned into a big mess, barely decipherable. I finally ended up washing off the white gel pen, painting a "shield" over the indelible black writing with two coats of gesso, and re-lettering in black on that, putting a border around it to make it look more like a planned object. The things we go through to salvage an art piece! Thank you, Deb, for teaching me ways and means to do that. Anyway...my "bird on head" picture, just for Phoebe.

Pencil, Daler Rowney inks, black Uniball pen, white Signo gel pen, Paul Jackson watercolors, India ink, stencil, white gesso, on Fluid 140-lb. watercolor paper, 9x12 inches.

A sad day

It's always a sad day in the neighborhood when you lose a tree to bugs or rot or just sheer age. But today is an especially hard one—we on Bassett Street are losing the "World Tree."

Back when these houses were built in 1948, the city put in Ash trees in the median strip on both sides of my block, and by the time I moved into my house in 1981, they were at maximum height and glory, and every summer our street was a green bower of shade. For some reason our street was the only one out of the surrounding five or six between Vanowen and Sherman Way to have a full complement of street trees, and it made our block special.

The weird thing was, apparently when the city planted the trees there were a few cuckoos in the nest, so to speak—along with the regular Ash trees, they had half a dozen Shamel Ash, which grow to about five times the height and girth that the regular ones do. They planted them randomly, one per block, across the whole neighborhood, and once they reached maturity they towered over everything else—you could look out diagonally across the neighborhood and see the tops of those from anywhere.

Ours was about four doors down on the opposite side of the street from me, and I always loved looking at it, because it just seemed so primal amidst the more conventional pack of trees. It was full of birds and animals, and its exuberant roots burst out of the ground to buckle the sidewalk up two full feet, and then invaded the street as well. Because of that, which didn't bother the residents but did bother the city (and perhaps the plumbing), we all figured it was just a matter of time; but lack of funding for street tree maintenance these past few decades has preserved it long after I expected it to be gone.

Today, however, is the day. I don't know if it has succumbed to the rot that infected most of the rest of the under-watered street trees (which are not really a good choice for droughty Southern California) and took them out one by one over the years, or whether the city just decided to finally do something about the sidewalk, street, and DWP main lines. But five trucks and a dozen guys showed up this morning, beep-beeped themselves into position and started up the chainsaw. By the time I realized what must be happening and ran out to see, half the tree's branches were down. It will probably take them a full two days to get it out of here, and it's heartbreaking, especially because all that's left on our street are five half-grown replacement trees and maybe three of the original trees, elderly and fragile.

Above is a picture I drew of it a couple of years ago, and this doesn't nearly encompass the height (I ran out of room on the page) or magnificence of this tree. But it's the only memento I have.

There is a program through "City Plants" and the DWP where you can sign up to be a block captain and then go house to house to sign up all your neighbors for a new street tree. Once you have surveyed the whole neighborhood, you turn in your order for the correct number of trees, plus your top three choices for what kind of tree you would like, and the city will deliver them. I meant to do that this past year, but when the pandemic hit so many plans changed. But there's no reason I can't mask up, maintain distance, and go talk to the neighbors—I could use the exercise. Perhaps this will be my winter project.

Just because...

 Sometimes I have a clear reason to paint someone, whether it's because I want to draw attention to them, or fangirl them, or I am inspired by a thought or someone's comment or a quote...and then sometimes I can't really see the motivator, and I have to chalk it up to impulse. I was watching MSNBC last night; something Rachel Maddow said stuck with me, and today I decided she was my next subject, just because. (Also, I was in the mood for quirky, and she's kind of a quirky-looking gal, with her big black glasses, long neck, and spiky hair.)

I did find a quote from her that I liked, so I added that in. And I decided I wanted to go a little crazy—throw some spatter and some squiggles into the mix, and use some less orthodox colors. So here is Rachel, with mostly purple hair and splotches of turquoise and pink scattered freely on her skin, but hopefully still recognizable as the redoubtable newswoman that she is. (The pinstripe suit ought to help....)

Daler Rowney inks, pencil, white gesso, India ink, black Uniball pen, white Signo gel pen, on 140-lb. Fluid watercolor paper, 9x12 inches.

Wild ambitions

 Here's someone I've been wanting to paint for a while, but I couldn't find the exact right quote to go with her until today. I love this—"anchored only by plans and not by doubts." Stacey Abrams has certainly acted decisively and with aggressive and wild ambition to turn the state of Georgia blue and get two venal, unworthy politicians out of office. In January, we will see if the organization she has built with the help of others dedicated to this purpose has been engaging and persuasive enough to pull it off and we are able to add Ossoff and Warnock to our major governing body. Since the fate of the Senate depends on it, I certainly hope so; but if for some reason it doesn't work, we can fall back on another saying of Stacey's, which is "Do not allow setbacks to set you back."

Daler Rowney inks, pencil, Uniball pen, white gel pen, on Fluid 140-lb. watercolor paper, 9x12 inches.

Experiments

 Yesterday I had my back tooth pulled and the hole plugged, under anesthesia, and although it was a short procedure and I wasn't as zonked as I was the time I had a more major dental surgery while knocked out (seven filling replacements and a crown!), I didn't expect to feel good today. Surprisingly, despite a broken night's sleep and the obvious after-effects of the dental work (soreness, slight headache), I woke up feeling energetic (which is rare, even without dentistry!). I decided I would take that energy and put it to good use doing some long-neglected chores—between finishing out my class at UCLA and my tooth trauma, I haven't been doing much.

Then there was a conjunction of events: 1. I received an order from Dick Blick with some new artist materials; 2. I received some stencils I had sent for and completely forgotten about until they arrived; and 3. I went on Facebook.

I had a message there from a long-distance friend saying she wanted to buy one of my paintings, which was a thrill, so we completed the transaction and then chatted for an hour about various and sundry. I then scrolled through my feed a bit and saw this comment posted by another long-distance friend, Jeffrey Scot:

"This morning I watered my plants, prepared a nice cup of tea, read some lovely poetry, and wondered when my inner child had turned into a little old British lady."

I joked with him that he would only have to worry when he donned a pillbox hat to do his reading, and wham! inspiration struck. So much for dishes, clothes sorting, and paperwork. I had a portrait to paint!

