melted chickens and another painting

The chickens have survived the pox, and I now consider myself the leading authority on chicken nursing skills in at least a 2 block radius.

Here is what you do for pox:

1. Dab iodine onto their crusty face lumps. You're going to get carded for the iodine, because it's a meth ingredient, so act cool. Just to be on the safe side, you can assure the cashier, loudly, "I am NOT cooking meth. It's for my sick chickens." 

2. Don't freak out when all their feathers fall out and adhere to the iodine, just pluck them off like beard hairs.

googled "chicken beard" and was not disappointed

3. When they stop eating and look like they want to die, spread them out on the lawn to bake in the sun.

This was the turning point. They remembered that they like being alive. A bit begrudgingly. With biting. I will take it. 

sunbathing birds look terrible; if you see one sunning on a sidewalk, don't club it to put it out of its misery

So they're just about back to normal now, if a bit scabby, and we are relieved. I really didn't want to dig any more holes in the back yard.

Painting again. 

Lychee season is coming to an end. This afternoon I hauled the little easel up onto the porch and snapped off a few fruits to paint. I couldn't find a good surface to pose them on, so I dug a push pin out of the junk drawer and stuck it right onto the side of the house. Probably I shouldn't be poking holes in the house, but I am Supreme Overlord for the next few weeks and I can do what I want. 

Zenny scootered around on her wheelie toy, stopping to peel lychees for the chickens and watch the painting take shape. 

I say it every year: I love the summer so much.

ginger and beer

My chickens are sick. They caught the plague from the corn-pilfering pigeons and I am tending their bedsides in the morning and evening, dabbing iodine on their swollen little faces and hoping they don't die. I've got Schrödinger's coop in my yard, and I brace myself every time I open the nesting box. There isn't much to do about an avian virus except wait it out. I am really bummed about it. 

Friday was my last night alone for a long time, so I changed the chickens' food and water, poured out one nice dark beer for dinner, and went down to the studio. I discovered where the paint-licking cockroaches were hiding; in the hollowed-out carcass of my ginger knob. They scattered when I shook it. I painted it anyway. 

more wiggly shadows!

I didn't pre-mix color strings for this one, I just worked straight from the mess on my palette (which is still a plastic lunchmeat lid covered in tin foil). It's getting easier - I got this one done in 2 hours, and had time to watch Netflix and knit my Seattle sweater before bed. I really dig having a few nights to myself.

Might try a self-portrait next, if I get the kids to bed on time one of these nights.

Goblin Wants an Orange

"So your husband is flying out tonight, and your mom has the kids," my friend said, sitting at the reference desk. "How do you feel about it? What are you going to do?"

"Well, I thought I'd eat a lot of mushrooms*, because he hates -"

"No, you're going to go downstairs and paint. And don't show me any pictures. Your paintings make me sick, I hate you, you're such an asshole. So you go do that, because if you don't do this and be a painter then I'm never talking to you ever again."  

Embroider that on a cushion. She's the best motivational speaker. 

So that is what I did. The man is away for a month, and my mother is watching the kids a few nights a week until school gets back in. It's a handful of free time that will seep through my fingers if I try too hard to hang on to it, so I'm applying it straight to canvas. I ate a bowl of cereal for dinner and spent a few hours in the studio finishing the albatross of a painting that has been holding me up. I couldn't move on to smaller studies while it was looking at me.  

And it is DONE. It's blotchy from drying because I did an amateur job sealing the board, but it is DONE, and it will dry evenly over the next couple of weeks, then I'll slap some varnish on it and those shadows will deepen and glow like lake water at night.

Process pictures:

I sketched the original concept thumbnail on my tablet.

Then I primed the board, sketched and spray-fixed the underdrawing, and started laying in sections of paint.

I bought a big tube of black paint for the background, and didn't shell out for the premium poison, so there was a bit of fish oil in the mix, and when I laid in the background, the cockroaches in the basement spent the night clinging to the edge of the board and licking all the oil off. I hope they get the runs. But not all over my other paintings.

god damn it

Last night I fixed it, and the rest of the painting came along pretty quickly. I hauled the thing upstairs for the final dry so the roaches wouldn't slobber all the paint off again. We've got them under control inside, but the basement opens up into the underside of the house, and there are ruffians down there.

I've got a thing for goblins and oranges. (This is Muu, for my tumblr readers.)

I cruised through the fabric in about 20 minutes, it was a lot of fun. And then I stuck my elbow in it and had to fix it for another 20 minutes.

I WIN, PAINTING.

Tonight: more painting. I don't have to sleep or eat until the family returns.


*At this, one of our library drug users snapped to attention with a hopeful look on his face. Sorry, buddy.

