Drink and draw

I am breaking a blog rule by posting after a drink, but OH WELL.

One of the reasons I went to Portland last fall was because there is a little gallery called Nucleus that was having an exhibition I wanted to go to. Nucleus has a space for artists on one side, and a little art shop on the other with a bar for local beers and ciders. Every Wednesday, they host a Drink and Draw event where they fill up the gallery with tables and people buy beer and draw on the tablecloths or coasters, and I missed it by one day. I have been jealous of that event ever since, and so I decided we should do it at home every week. The kids get fancy sodas, the grownups get local beers, and we listen to whatever music we shout out for Alexa until we're happy with our drawings.

This week was Waikiki Brewing Company's Skinny Jeans IPA. It was okay. I don't know why IPAs are the rage right now, but I will drink one, fine.

It went pretty well, even though Zenny knocked her root beer float over within 1 minute.

I did not eat my model this time, because it was a totally dead scorpion.

A bit heavy-handed with the pens, maybe, but I am going to get the hang of it eventually, if we keep this up every week.

 This thing is on a postcard, so if anyone wants it they should email me and I'll slap a stamp on it.

IN OTHER NEWS

* Went to dinner with a vacationing college friend and forgot to take a picture with him. Of course. But I had a beer in a giant tiki glass and we didn't get killed by traffic or the roving Waikiki arsonist, so it was a winning outing.


* The bathroom at work has been replaced with three porta-potties INDEFINITELY while a septic tank is installed. Some day. Probably. They're outside, sitting in the sun like blue poop ovens. The contractor told me to just let them know when the toilets are set on fire or knocked over. He said that usually when they're set on fire the guy who lit them doesn’t die inside them, but we should just call if that happens. And so "Portable Toilet Contractor" unexpectedly leaps to the top of my list of exciting second careers, and "dying in fire while trapped in a porta-potty" now tops the ways I definitely don't want to die but would not be surprised to see on my tombstone.

qualitative art content

It will be a relief to drinking song aficionados to know that I looked up the words to "Show Me the Way to go Home" and have been singing it correctly ever since. Badly. Incessantly. But correctly.

The kids are going back to school tomorrow and there is much excitement. From me, mostly. Between the holidays and the illnesses, I haven't been down in the studio for nearly a month. A month. My skin feels like it's crawling off.

SPEAKING OF - one of my Christmas presents arrived late, and it is wonderful. And also terrible. And smelly. I am suspicious that they used some kind of toxic gas to murder these things, and that the gas leaked out into the packaging. Here's hoping they're all actually dead. I am going to paint some beautiful, awful pictures.

While I was not painting, I drew a little portrait study.

Having a child with a unibrow, wide-set eyes, and tiny mouth was the best thing to ever happen to my drawing style. Love her.

My "draw me a tattoo" queue is kind of backed up, so I drew a mermaid instead of anything anyone actually asked for.

Call it a warm-up for the full sleeve Sarah is going to wind up with after I get all the cosmic elements into her tattoo of Saraswati.  Hindu goddess, knitting, in Swedish folk art style - with alien abduction!

I will include a letter of apology with the final design.

May Day

There is hardly a thing more ridiculously adorable than the preschool May Day performance, you guys. One year the teachers made a giant cardboard whale, stuffed all the kids inside, and led them around on a rope while trying to sing Slippery Fish. This year my own kid was in the keiki hula, and it was the cutest damn thing. All the types of kid-dancer turned out in good form: the pro, the functional, the concerned, the distracted, the flailer, the don't give a shit.

She even got to keep the getup. 

And ok, I didn't actually get to see any of this, because I was at work quacking at storytime kids, but I saw the videos and pictures and it was super cute.

In other news:

* swastika hobo is in jail for trying (operative word) to punch a cop. "Eh, you know how that is," shrugged our informant, as if that is just life. You drink in the library toilet, carve some swastikas, throw a punch at a cop outside 7-11, go to jail. Nature's circle. She can go ahead and dry out in there for a while, we don't care about her that much.

* chicken cop showed up to photograph our hens, because the guy with the billionty roosters behind us got a noise complaint from the old lady next door and blamed our girls for provoking his chickens. The chicken cop was tired, knowing the rooster guy was probably frantically shoving chickens into his bedroom to hide. "I can see your two chickens right there, and I can still hear those roosters, so clearly your chickens are not the instigators," he said. I overshared about accidentally seeing the rooster guy peeing, because I don't know how to talk to other adults evidently.

* I have started oil painting. I am not good at it yet. More on that soon, if I don't get mad and throw it all out the window.

Livestream Monday - murder chickens

Head over to the twitters for today's live stream. I'm making a new twitter banner, with CHIGGENS.

I'll update here with the finished drawing later. Past live streams are all archived on my feed.