This is the first time I have used either stencils or rubber stamps in one of my portraits, and I discovered that although you can use watercolors or inks with stencils, they're not so great on rubber stamps (they bead up). I usually use Tombow markers to color my stamps, but was afraid to do that here because they are water soluble, and if I decided at any point that I wanted to do another wash over the top of things, they would run. So I worked hard to get the watercolors to work with the stamps, and ended up with some mushy, indefinite images. I'll have to figure this out and try again. I ended up using a Tombow for the lettering, because it had to be readable, and made sure not to get any water on it.

One of the advantages of living alone (as long as you have no guests, which is a foregone conclusion during the pandemic) is that you can live in squalor a few days (or weeks or months) longer with no one the wiser (unless you tell them, duh) and do your painting instead.

Pencil, stencils, rubber stamps, watercolor, Daler Rowney ink, India ink, Micron pen, collage, white gel pen, on Fluid 9x12-inch 140-lb. watercolor paper.

Oh, and in case anyone wondered, that's Sonnet 14 by Elizabeth Barrett Browning on his shirt, in my seldom-used and rusty cursive!

Hiatus between posts

 I'm afraid there won't be much new here for a while; although I am painting, most of it is for Christmas gifts, and I don't want to share them with anyone else until the recipient has had their surprise. So I will have more things to show when I get done with gifts and go back to impulse painting, which will hopefully be long before Dec. 25, especially for those that have yet to be mailed!

And of course, there will be the Christmas gift paintings, which I can show after Dec. 25.

Jolene

 I commented recently on my Facebook page that I wouldn't have been able to get through this extended period of isolation if it weren't for my friends on social media (specifically Facebook). In a time when you can't get together in person with anyone, it really helps to multiply your friend base, even if it's by accumulating a bunch of people with whom you may never congregate, since their location is so remote (Canada, upstate New York, New Zealand) that it seems unlikely you will travel there to see them. Perhaps, in fact, it is especially necessary to have those friends, since the fact that it is impossible to meet them means you don't sit around regretting that, you just make the best of what you CAN have, which is a pretty full relationship if it consists of frequent interaction, the exchange of views, dislikes, hobbies, or whatever.

My friend Jolene Oldham is one of these. We met through a mutual friend, one who had previously been an in-person friend of mine for many years. We initially shared with that bridge person a concern for animal rescue, but began later on to find multiple similarities in outlook, philosophy and, let's face it in these days, politics. 

One unique thing about Jolene is that she is a mermaid. Yes, you read that right. She dresses in a long tail and goes swimming with her similarly attired friends, and she also hand-crafts some of those tails, for herself and others. She has an alter-ego name and title for these activities, so I chose to depict her as such when I decided to paint her. I looked at and combined attributes from three different photos.

Here is Pearlie Mae, Empress of the Sea.

Pencil, Daler Rowney inks, black Uniball, white gel pen, on Fluid watercolor paper, approx. 9x12 inches.

Wonky Friends

 A friend from Deb Weiers's class suggested we have a Wonky Friends Challenge for the month of December. I'm not sure I'll participate for a good part of it—I have paintings to make that are actual gifts for people and not just for fun—but I got a timely boost on this one from my cousin Kirsten, who took our Zoom photo from Thanksgiving and, for December 1st, added hats, bows, antlers, and other adornments to all of us in preparation for the holidays.

This is my cousin Harley (first cousin thrice removed? I think that's right) and his sweet girlfriend, Kim. Since Harley is in his 20s, he obviously doesn't have white hair, but he does have all that facial fluff, so I took advantage. Here are my pair of Christmas Elves for the first day of the Wonky Friends Challenge.

Pencil, Daler Rowney inks, watercolors, India ink, Uniball pen, white gel pen, on Fluid 140-lb. watercolor paper, about 9x8 inches.

Church Lady

After seeing the "sisters" I painted, my friend Phoebe challenged me to paint Dana Carvey in his immortal role as the Church Lady from Saturday Night Live. I jokingly said "I will if you will," and so far no portrait has manifested from Phoebe's direction, but this afternoon I decided I would give it a shot, regardless.

It's not quite Carvey-worthy. The hair could have been bigger, his eyes are a little too close together, and I picked one of his slightly less crazed expressions when I probably should have gone all out. Also, I decided to prep the paper first with colors, and they came out a little rough when this probably should have been a smooth painting.

I decided, too, that it would look a little more like the Church Lady if she had her signature stained glass window behind her, but I didn't take the time to use a straight edge to do the diamond shapes from one side of the "window" to the other, so if you follow the lines out to their completion, they don't intersect anywhere even slightly accurate. But...it was a quick and dirty painting, and the background was more for atmosphere than for verisimilitude, so...being in that kind of mood today, I'm going to say "Fuck it!" and let you like Church Lady or not. Not one of my personal favorites, but at least I met the challenge!

Pencil, Daler Rowney inks, white and black gouache, black Uniball Vision pen, white Signo gel pen, on 140-lb. Canson Montval watercolor paper, approx. 7x9 inches.

Another Sister

 Well, I could hardly paint Sister Wilson (or her approximate facsimile) and leave out Sister Crawford, could I? (By the way, they weren't nuns; in the fundamentalist church in which I was raised, everybody Brother'd and Sister'd one another as part of the ritual.)

I have to confess that I went looking for a reference photo for this one, so while this lady greatly resembles Sister Crawford and is, in fact, exiting church on the arm of an extremely silly friend in a flowered hat that is not to be believed, this is not exactly her. I think this lady has a little more self-confidence. She shares Sister Crawford's taste in hats and jewelry, but paired them with a tasteful pink linen suit and white shell, so I let her keep those.

For this one I went back to all watercolor, to get the right pale shades and tones of pink, lavender, and blue (the inks were a little too much on Sister Wilson and made her rather hollow-eyed!), but I did use the bright turquoise and bright pink inks for the background. I must say it's a lot easier to do a background first than it is to add it afterwards and get it smooth!

I ran out of my beloved Fluid paper and had to switch over to Canson. I like the Canson for its brighter white, but nothing beats the workability and forgiving nature of the Fluid paper.

I decided to let this blue-haired lady speak for herself, so there's no pearl of wisdom included on this one, although there are pearls!