Too much drawing RUN AWAY

I plowed straight on into the next drawing, got mad at it, decided to switch to acrylic wash, immediately screwed it up. Plonked my fingers on the paper a few times, but couldn't get the undo functions to work. Realized that I can't do art at all and everything I touch is garbage. Kept at it anyway. Made it worse. Became the blazing incarnate of Imposter Syndrome, sitting there staring holes in the picture. My hand crawled away from me and picked up my phone and sent out a plea.

"HELP HELP SOMEONE COME HIT ME OVER THE HEAD AND DRAG ME AWAY FROM THE TABLE I AM STUCK IN THIS THING."

And then, power of the effing seeeecret*, my mother and aunts and cousins arrived in a caravan to haul us off to the North Shore for a barbecue. 

I didn't get any pictures of the boy-children, because they were all floating face-down in the water, snorkeling with the sea turtles. Presumably. 

MEATS

Sisters

Sunset

Mokuleia is across the road from the skydiving field. We sat on the beach as the sun went down and watched the little plane roar over the trees right above us, circle up into the sky, and drop people out. They drifted down like dandelion seeds, swooped overhead in parachutes, limbs flailing, and crashed down into the field at leg-snapping speed. If I ever pay someone to throw me out of a plane, something has gone very wrong with my life, let me tell you. 

And I am out of the drawing rut! I'll take some time to shake off the self-doubt and have a fresh go at something later.

Seattle Sweater knitting progress:

Almost done with the front piece. Back piece and sleeves to go.

*I do not actually hold any faith in divine manifestation; my co-worker made me read The Secret a few years ago and it was terrible and now I blame it for everything. It's a 198-page treatise on Blue Car Syndrome.

Drawing 2

Found a lonely stick of vine charcoal in my art cupboard. I like this one better.

Mother of Chickens

I'm having a hard time finding opportunity to paint in the high confusion of summer break, with the kid shuttling and busy days. The family is trying to be supportive, but then plans change and the hours I had been looking forward to all week are suddenly yanked out of reach. I haven't felt this sort of repeated build-up and crashing disappointment since the last season of Battlestar Galactica.

So I took a look at my list of art goals for this year: 

1. Publish another book

2. Learn to paint (in progress, but I'm checking it off anyway)

3. Upload Part 1 of my comic (three pages to go. Color is SO SLOW and Part 2 might have to be black & white if I ever want to finish this thing.)

4. Submit a drawing to the annual Artist's Magazine competition

Aha! A drawing! If I win, my painting workshop is paid for. If I lose, hey, I didn't spend the summer weeping in my truck. Drawing is a thing I can do at the dining room table between cocoa requests and lego mediation.

I figure I will draw three or four pictures and then choose the best. 

Drawing number 1: Mother of Chickens

The chicken (who was very patient despite being chucked at my kid over and over) landed this way in my reference shots, but as a drawing I don't think the angle of the legs worked well. Chicken legs are a lot longer than they look on a Costco rotisserie. Also, there's too much empty space at the bottom and I am too lazy to work up a background, so meeeh. Also, now that I'm looking at it as a smaller image, that foreshortening on the arms looks pretty messed up. Wtf, self. Learn to art.

I like the rest of it, though. 

The submission guidelines are "shades of grey" and allows mixed media, 

so I used some acrylic wash in here, too.

I'm going to keep going with this thing, and I'll scrape together some painting time this week even if I have to stay up all night mainlining coffee.

The chicken tracks hat (pattern)

HERE BE PATTERN

Chicken Tracks 

The most sophisticated and alluring hat with chickens and a pompom that you will ever need. 

Note: My patterns are more like guidelines, so you have to basically know what you're doing. This is your standard stranded hat with square decreases. The size is based around an 11-stitch chart, so if you want to make it bigger, add 11 stitches. To make it smaller, subtract 11 stitches. It should be loose and slouchy, so it's okay if it's a little taller than your head in the end.

Materials:

4 colors of sock yarn (whatever you have the most of for the main color, two chicken colors, one accent color for the chicken tracks)

8" circular needles, size 3
Set of 5 size 3 double-pointed needles
Fits a not-dainty-headed adult

Directions:

Using main color, CO 142

Join in the round, being sure not to twist, and place marker at beginning of row.

Work in 1x1 ribbing for 5 inches or so. It's okay if it's a bit loose; that makes it warm and stretchy and it'll fold over anyway so nobody will notice.

Switch to st st, and decrease 10 stitches evenly over next round. 132 stitches. Knit 3 rounds even.

Add your accent color and knit track 1 (charts below) over the next 3 rounds.

Continue knitting 2 rounds in main color between each chart and carrying up your colors, working charts in this order:

chicken 1 

track 2

chicken 2 

track 1

chicken 1

track 2

(Basically, you have the tracks and the chickens headed in the one direction and then turning around and running back the other way.)