UPDATE

Well, I crashed it 30 seconds in and didn't notice until 40 minutes later. Some update message popped up while I was working and confused the thing. There is a time-lapse on the twitters now, instead.

Here is my new banner:

Livestream Monday - hula

I'm back, now that the kids are all squared away at school again.

Head over to the twitters to watch me draw gestures. I'll update this post with the results later.


UPDATE

Well, I kept it down to 25 min this time, but I lost my train of thought and just drew silently for the last 6 min or so. Still an okay demo for line work, maybe. And I only swore 3 times.

bird witch/peeping tom

So. The thing about the bird and the penis.

The little chicken had just died. I was looking at the growing cemetery in the back garden and doing the math - 3 animals in less than 2 years. At this rate, I am going to have the Paris catacombs in my back yard by the time I retire.

A few days later, I was filling the kettle for my morning tea when the birds in the back yard started going ballistic. It was the very particular screech and hysteria of a fallen nestling, so I ran out in my jammies to make sure the cats or chickens weren't murdering anyone and found a baby bulbul in the leaves. Its parents threw themselves down on the ground and dragged their wings around like dying things to lure me away, so I gave them a chance to reclaim the little thing, but it was shivering and hungry and injured, and they were really bad at baby rescue. Birds need to evolve a piggyback system or something. 

So I found myself cuddling the little thing up to a warm potato, feeding it some baby bird formula, and driving it clear across the island to ditch with my mother, the designated bulbul depository. I'm the screeching chicken witch, and she's the adorable songbird witch. This is okay, because I don't have to feed chickens with a toothpick, I can just throw garbage out the back door. I've got the easier job, if she's got the cuter one. 

I was feeling pretty good with the karmic balance of this rescue, after losing the poxy chick, when the phone dinged. My cousin's beloved old family rabbit had died, and they wanted to know if they could bury it in our yard.

It's fine. It's fiiiiiiine. 

The grave digging was kind of harrowing, because we tried to keep it in the same plot as the cats, and every shovelful carried the threat of accidental exhumation. But in the end we got the little bun-bun to rest without extra trauma to the young cousins.

The baby bird, meanwhile, was thriving. In just two days it was healed up and thinking of flying, so my mother brought it back to my house to try to reunite with its parents. Birds will accept their babies for about 4 days, and will even recognize them later as adults, if they find their way home, so it was worth a go.

It did not work, though, and I ended up in a tree watching my neighbor pee into his bushes. Not on purpose. He didn't seem bothered, and just finished his business and went inside, talking on the phone. Men are mysterious.

I felt really acrobatic, hauling myself up into a lychee tree and then managing not to crash through the roof into the garage. After 35, I thought, you're practically 40, and 40 is only a few decades away from retirement, if you think about it. So really, this is an amazing feat of athleticism for someone very nearly almost an octogenarian. I took an ibuprofen.

We were both relieved to have the little bird back in hand, safe and warm, as night fell and the rain came down. It is continuing to do really well over at her house.

And then on Easter my mother found a dove with a broken wing in the Costco parking lot, because OF COURSE SHE DID. Birds fall out of the sky when they see us coming. We need to carry parasols when we run to the car. 

GET THE MILK IN THE TRUNK AND LOCK THE DOORS KIDS

Luckily, doves fall in the adorable-songbird category, so all I had to do was look in at it while drinking wine after dinner and report that it had fallen over and gotten its leg stuck in its splint. She fiddled it back into place.

These BIRDS, people.

the patron saint of veterinarians is after me

I was feeling pretty damned pleased with myself for saving a chicken and some money with my DIY emergency medical skills, and then we came home yesterday to discover the cat's eyeballs had turned grey and cloudy. My veterinary skills start and end with sticking my fingers in things, and that didn't seem likely to help the situation at all, so we shoved the cat in a carrier and drove to the vet.

"There is pus accumulating inside his eyes," the vet said, giving him a shot in the butt.

Did you know that cats can get infections that fill their eyeballs with pus? I did not know this. I did not want to know this. Those dog anal glands are starting to look more and more manageable these days.

I was sent home with a $180 bottle of eye drops and instructions to administer them 4 times a day for a week. Except I am not home 4 times a day. I realized I was going to have to forfeit my precious lunch break illustration time while I drove back and forth from work in the middle of the day to chase a cat - and then the school called. "Your kid threw up all over the cafeteria floor, he needs to go home."

CHICKENS. CATS. CHILDREN.

So the good news is that I got my illustration time after all, and I'm home to fight with the cat over eye drops.

Three mishaps is the magic number, right? I have paid my penance to the gods of pus and vomit and chicken butts. Looking forward to hearing from the gods of $5 bills found on the ground and surprise candy in jacket pockets, instead.