Pencil, Paul Jackson and M. Graham watercolors, black Uniball Vision pen, white Signo gel pen, Daler Rowney Turquoise and Fluorescent Pink, on 140-lb. Canson watercolor paper, 8x12 inches.

Anticipation

 I didn't set out to do a Christmas-themed piece of art. I was inspired by another artist on Deb Weiers's site to make a picture of someone I had forgotten about until Denise Malm's art reminded me. She posted this piece, remarking, "This is Miss Edna. If you attended traditional church growing up, Miss Edna was there, a little frumpy, but always in her Sunday best and a little oblivious to a lot. If you were to say, 'Miss Edna, you have a little birdie on your hat,' she would likely reply, 'Happy birthday to you, too!'"

I got such a kick out of the piece, because for me and my family, Miss Edna was "Sister Wilson." Every Sunday morning on the way to church, we made two stops to pick up Sister Wilson and Sister Crawford. Sister Wilson was barely five feet tall, a little bit round but with a long pointy nose that made her face look thin. She always wore a rather battered black felted hat and an old brown swing coat, and her wispy white hair was always escaping from its miniscule bun in back to hang around her face. Sister Wilson was a little vague, like Miss Edna.

Sister Crawford, on the other hand, was tall and skeletally thin, usually wearing a pillbox hat with a little veil and big shiny clip-on earrings, which seemed a little formal for her beige cardigan and subdued plaid skirt. Sister Crawford was perennially anxious and always gasped over my father's driving, even when he was going 30 mph.

After I looked at this picture of Miss Edna and another by Denise of her favorite teacher, I had such a clear picture of Sister Wilson in my head that I decided I would try to paint her. I have never painted anyone without a reference photo, and I must say that it's hard. This little lady doesn't look much like her, but has in common a certain heavy-handedness with the rouge and lipstick!

The way that it came out Christmas-y was two-fold: I was looking for some wrapping paper in a plaid or print to use for her scarf, and all I had was this Christmas plaid in red and green; also, another friend on Deb's site posted a 30-day list of holiday-oriented "prompts" for those who wish to participate to follow during December, so I was already thinking in terms of red, green and white.

So here is Sister Somebody, not quite Sister Wilson but with some personality of her own. I thought the saying was appropriate two ways as well: She was always too impatient to wait indoors and would be out on her porch, no matter the weather; and good things can be expected at the holidays, even if remote in nature!

Maybe I'll take a shot at Sister Crawford next time.

Pencil, Daler Rowney inks, Paul Jackson watercolors, India ink, white gouache, collage, black Uniball Vision pen, white Signo gel pen, on 140-lb. Fluid watercolor paper, 9x12 inches.

This one's for Marianne

 My cousin Kirsten and I have a friend named Marianne, who has lived in Vermont for some years now but who used to be a Valley Girl. She is one of the most consistently artistic people I've ever met, in multiple media—drawing, painting, fabric arts, there isn't anything she won't take on. Between a small child support payment for her son, Rex, and a few sales of her art plus the occasional odd job, Marianne managed to eke out a living without having to sacrifice too much of her time to "the man." So she was always up for an outing if one of us called and said "Let's go to the movies."

You never knew, however, who would be showing up. Marianne was a person who believed that getting dressed was either an opportunity to put together some elaborate costume, or a totally haphazard matter of grabbing whatever was at the top of the ironing basket or on the foot of the bed. If you were her friend, you couldn't be one of those people who felt that the person with whom you were seen in public somehow reflected on your own good judgment; you had to have the self-confidence to be you and let Marianne be Marianne.

The last time I remember meeting her for a movie, Marianne was wearing a lime green and Prussian blue plaid jacket over a white T-shirt with a unicorn on it, paired with a rayon skirt patterned with large pink and orange poppies, rainbow-striped over-the-knee stockings, and her favorite orange plastic clogs.

The weather turned cold this weekend after a long period of Indian summer, and my floor furnace isn't working. The temperatures dipped down into the 30s last night, and all I had between me and the cold was a tiny space heater and whatever clothing I could pile on. I took a look at myself in the mirror this morning and started to laugh: I was Marianne come to life, in a mustard yellow T-shirt, my old navy sweater with a couple of gaping moth holes in it, some pink polka-dotted pajama bottoms worn over the top of baggy gray leggings, black socks, and heather wool slippers, and covering it all a turquoise plaid flannel bathrobe.

So this one's for you, Marianne. Pandemic Chic for the remote worker, circa Winter 2020. When I told Kirsten about my outfit, she laughed and said "Well, just don't go out of the HOUSE like that." At eight months and counting, the pandemic worsening all around us, I guess we'll have to wait and see...

Featuring Gidget and my space heater, and picturing me turning blue from the cold...

"Pandemic Chic Selfie": Pencil, Daler Rowney inks, black Uniball Vision pen, white Signo gel pen, on 140-lb. Fluid watercolor paper, 9x12 inches.

Mother and son

 I found a photo of Lisa with her son Ian, and thought it was the most joyful photo, him laughing full out and her looking a little goofy, the two of them so much alike in spirit, so I decided to paint them.

As usual, things didn't go quite as I planned—Lisa got too big to leave room for Ian's full face above her...but as it turned out, it made me think of Athena springing fully formed from the head of Zeus, so the fact that his face is partially obscured as if he's emerging out of her brain is okay with me. (Or at least that's the story I'm telling!)

Then I found this saying from Emerson, which seemed to go right along with the theme, so here it is: "Out of the Brain of Lisa."

Pencil, Daler Rowney inks, India ink, black Uniball Vision pen, white gel pen, on 140-lb. Fluid watercolor paper, 9x12 inches.

UGLY

 For perhaps the first time in my "career" as a painter, I purposely painted something ugly. I'm not just talking about the images, although they are pretty bad, but the caption, and the thought and intention that went into it. And right now, I'm not sorry.