When you have worked all the chart repeats, work 2 rounds in main color, placing stitch markers every 33 stitches.

On next main color round, decrease 1 stitch before and after each stitch marker; k2tog, ssk. Knit 1 round even.

Decrease every other round 4 times, continuing to work in stripes of tracks and main color (work the decreases in main color and pull them tight so there's no gap), then switch to dp needles, with the stitch marker in the middle of each needle for easy decreasing, and decrease every round until 3 stitches remain on each needle. Break yarn, thread end through remaining stitches, and pull tight. Weave in ends, block. Then make a big fat pompom out of your remaining yarn, using the cardboard donut technique. Sew that sucker on securely.

Pau! You are so hip and mysterious.

Charts:

Tracks 1

Chicken 1

Tracks 2

Chicken 2

Selfies with chickens

Attempted to get a good picture with Sirius the Chicken. As soon as she figured out I wasn't hiding leftovers in my other hand, she was out. 

I WAS PROMISED SPAGHETTI

In other news:

* Was attacked by a jar of brown sugar that leaped out of the cupboard like a salmon and smashed in the bowl of cookie batter I was mixing. The shards cut my hand, and now I am probably going to develop confectionery super powers. Or an infection. Too early to tell.

* Began knitting my travel sweater.

Ondawa, by Michele Wang

When I picture this trip, I imagine myself in tall boots and a sophisticated cabled sweater - a traveling artist of mystery and culture. 

So I worked up a chicken hat to go with it.

 

It'll have a big fat pom-pom on the top, too. I'll post the pattern.

Work has been kicking my butt around in circles, so I haven't had it in me to stay up late painting - I just knit in front of Netflix for an hour and then go to bed - but summer reading is almost over. One magician and a pizza party to go.

survivalism for the lazy and stupid

My co-worker held up the newspaper and showed it to Officer Coffee Poacher, who was hanging out in our office with his thermos. 

"Holly doesn't like the front page today. What do you think?" She was trying to get me to talk to him,  since I had recently admitted that I avoid conversation with him because he reminds me of someone I carry a torch for. It wasn't meant to imply I had the hots for him; it was like saying someone juggling machetes reminds you of the machete sticking out of your shoulder. I don't get the hots anymore. I am a cold fish who is only interested in oil painting and knitting patterns. I'd put the torch down if I could, it doesn't do anything for me, but I don't know how to put it down, so I just ignore it, which is why I don't wanna talk. 

Officer Coffee looked at the paper.

Look at this thing.

Firstly, come on, he's a really bad shot; 

secondly, stop trying to scare me while I'm drinking my coffee; 

thirdly, SHUSH don't encourage those assholes, ffs, tell them we are under an invisible dome or something. 

"What do I think? I think I'll be retired on the East Coast with my cabin and raccoons. Can't reach me. What you're going to need to do is get a shovel and start digging."

"Well, I have a basement. But it's got windows," I said.

"Get some cinder blocks, brick those windows up, and then get a jackhammer and keep going down." He added some pantomime. 

"So, like a big imu. We can flash roast in an underground oven."

"You should watch some of those prepping shows. Or pack up and move to West Virginia."

"Yeah, or... it could just take us out quickly. Fwoosh. Done."

He laughed. "Survival plan: just die faster."

"It's economical."

Oh look, I'm talking about painting again

Last night I accidentally ended up at home alone. I scarfed a couple forkfuls of pot roast right out of the pan and then ran downstairs to throw on some music and paint. 

On infinite-repeat right now:

Work in progress:

I forgot to remove the app watermark, which ruins the vibe a bit here

This painting is a longer project, and it's still in the ugly phase right now, but it'll get there in small sittings. Like knitting a sweater. 

Related: I have ordered yarn for my Seattle sweater. And I'm drawing up a chart for a chicken-patterned hat, using all my leftover sock yarn. 

I feel really good about all this. Maybe I will do one workshop a year. See the country from my easel. Drag old friends along and get some portraits of them as I go. 

A QUEST. 

West coast here I come

I gritted my teeth and clicked the buttons and it is done - I'll be on Whidbey Island for 5 days in November for a portrait workshop with Elizabeth Zanzinger. By myself, in a cottage with chickens, within walking distance of the harbor and adorable small town shops. I almost did a hard right turn and booked a workshop in New Mexico, because I miss the desert, but it was in Albuquerque. Albuquerque has all the allure of a rest area with a busted out vending machine. I looked at a few motels on google street view before deciding I would get murdered in a Waffle House if I spent a week there alone. 

So I'm flying in to Seattle, instead. It will be like the honeymoon I always imagined - by myself, in an art studio and eating fish & chips by the wharf.

4 months to knit a sweater for this thing!