- - -

Related, I stayed up late the other night to decompress with actual paper and pencils/pens. Spent the whole time tapping "undo" and trying to span my fingers to zoom in. Maintaining brain connections is hard.

Gavin vs Pan the cat

My teenager got a smelly butt smashed in his face and asked me to document it for posterity. 

yesterday in my garden - comic

Leif has started filling up scraps of paper with little comics about cats and robots and killer cyborg snowmen, so I got him a proper sketchbook. He sits in the back seat on the way to school, drawing and writing. 

I said to him, "And if anything funny or stupid happens to you during the day, you can draw a short little comic about it. Just like 3 panels or something."

And I realized that I don't even do that. Why don't I do that? I MUST DO THAT.

So I did that. Here is yesterday's gardening incident. 

sketches - bat and coyote

So one time Coyote saw some lizards sliding down a hill on rocks and totally wanted to join in, and they TOLD him not to try sliding down on the big rock, but he was like, PFFFT, and of course he did anyway, and of course he wiped out and got smashed to death by the rock. The lizards were really annoyed, but his gross body was smashed all over their sliding area, so they begrudgingly resurrected him.

We did this story for a school play on Black Mesa, and it was awesome. I wore a paper-mache lizard head and rolled around on one of those little square skateboards everyone crashes into the wall with in gym class. We set up a "hill" on one of the folding cafeteria benches with cardboard, and someone tried to roll down it and fell on their head. A+ theatrical experience.

And today I drew a bat during lunch break. 

Dropped cat sketches

Got a new pad of watercolor paper.

Nuts

I found an itty bitty frame for my wall of produce, and the only itty bitty food I could find were 4 almonds in the staff room. Instead of scattering them artfully, I just lined them up. And then ate them. I DO WHAT I WANT, etc.

3x3, pencil and acrylic wash on watercolor paper

I only had brown, yellow, & white paint in my lunch bag. That is called a forcibly controlled palette.

Dropped Cat No 1

The Po cat.

This one fits well in the nice wooden frames we have stacked in the basement that we couldn't find artwork for, so I'm happy. 

It's hard to get the right perspective with my phone. 

If her head looks too large, it's because the angle is tilted. 

 3 more splayed rug-cats to go. A skinny, not-black one next, because whoa. Fat black cats are hard to give any definition to. Luckily this one lays with her tongue hanging out and has alarming nipples.

a challenge is thrown down

Was clacking away at order lists while a patron told holiday stories to co-worker. Perked up when he mentioned visiting St. Penisburg. Wondered where St. Penisburg was and how long it would take to get there and what the souvenir snow globes would look like before the pieces clunked into place in my brain. Oh, St. PETERSburg. This was not much better for me. Went back to clacking at order list, red in the face.

SO. What I've decided, internet, is that I need an inspirational challenge. And what I need to produce is artwork, because I'm getting old as balls, probably, and all I have to show for my life's body of work are manically cheerful dinosaurs and portraits of lettuce leaves. So. One finished drawing a week. Not one a day, because then I'd just be scribbling out doodles of my stapler to get it done, but something a bit nicer that takes a bit of thought and preparation to finish.

Week 1: Pepper the Pissed Off Bulbul. She tries to take my eyes out every time I visit my mother, and this is her eff-you face, with her crown up.

Next I will be working on my Dropped Cats series. I am just warming up with pets. AM NOT A PET PORTRAIT ARTIST. Not that there is anything wrong with that. Except that it's super terrible. Call them animal studies.

Start as you mean to go on

And suddenly it is a new year. Again. 

I did my duty as a first-world holiday glutton and got on the scale. Screamed. Died. Made coffee. Complained to my mother. Knitted for the rest of the day while watching Doc Martin. So that's handled, then.

This is the year to grow roots, says me. A year to renovate the bathroom ceiling, build an outdoor shower, set up my painting studio, finish a quilt, plant vegetables that thrive on neglect. The lilikoi has become an entity, the arugula has taken over the front garden, and the Japanese eggplant has become a monster in the back. My idea of magical cozy homes are overgrown, vine-covered, unruly, and filled with books and artwork.  

Getting there. 

Also this was taken yesterday. See how wintry it is? Not wintry at all, that is how.

Started by raking up a bin full of leaves until my thumb blistered, which took care of one of the holiday pounds. In fluid, mostly. From my thumb.

This is the year something big should change, says my mother. She is tired of being lonely in her little condo with irritating neighbors and a frustrating job. She has been making an effort to ride with her bike gang and write her stories and get out to cultural events. "I should have married," she says. "But I don't like meeting men. What I need is a man I already know. Tell your blog I have a spare bedroom for visitors." She does, boyfriends-past. "That might make me tidy the spare bedroom." That means I'll be tidying it, but that's ok, because I'm a busybody like that. 