I may regret it later. But tonight I felt the need for a political statement. Tonight I felt the need to say, Okay, in 2016 it could have been a mistake, a misunderstanding of who he is, or else "anyone but Hillary" syndrome. But after four years of misogyny, racist hatred and bigotry, after his disrespecting everyone from the handicapped to the soldiers in our military, after four years of watching him encourage the absolute worst qualities of humanity in everyone surrounding and following him, after the cheating, the stealing, the compulsive and continuous lying, the complete lack of any redeeming virtue or feeling, and the total and complete neglect of an entire country at risk of death or permanent damage from a pandemic the likes of which we have never seen, THEY STILL CHOSE HIM. They actually chose more. They said, Keep it up, we like it, we approve.

And we who were desperate to be rid of him, we who worked for years to get out the vote to purge him and his kind from our government and yes, please, our country, and from our sight and from our minds, we who hold values and ethics and each other dear, have to come to terms with the fact that 50 percent of our country, 50 percent of the so-called United States population (what a joke) would rather keep him, for the simple reason that they believe (erroneously) that he will help them hang onto their money.

That's what it comes down to. Money, and clusters of not-yet-sentient cells in women's wombs. Never mind the people being evicted by the landlords of the apartment buildings his son owns, because they can't pay because they have no work because he let the pandemic get out of control and shut down the economy. Never mind the hundreds of immigrant children whose parents can't be found and who will probably live out their lives with strangers, heartbroken. Never mind those of us who are about to lose both our health care and our Social Security. Never mind the willful continued destruction of the environment and the blatant alienation of every other nation on earth. Never mind all that. Save the fetus, save the 401K. That was their rallying cry.

So here they are, in all their ugly glory. These are the people with whom we are supposed to make common cause to put the United States back together, once this endless counting process is over and Joe Biden is, Jesus willing, our new president.

You know, I just don't see that happening.

Pencil, gray gel pen, Daler Rowney inks, watercolor, silver Lumin/Arte paint, white gel pen, Uniball Vision pen, 9x12 inches on Fluid watercolor paper.

Lisa smiles

 My very first portrait in Deb Weiers's class was of my friend Lisa. It was exceedingly wonky, because I did it as instructed, as a blind contour. Although I really liked the way it turned out from an objective standpoint, it wasn't very flattering to Lisa; so tonight when I saw a photo of her that I had saved, relaxed and smiling while surrounded by her family, I decided to do a portrait that, while using some wild colors and some interesting textures, was still fairly realistic as regards likeness.

I think I mostly pulled it off, although the chin and jawline are perhaps a little heavy. But she was smiling ear to ear and I wanted to convey that sense of joy.

Daler Rowney inks, pencil, white gesso, Uniball pen, white gel pen, India ink, on Fluid 140-lb. watercolor paper, 9x12 inches.

(Here is the original, blind contour portrait.)

I Am Sassa

 I made the discovery on Facebook of an artist in, as she puts it on her website, "West by god Virginia," who has taken on an immense challenge. The day after Ruth Bader Ginsberg died, she was feeling low so she picked up her brushes and painted a portrait of the icon while listening to podcasts about her life. It made her feel so much better that she decided a big commitment was in order, so she thought, since there were exactly 100 days left until the end of the year, that she would challenge herself to paint a portrait a day! They are all "badass women," known for their accomplishments, their diplomacy, their artistry, including inventors, innovators, politicians, scientists, musicians, a little of everything.

Since she started the project she has received not only a lot of attention (including local television coverage) but a lot of suggestions for whom to include in the array, some with complete histories of their lives and accomplishments. She is keeping it spontaneous by choosing each morning who she will paint that day, and the paintings take from three to more than 12 hours apiece to complete, depending on their complexity, all while trying to live the rest of her life on the side. I have immense respect for this 39-year-old painter! (I often wonder what would have happened had I kept painting at 19 instead of deserting it until I was 45. This is a good example...)

I've been following the project and have had some online interaction with her, and I decided yesterday that she deserved to have her own portrait painted. So here is Sassa, another badass woman for the gallery.

Daler Rowney acrylic inks, pencil, Uniball Vision pen, India ink, Uniball Signo white gel pen, white gesso, on 140-lb. Fluid watercolor paper, 9x12.

Partners

 Today I decided that my farmer needed a wife, so I went looking for the quintessential woman for the job. I eventually decided on this one partly for the faraway look in her eyes that are used to looking out across fields, and partly because she has a sun bonnet like Grandmother Allie used to wear. Also like Allie, she has on one of those house dresses washed so many times that the flower pattern has faded to a vague white figure, and an apron with capacious pockets (not included here) to carry around such things as shears or rose pruners or a small trowel—whatever is needed for the job at hand.

I called this "partners" rather than spouses because farmers, male and female, are by necessity closer partners in their work than most urban or suburban couples, given that they both depend on the same thing for their livelihood. Although they may have tasks traditionally defined by gender, both are usually capable of doing any of their partner's tasks interchangeably, from hoeing a field to driving a tractor to milking a cow to cooking a pot of black-eyed peas.

This one was harder to paint than was her male counterpart. It seemed obvious that his face would be weathered and colored by the weather, but she with her bonnet would be paler and more protected, so the colors are softer and less defined. She also should have had a heavier shadow on the top half of her face from the shielding bonnet, but I couldn't quite bring myself to do it! I tried to repeat enough of the colors I used on him, albeit in diluted form, so that the two portraits could be hung together. I think it worked...?

Pencil, Daler Rowney acrylic FW inks, watercolor, black Uniball Vision pen, white gel pen, on 140-lb. Fluid watercolor paper, 9x12 inches.

Angela again

 I painted Angela Davis's portrait once before, but that was when I was still striving for realism, so I decided to paint her again in my new style. I wanted it to be a sort of companion piece to James Baldwin, but not in the same colors I used for him, so I studied photos of her and decided on a color combination of yellow, orange, and purple. It wasn't that she ever dressed in those bright colors—quite the contrary, she seems to favor grays and greens—but that I saw something bright in her face that asked for them.

I went farther than I had planned with the hair treatment, and I really wish I had stopped where my first impulse said to, where it was more indicated and less specific. Her eyes are larger than in life, but that goes along with the new methods; I'm hoping that in this case it didn't render her less recognizable. Anyway, I guess the quote will take care of that, even if the likeness isn't perfect.

Daler Rowney inks, pencil, white gesso, Uniball Vision, white gel pen, on 140-lb. Fluid watercolor paper, 9x12 inches.