My mother, 1982 or '83

And I wanted to start the year with art stuff, to gain rolling momentum, so here is the drawing of Xebo I made for my mother. I did one of Hercules, too, but forgot to take a picture of it. He died kind of close to Christmas, so I was a blazing beam of focus.

Pencil & acrylic wash on Strathmore cold-pressed watercolor paper, 4x6

I'm not going to start a pet portraiture thing of it, but I do want a portrait of everyone in the family on the gallery wall. Well, the hallway wall. It will be a gallery when there is art on it, because I say so.

Also I'm going to knit some socks.

And that's the inspirational Start of the New Year with Obligatory Fitness Remorse post.

Yearly goals encouraged in the comments. (Your own. I know mine already.)

It's secular autumn festival decoration time!

In the interests of keeping our library witchcraft-complaining-parent-free, I drew a Hawaiian Hoary Bat for my storytime kids. Just open it in a new window, print on cardstock, color & cut, and use as very cheap decorations, if you want.

Why you should want:

1. It's a bat, so SEASONAL.
2. The name has "hoar" in it.

more produce portraiture

While the man bangs and grouts and saws in an attempt to finish the bathroom before his mom comes to visit, I've been  drawing fruit again.

This month, I endeavored to answer the question: will a diet comprised almost entirely of lychees result in weight loss? The answer: no. No, it won't. 

After canning lychees and preserving lychees in vodka and gin, I ran out of jars and resorted to an attempt to eat the entire tree. They are fat free! 6 calories each! Full of vitamin C! And I gained 8 fucking pounds in 2 weeks. Evidently I am also lucky not to have developed encephalopathy. Fruitarians really are bonkers, folks. SCIENCE.*

So now I'm off lychees and into yoga pants, jogging around the block and pissing off all the neurotic dogs in the neighborhood every evening. Down 2 lbs. 

But I can't stay mad at these things. They are just the best.

And now they are on my wall with General Kale and Tim Ginger. Also that poisonous mushroom my co-workers brought into the library, which I call "a Mushroom for Muu". The lychees had been uncreatively dubbed "Twig and Berries", but I think now I can call them "Encephalopachees".

That is kind of like home improvement.

*Not really. But plausibly.

Designated Wet Blanket

I made a cake. It was a glazed lemon cake topped with fresh berries and whipped cream, and I think that proves that I am supportive of holidays and food. But I did not go to the beach and get sunburned along with everyone else on the 4th of July, and I did not go to the water park and get a neck injury like everyone else the following day. This is because we had a house guest and my introvert's power charge had been expended, and because I have been head-draggingly depressed for reasons related to an upcoming doctor's appointment, and chasing a seizure-prone toddler around slippery concrete was not an appealing holiday activity. REASONS, I told my mother. WET BLANKET, she replied.

So on Monday, I gathered the kids and took them to the Ice Palace for the borrowed child's last day of metropolitan adventure. And I was so determined not to be a wet blanket, and to not ruin my 2 year-old's childhood by Depriving Her of Life Experiences, that I folded under the gaze of the admissions lady and paid for a complete round of ice skates. This is ridiculous, I thought as I tugged tiny blades onto Zenny's feet. This is not a good idea, I thought as I secured her helmet and clomped to the ice rink. THIS IS THE WORST THING I HAVE EVER DONE, I thought as we clung to a walker and slid in a panicky circle around the kiddie area. Zenny tried to climb my legs, I tried to hold her up so we could exit faster, we struggled in place for a terrible half a minute, and then an alarmed ice-lifeguard grabbed us both and shoved us off the ice. I tossed the skates back onto the counter and bought some hot cocoa, instead. We watched the big kids skate, warmed our hands, and I mentally pared items off my shopping list to allow for the cost of my idiot toddler-on-ice endeavor. 

coffee filters; I can use paper towels 

sandwich things for work lunches; I can eat old cans of tuna with a fork

tea bags; old crystal light

pasta sauce; just dump cheese on it

It's all fine. The kids had a great weekend. Nobody got their fingers cut off on the ice rink. There is leftover cake. I am in some of the holiday pictures.

Here is photographic evidence of festivities and things being done.

Pencil and chalk

Mechanical pencil is being agreeable tonight. May have something to do with breaking lent and having a beer because it's the eve of a state holiday. Am relaxed and getting liberal with my chalk.

today is fired

Childcare woes. Financial surprises. Medical procedures. Now discovering that Leonard Nimoy died. I am crawling under my desk for the rest of the day.

I'm making portraits of produce in ridiculous fancy frames for my kitchen. Here is Tim Ginchin to join General Kale.

He says, "hey, ginger," because the man is also ginger, and only a ginger can call another ginger ginger. Which was funny to me yesterday, but today everything is STUPID AND WRONG.

I like it anyway, though, because Tim is my doppelginger. GET IT. HA.