Back to basics

 I wanted to paint something tonight, but I wasn't led in any particular direction. Lots of people on my class site have been doing Inktober, which I avoid because I don't like just drawing in ink, I want to do full paintings, mostly, and also I never "feel" the prompts they offer. But I have to admit that I've been liking some of the more spare ink drawings I've been seeing, so tonight I decided to do a combination of pattern, spatter, and random line and let it all dictate a face for me. (I also didn't want to stay up until 2:00 a.m.!)

This is sort of going back to basics with what Deb Weiers teaches, with a combination of random background and blind contour drawing. I didn't do this one blind, but I did let the location of the lines and circles dictate the face. I also started drawing the connectors with my Uniball, but it was just too "civilized" next to the random stuff, so I drew the rest by dipping the wooden end of my brush in the ink and scrawling/scribbling with it. I had fun!

The red stuff at the top was an experiment that didn't work out very well. I had a piece of packing material that was a sort of diamond-patterned styrofoam-like webbing, and I thought it would be brilliant for texture to tape it down and paint through the holes; but because it's thick and bouncy, the ink connected with the material but not with the paper and didn't give a nice clean pattern. So I threw in some circles and shapes and outlined them to accentuate the red a little more.

Her name is Sukie, and her attention span is, shall we say, fluid at the moment...

Daler Rowney inks, India ink, gel pen, on Fluid 140-lb. watercolor paper, approx. 9x12 inches.

Stand

 Malcolm X said "A man who stands for nothing will fall for anything." While he is not a specific hero of mine, and while I disagreed with a lot of his methods (and his religion), I believe Malcolm Little (his original name, ironically, considering the stature he achieved) was one of those who was willing to stand. To stand up, to stand firm, to stand for something when others would not. I came across that quote and it resonated, considering the two-faced duplicity and constant fickle changeability of more than half of our politicians at this present moment in history.

I believe we all need to decide where we stand and with whom, and take up that charge with seriousness and consistency, or we are all in danger of falling. The MAGA contingent has already done so, for a shyster who has stolen their money and their good will for his own benefit and given back nothing but false pride in a nonexistent superiority that only increases their hatred. Let us see their example, mind Malcolm's words, and find a different ground to stand on.

Gel pen, pencil, Daler Rowney inks, gesso, Paul Jackson watercolors, Uniball pen, white Signo gel pen, on Fluid 140-lb. watercolor paper, 9x12.

"Real" men

 After painting the Terrible Triumvirate, I felt like I needed some kind of relief, that I needed to paint somebody normal, or maybe even someone heroic. I didn't know who that would be, though, so I pondered various icons I could choose, but nobody seemed just right. I opened up my Reference Photos folder and started clicking through it, looking for a face.

The face I found was that of a farmer, in a blue chambray shirt and overalls, with sun-dug wrinkles around his eyes, a white frosting of whiskers on his hollowed cheeks and chin, and a look that said simultaneously, I'm so worn out, and yet I'm looking at this blue sky and these fields and feeling satisfied. 

I come from a fairly long line of farmers, although nobody in my parents' generation stuck with it. My mom was the youngest of nine children, and by the time her parents passed when she was 10 and 12, her brothers and sisters had all left their truck farm in Virginia—some for the military (it was World War II), some to get married and start their own households—and there was no money left to keep things going. Others bought the farm, and she lived with a sister for a while, then married an Air Force guy and followed him around the globe for 20 years before settling in the "Inland Empire," otherwise known as Riverside, California.

My dad was the middle child of five, and although his parents owned a good-sized farm in Oklahoma, his mother had bigger plans for her children. The two eldest, the girls, went to school and became school teachers; Joe (my dad) ran off at 17 and joined the Army Air Corps; and the two little boys, 10 years behind the other three, also taught, one in high school and one in college. Grandmother and Granddad sold the farm and bought a couple of acres in town, where Allie grew corn and beans and strawberries and Granddad went to local auctions and spent their money on whatever took his fancy that week. So except for a few visits to their farm when I was very small, I was never immersed full-on in that life. My dad eventually retired from the Air Force and became a house builder, so I know more about dry wall and paint than I do about farming.

I did pick vegetables with Grandmother, I did can them, I did ride horses and feed chickens with Granddad, and I eventually learned to quilt (though long after I could have learned something from Allie, sadly), and I have a few fruit trees, an herb garden, some summer tomatoes, and a zucchini plant or two on my suburban lot, but that's the extent of my industry.

I think the farmers—particularly the ones who hold on year after year against the wiles of the major farming corporations trying to add more land to their empires—are heroic. It's a profession that is so dependent on random chance, on wind and weather being just right at the just right time, and no matter how hard they work or how carefully they plan, hoard seed, grow fodder, rotate fields, it can all be ruined by one torrential rain or one month of unseasonal heat. So it made me feel happy to paint this guy, who never wears a suit and tie except maybe on Sunday, and who listens to the land, and whose ambitions are small but more important to him and his neighbors and his customers than any exhibited by the Triumvirate in their halls of injustice. I hope he has the sense to vote for the right person in this election, knowing that he is one of those who will receive help and comfort.

Pencil, Daler Rowney inks (Scarlet, Indian Yellow, Purple Lake), gesso, Paul Jackson watercolors, Uniball pen, India ink, on Fluid 140-lb. watercolor paper, 9x12 inches.

Just men

 I was thinking about the overweening greed and ambition of certain members of our government tonight, and also about how much harm they have been able to do in the four short years in which they have been calling the shots. I felt the need to remind myself that they are not all-powerful in a forever sense, but have only been able to take foul advantage of the temporary situation in which they found themselves. Although they are master manipulators, they have also benefited from sheer luck, i.e., a narrow party majority, and as soon as that party majority is gone, so will be their advantage. I said to myself, reassuringly, "They are just men, like any others."

And then I thought about that statement and realized that I would need to clarify, because although they are just men, they are not just men. They do not play fair, they do not honor their word, they are hypocrites of the first order and will say and do whatever it takes to keep their power, their privilege, their control. So no, they are not just men. But they are only men, and someday—soon—they will fall.

Also, they all have thin lips.

Gel pen, Daler Rowney inks (Indian Yellow and Burnt Umber), pencil, Uniball pen, Paul Jackson watercolors, white gel pen, on 140-lb. Fluid watercolor paper, 9x12.

The right speaker

There are people who have words for a particular situation that make you stop, sit up, and pay attention. James Baldwin is one of those. And although the things he said were certainly applicable during his lifetime, they also seem peculiarly addressed to us now, in our current situation.

I sat through the so-called presidential debate last night watching the man in charge of our collective welfare bully his opponent mercilessly and maliciously, and lie through his teeth over and over again with a confident smirk on his face. Tonight I went looking for some way to address him through my art, and got a helping hand from Baldwin. This statement is so simple, yet so starkly true. It echoes the quote I love from Maya Angelou, that "when people show you who they are, believe them," and states my exact response to our leadership: "I can't believe what you say, because I see what you do."

It also, of course, addresses the other revolution taking place in our country right now, which is the effort to see what we do to the black lives among us and choose to do better. Dual purpose Baldwin, you might say.

I owe the background color scheme to a piece Deb Weiers just finished and posted, although mine is a little tamer. But I think it works well in contrast to the purple. Other than color and a little exaggeration and flourish here and there, I stayed pretty realistic with this one; Baldwin has such an expressive face that not much extra is needed to render it unique.

Pencil, gel pen, Daler Rowney inks, Paul Jackson watercolors, white gesso, Uniball pen, white gel pen, on 140-lb. Fluid watercolor paper (my order from Dick Blick showed up, yay!), 9x12 inches (clipped a little by the scanner).

The significance of stripes

 Now that I have started thinking about art in terms of mixed media and am taking collage into consideration, I see things with new eyes. I came across this roll of Christmas paper striped red and cream and thought, Wouldn't that make a wonderful shirt for one of my pieces? Of course, stripes are usually associated with one of two characters: prisoners, or pirates. If I had thought of pirates first, this piece might have been quite different, but prisoner was what came to mind. Initially (because of the state of the world and my own current animosities) I thought of who I would like to PUT in prison, but honestly, I couldn't face reproducing that image, even for the sake of parody. So then I started thinking about people who had been to prison, and been sent there unjustly, and Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde popped into my mind.

Oscar Wilde is best remembered for three things: His plays (my favorite is The Importance of Being Earnest), his book The Picture of Dorian Gray, and his criminal conviction for homosexuality. He was "known for his biting wit, flamboyant dress, and glittering conversational skill," so I imagine he would carry off prison stripes with flair, as here.

Wilde died tragically young, at 46, from meningitis, which it is speculated was caused by an untreated inner ear injury sustained while serving his two-year prison sentence. In 2017, he was among approximately 50,000 men pardoned under the Alan Turing law for homosexual acts that were no longer considered offenses.

After his prison term, he wrote in De Profundis,

To regret one's own experiences is to arrest one's own development. To deny one's own experiences is to put a lie into the lips of one's own life. It is no less than a denial of the soul.

Pencil, Daler Rowney inks, watercolor, collage, Uniball pen, white gesso, white gel pen, on 140-lb. Canson watercolor paper, approx. 8.5x11 inches.

NOTE: Upon further reflection, I felt that the original striped eye looked too much like an awning or a circus tent with the vertical stripes, and distracted from the rest of the page. So I gesso'd it out and made the stripes horizontal to go along with the shirt, also knocking down the white to a beige. I think it's an improvement—regrets to anyone who disagrees with me...

What I can do

 Every day, sometimes every hour, some new piece of discouraging news seems to emanate like an ugly viscous cloud from the internet or the television, telling us the latest atrocity our government has committed or intends to commit, the latest scandal discovered and revealed to no purpose, the foul plans of the men at the head of our country, seemingly unchecked by either the representatives we have hired to be our advocates or by their own better natures, which no longer or never existed. The people they have or intend to disenfranchise, the rights they have or intend to trample, the progress they have vacated, the functionaries they have fired to put their puppets in as proxy, the denigration of our brothers and sisters, our most dearly held rights and beliefs sacrificed to their egos and their pocketbooks.

Daily I have become more filled with rage, but also with despair. That feeling of ineffectualness that tells me sending that letter, signing that petition, putting up that lawn sign, marching down that street will do nothing to stop the juggernaut of Fascism and bigotry that has somehow infiltrated every inch of our federal government. The sense of no control over my own life, my own body, my income, my choices.

I have been getting by with a combination of sending furious emails to the heedless so-called public "servants" who are now seemingly our masters, burying my face in a book to escape from this reality, and distracting myself by making art. Today, finally, I decided that what I can do, one of my capabilities and therefore possibly a vital function, is to use my skills at art to encourage, to rally, to keep up not just my spirits but possibly those of others. It may seem laughable to believe that this would have any effect where letters and emails and phone calls and marching have not; but art, after all, is powerful, is visual, can be visceral, and has the ability to inspire.

So here is my first piece of political art. I am claiming it by signing it, but I am sharing it freely on social media. If you like it, take it. Copy it, share it, spread it. I hope it serves to inspire or comfort or encourage someone to hang on for 40 more days and then during what will no doubt be troubled weeks and months after that until we can root the monsters out of our House, our business, our country, and begin the long and arduous but hopeful or even joyful task of building and rebuilding. Let's look ahead. I don't like the Biden/Harris slogan "Build back better." Let's not go back. Let's only go forward. Restoration is good, but creation is better.

Pencil, Uniball pen, watercolor, Daler Rowney inks, gouache, gel pen, on 140-lb. Strathmore watercolor paper, approx. 7.5x9.5 inches.

Birthday pic

 Now that the day is past and I posted the portrait on her Facebook page, I can also post here the portrait I did of my cousin Karen and her critters for her birthday today. I got a little conflicted while doing this—I started it in my sketchbook and was going to do a traditional portrait, but my new methods sneaked in while I was drawing the eyes, so this is kind of a hybrid of old and new styles. I loved the photo she shared last week of her cat and her bunny having a staredown, so I included them in the portrait. Karen has a particularly engaging smile, and I think catching that gave this a close likeness, even though the eyes were exaggerated.

Pencil, watercolors, Uniball pen, in my Bee multimedia sketchbook.

Off kilter

 With everything that's happening in the country right now, I'm feeling like the earth is uneasy under my feet. (It doesn't help that we had an actual earthquake in Los Angeles the same night RBG passed.) Several of my new friends on Deb Weiers's site have been expressing their unsettled natures through their artwork, and I was inspired by one of them, who painted the most perfect primal scream person, to try to express my own feelings of angst, anger, fright, frustration and, well, vertigo.

I found a fellow's photo online that seemed to convey all of that, and changed it to make it my own. The background I painted came up with these circular, planet-like shapes, so I accentuated them a bit with paint and circles, and then I thought, should there be a caption? So I typed "earth out of whack" into Google, and got an essay that told me the world is actually wobbling on its axis. In fact, the planet's axis shifted a total of 32 feet during the 20th Century!

The NASA people say the wobble is caused by three things, two of which, according to our GOP overlords, are "fake science." The first is loss of ice mass due to global warming: As the ice caps melt, mass is transferred from the polar regions into the ocean, shifting the balance. The second is called glacial rebound, which is what happens when glaciers recede and expose long-compressed ground, which starts rising back up to its natural level, changing the distribution of mass further. The last is mantle convection, i.e. tectonic plates doing the Pony due to molten rock shifts.

Is it any wonder balance and serenity are in jeopardy? Link up this trio with the randos bringing shock and awe to our government and I'm feeling pretty much like a Weeble.

The thing of which we have to keep reminding ourselves, however, is that Weebles wobble, but they don't fall down. No, they keep bouncing back, unsteady but eternally upright. Earth wobbles or not, we must do the same.

Pencil, Daler Rowney inks, watercolors, India ink, white gesso, Uniball pen, gel pen, on 140-lb. Strathmore watercolor paper, 9x12 inches.

Surprise guest

 This is the Snow Queen. Don't ask me where she came from, because I haven't the slightest. I prepared a piece of watercolor paper Friday morning, using pink and turquoise Daler Rowney inks, planning to paint a picture of two little girls reading. But by the time I got back to the paper at 11:00 last night, a couple of things had happened: Our beloved Notorious RBG had died; Mitch McConnell couldn't even wait until she was in the grave before stating his intentions to replace her forthwith; and we had a highly unsettling earthquake.

So when I sat down to distract myself by doing some art before bed, I wasn't thinking any more about little girls reading. Instead, I looked at the shapes and outlines made by the ink and saw this haughty woman with a big upstanding fur collar and masses of curly hair, and before I knew it, there she was on the page.

I messed up her nose twice, and had to gesso the whole thing out; it took three coats, so I had to wait to do one of them this morning. (She is now wearing Nicole Kidman's nose.) Since I had to wait to finish the piece, I distracted myself by reading all the posts online, and ended up staying on the computer until 3:30 emailing all the Republican members of the Judiciary Committee to try to either inspire or shame them into holding off any Supreme Court appointment until after the election. Some may think it's a vain hope, but there are at least four members of that committee whose seats are in jeopardy, and I figure they will be listening more than they usually do (which is to say, not at all) to public opinion. I hope to Ruth that's true. In this time when we should be able to dwell on remembrance and mourning, instead we have to deal with these dickheads and their unstoppable need to desecrate everything we hold dear.

Sorry, I try not to go into too many political rants on what is supposed to be a blog for art, but honestly...I'm up to HERE.

Because of letting the paint stay where it lands, she looks a little like someone kissed her and thoroughly smeared her lipstick, so maybe I should call it "Snow Queen en déshabillé"?

Snow Queen: Pencil, Daler Rowney Turquoise, Fluorescent Rose, and Indigo, India ink, Uniball pen, white gouache, white gel pen, on 140-lb. Strathmore watercolor paper, approx. 7x10 inches.

Despite the best of intentions....

 Yes, I am supposed to be dedicating all my time to getting ready for my class (that starts in 10 days), which includes both prepping my lectures, powerpoints, and readings, and cleaning up my studio, at least the part of it visible behind me when I open Zoom to teach the class. The first is comparatively easy; I taught the class two years ago, and have spent sufficient time updating my lectures and powerpoints for the first three weeks, and can do the rest as I go along. The second is a formidable task, since nothing has left and many things have arrived in my studio (aka the back bedroom) in the past 10 years. And then there's the little matter of getting up to speed on Zoom....

Well, I spent two hours fiddling with Zoom and watching instructional videos and trying things out today, and then I had my lunch and read my book for a while, and then...then I was supposed to be organizing my books. But it was hot, and smokey, and the books are dusty and in complete disorder, and...I had a yen to paint. So I opened up my References folder on the computer to see if there was anybody in there dying to come out.

I came across this little lady from Lisbon, sitting at a checkered table in her red-and-yellow stripey shirt and blue-and-pink plaid skirt, and her face seemed to be the perfect subject for some wonky interpretation. Alas, as usual I worked too large and forgot to mask, so all I captured is her head, shirt front, and crossed arms; but I will perhaps return to her later for a whole body portrait. For now, this is the lady who knows all but keeps her council, and who believes that "a nod is as good as a wink to a blind bat," another translation to this Portuguese saying. The American translation had to make use of a made-up word, which bugged me: "To a good 'understander,' half a word is enough." I think I prefer the more idiosyncratic one.

Pencil, Daler Rowney inks, white, clear, and black gesso, collage, Uniball pen, white gel pen, on 140-lb. Strathmore watercolor paper, 9x12 inches (cut down a bit by the scanner).

Feeling my way

I have enthusiastically adopted many of the methods characteristic to the work of Deb Weiers, but when you take a class from someone there is always the struggle to learn the pertinent details without becoming either a copycat or a clone. So I'm gradually feeling my way into my own style that lives within hers.

I love the odd, sometimes vivid color choices, the exaggerated features, making the shape of one eye totally different from the other and yet they go together. I am less inclined to do the blind contour people she loves, because I am always unconsciously striving for a good likeness. I like some of the ornamentation but am hesitant to use too much of it. I don't know whether that's either cowardly or unimaginative on my part, or whether I instinctively feel that too much of it doesn't meld with my more spare style. I also hesitate to put it to use when doing a portrait of an actual person, although I have seen others pull that off successfully. I am using my own lettering style to distinguish it from hers, and so far I'm happy with it.

One thing that I have taken from this workshop that I hope will stick is the use of serendipity, the idea that there are shapes in the paint waiting to come out and all you have to do is see them and enable them. This painting of Rachel Carson started out to be a simple portrait with an accompanying saying; I had a vague idea of doing a stylized background pattern of leaves or flowers, and then, as I looked at the page, there was the caterpillar, there the moth, and there the snail, in the shapes left by the paint coverage (or lack of same), and I thought, "Of course! There should be bugs, and a bird!" So I looked up songbirds (this is a Wood Thrush), and then I looked up what they ate, and I added a few and then a few more, and suddenly the portrait was well populated by "critters." This doesn't always work perfectly: The places where they showed up were in some cases (the moth and the caterpillar) a little awkward. But committing to imperfection is also a tenet of Deb's. And the spider was so obliging as to give me the perfect way to fill in the extra space by spinning me a web.

I have had this saying stenciled on my wall for 20 years; now, more than ever, we need to think about these and other words of Rachel Carson and caretake our garden before we are too late.

Pencil, Daler Rowney inks, India ink, watercolor, Uniball pen, white gel pen, on 140-lb. Strathmore watercolor paper, approx. 7x10 inches.

More readers

I realized when I looked over my stash that I have been skewing female on my reader paintings, and although I know from statistics that far more women than men are avid readers, still we have to give the guys their day. So I went looking through my reference photos and...didn't find too many!

I had, however, saved a photo of my Facebook sketcher friend Don Low, along with two of his buddies, all sitting side by side on a bench on the subway (or some kind of train), and they were each intent on sketching in their sketchbooks. I chose instead to shove them a lot closer together and let them all read from the same book, which Don is holding. I wanted to give that feeling when you think you're having a solitary experience despite being surrounded by others, and then suddenly realize that others may be having the experience with you!

I thought about putting in some writing in the top right corner, saying something like "Don suddenly realized he wasn't alone," but then I thought that maybe it was more fun for the viewer to get the idea from the expression on Don's face, as he looks up and feels the other eyes on his book.

I had big fun deciding what colors to make them all—I was going to make them all one color, but then I thought, Why choose? so I didn't.

Not too much extraneous ornamentation in this one, but I put in a few anomalies here and there.

Pencil, Daler Rowney inks, black gesso, watercolors, Uniball pen, white gel pen, on Strathmore 140-lb. watercolor paper, about 10x8 inches.

Or...

...if you're feeling sufficiently motivated to make art anyway, you can give up your after-dinner television and also stay up a little late!

This gal was kind of a surprise. I actually came into the studio planning a redo of a picture with which I was unhappy, but I was inspired by one of the other students on Deb Weiers's site who used this killer combination of scarlet and turquoise Daler Rowney inks in beautiful combination, and made me want to do something with it too.

I found a reference, and did a little more controlled piece, in which I drew first and painted after instead of letting the ink have its way with the background. But I did add a lot of texture and some splatter, and had some fun with layering colors (like the light brown I layered on the book cover under the scarlet to make it stand out from the rest.

I particularly admire the way many people have imaginatively made the eyes on their characters markedly different one from another, and although I wasn't overly brave (comparatively speaking), these two were focused in different directions, which led directly to the title for the book she's reading. (It is an actual title, which I discovered when I looked it up after on Goodreads, so I put the author's last name on the spine as a courtesy.) The only regret I have with this one is that the book obscures half her face, so I couldn't add some luscious scarlet lips. I'll have to do another with this color combo.

This will make a nice addition to my reading series. Pencil, Daler Rowney acrylic inks, white and black gesso, Uniball pen and gel pen, on Strathmore 140-lb. watercolor paper, approx. 7x10 inches.

Output, shift in focus

I'm quite pleased with myself for the diligence (and excitement) with which I have embraced making artwork for Deb Weiers's class, "Wonky Friends and Critters." I counted up, and I have made 20 pieces of artwork in 37 days (three of which were not for the class), so that's about one every other day, a number far more prolific than I have ever been except in the case of a 30-day challenge. But 30-day challenges can be dashed off, if need be, in 10 or 15 minutes per day, while 17 of these 20 were projects that took me between two and five hours to complete.

Here is a group of my favorites (in no particular order):

  

   

    

As much as I would love to keep going, it's now time to hunker down and prepare for my readers' advisory class at UCLA, which begins on Tuesday, September 29th. I have the syllabus, assignments, and lectures all in place from the last time I taught it, two years ago, but I have learned a lot more about my subject in the interim and want to include that knowledge in my lesson plans; also, this is the first time I will be teaching via Zoom, and I not only have to learn the physical software and techno-tricks, I also need to figure out how to make palatable a 3.5-hour class when it takes place online! It doesn't seem like there should be a difference between sitting in a classroom for that length of time or sitting in front of your computer screen, but I am assured by one and all who have experienced it that it is necessary to break up that time in different ways when it takes place online.

Perhaps it has to do with the fact that when we are online, we are there primarily to be distracted, and so we flit from site to site, from gif to video to photo display to long political post, sampling here and there but not necessarily concentrating our focus. Also, I'm sure it's different when you can turn to the classmate seated beside you and mutter something under your breath about the person who is speaking, or share part of your breakfast bagel with a friend, or trade books based on mutual recommendations. I'm hoping to hear from a few friends who taught during the summer to give me some inspiration. Otherwise, I'll just have to wing it like they did.

In addition to class prep, there's room prep! When one starts talking to others via one's computer screen, one suddenly looks behind the image to the background and realizes, Sheesh! what a mess! For my class this summer, I solved this problem quickly by simply turning my computer around and sitting with my back to the wall of my studio so that no mess could be seen, but it was a cramped situation that was impossible to get out of without a lot of effort, and I need to be more flexible for the class. Also, one of the tips another professor offered in an email to the rest of us was that allowing the students to see a tiny bit into your background—to notice what books are on your shelves or pictures are on your walls, to allow them a slight acquaintance with your children or pets (as long as it doesn't become excessive) is another way to humanize the process of online learning.

I'm revealing all this to say, Don't expect to see too much art output for the next three weeks, while I navigate through all of this. I hope that once the class is up and running and I have a few weeks' worth of ideas and plans under my belt, I can return to arting at least a few days per week. Until then...