Possum Christmas

Saturday, December 25, 2010 - Christmas Day

Clan Speck gathered at the farm this evening for our Christmas celebration. There were 16 folks this year and food for 50.

The evening was enjoyable and uneventful - until we were about to leave. Hubby was locking up the garage when he saw a nekkid tail disappear around the mower, then into the well pump alcove. He found two teenaged possums huddled there, bedding down for the night.

The alarm was sounded and the whole house emptied to see the critters and to take photos. Much ewwwwing and squealing ensued.

I learned that if you poke a possum with the handle of a leaf rake he will curl up in a ball and "play possum." You can pick him up and tote him away by the tail. Learn something new every day.

The possum pair were relocated to the edge of the woods via tail (by two of the Brothers Speck, not Hubby.)

The farm dogs didn't seem interested in chasing them, didn't even bother to sniff them as they were being toted away. Those farm dogs are worthless as critter chasers! They were probably sharing their dog food with the possums.

The possums will probably find their way back to the doghouse and spend the night there. Good Grief!

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Process notes:
The critter drawn here does not resemble an Arkansas possum in the least. Please don't get the impression we have some genetically altered possum species living here.

The title of this entry in my journal reads "POSSOM CHRITMAS." The spellchecker on my Pentel Pocket Brush Pen was broken. Managed to fix Christmas digitally. Gave up on trying to fix all the possoms. I *knew* that didn't look right.

Brush Pen Doodles

Late-night doodles, drawn while watching a marathon of Barrett-Jackson car auction on TV, drawing whatever is in front of me, then whatever poops out of my brain.

Showed the first one to Hubby:

"Do you recognize it?"

"No, should I?"

"It's the coaster you sit your Pepsi can on every day."

"Oh."

(eye roll)

Daddy's Chair - Where he reigns supreme over the household. (snort) The hump in the seat is one of those cotton hull neck pillows.

The fringed wool blanket on the table is for Smudge the Cat. She likes to sit in Hubby's lap because he is warm and she is old and gets chilly. He won't get up if she's in his lap even if he has to pee. So the blanket was the solution. It was that or Depends.


Smudge on her blanket and other brain poop:

Baby Shower Invitation

My sister comissioned me to do original artwork for a baby shower invitation. She wanted it 8.5" x 11" and "soft." Eeek! That meant I couldn't have any of my beloved ink lines. I'd have to do it on watercolor paper (Eeek!) which I fight with every time I use it.

Sigh.

It was major stress for me.

The design concept was stuffed animals on a baby blanket. Most of the page was a field of pink for the text. The blanket hem showed a little bit in the upper corners and the full way across the bottom. The bear and puppy were on the left margin and the bunny was on the right margin near the bottom.

I fought with the bear. He just didn't want to be the way I wanted him to be. Arrggghhh! The puppy came out rather cute. I love, love, love the bunny.

The bear and puppy are about 2" tall and the bunny is 2.5" tall.

Total size 8.5" x 11"
Watercolors on 90 lb (185 gsm) Canson cold-press watercolor paper

Lizard Toast

Journaling:

A green anole in his death throes, belly up on the doormat. Another victim of Cheezburger the Porch Cat.

Cheezburger brings us the remains of his garden hunting expeditions. He leaves them on the doormat for us so I always have to watch where I step when I go outside.

If they aren't quite dead yet, Cheezy will drop them in his food dish for safekeeping until they stop kicking.

Hubby found this one in the food dish earlier. When I asked if he was still alive, Hubby said, "Naw, he's toast" and threw him back in the garden.

Cheezy apparently retrieved him and left him on the doormat, again.

I was going to bring him inside to draw, but then he twitched. I felt sorry for the little guy but he was too far gone to rescue.

Creatures of the Night

Playing with paints tonight.

I didn't want to make a boring brown owl, so I made him Indigo. I am *so* loving that color!

Cheezburger the Guard Cat

After failing so badly at being painterly, I retreated to the safety and security of drawings cats in pen and ink.

This is Cheezburger's attack position. He may look like he's lounging, but his eyes are open and he is scoping out his territory for interlopers - squirrels, cats, coons, or the mailman.

He hangs his head off the edge of the porch to get a sightline down the front of the house behind the bushes. There might be some ninja crickets or lizards down there needing to be repelled.

Cheezy actually likes the mailman because the mailman thinks Cheezy is a cool cat and pets him every day. The mailman's arrival is the high point of Cheezy's afternoon.

Being Painterly

Tried painting watercolors in a painterly way today using a couple of methods I had seen or read about. Got out the paintbrush and went after it without any preliminary sketches. Below are my shamefaced attempts.

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A VIEW INTO DOWNTOWN LOOKING EAST

Tried the method of "Just Paint the Shapes." This is a view into downtown looking east. The setting sun was glowing on the face of the tall white buildings in the distance and that's what caught my eye.


I made the white buildings tooooo small. They were actually supposed to be the focus. Those blue blobs with the black lines that look like transformers on the utility pole are actually the windows to the white building. The big blue blob at the bottom is the roof of a house.

I liked the tangle of utility lines in the photo, but I probably should have drawn the wires in with a pen instead of painting them. I also don't like the four color palette. If I had do-over, I would change the red brick color of the building on the left to the warm yellow of the building on the right.

Must remember these things.

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BANK BUILDING

I found a lady in NYC who had the most amazing watercolors that were vivid and "loose" I guess you would say. There was a lot of white space between the brushstrokes which made the painting sharp and crisp. Very un-watercolor-like compared to most, but there was a dreamy watercoloryness to it still.

I liked 'em real much and tried to emulate the style. Oy. Big Fail.


At least Hubby recognized the building. I like the little bit under the yellow tree. That came closest to what I was aiming for. I also like the odd pink color in the sky. It kinda got away from me, but still I put red in the sky where it didn't belong.

The dark gray monolith on the right is a big fail because I got it too dark. It should have been just a little bit darker than the shadow on the side of the other building (which was perfect BTW.) I like the bit of blue dropped into the monolith. Had it been lighter gray that would have looked neat. I didn't even try on the windows of the monolith because the painting was ruined at that point anyway.

Oh well, onward through the fog.

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PATSY'S CHICKENS

A lady in north Arkansas blogs about her chickens and posts a picture of them every day. I thought I would try the sketchy whitespace method of watercolor on today's photo.


This came out OK I suppose, but it's not what I was trying to do. There is way too much detail on the big chicken. He should have been more liquidy watercolory. The other too are close to right, but are too hard edged. I should have scootched the bottom chicken over to the right a bit and given him a head. Composition, composition, composition. When will I ever learn???? I painted it just as it was in the photo. Must learn to edit in my head.

I rather like the 1950's retro kitchen wallpaper look to this though.

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PATSY'S ANTIQUE CHICKENS

Thought I would give the chicken pic another shot. Messed it up horribly and washed over the whole thing with Raw Sienna in frustration. Turned it into mud.

After it dried it started growing on me. I kinda like it.

Chelsea Waits and Watches

My antique kitty Chelsea has become quite the Velcro cat lately. She follows me around like a puppydog. When I sit on the porch in the evening she sits by the door waiting and watching for my return. I don't know what's gotten into her lately. It's very uncatlike behavior.


Process notes:
I broke out my PITT brush pen on this one, trying to get to a good place with it. I'd say this was a Fail. I'm too heavy-handed with it. Must work on that.

As I watched Chelsea through the glass storm door I was struck by the play of the warm interior light framed by the stark blackness of the night. I wanted to try and capture that.

I don't think I got the frame of the "blackness of the night" quite black enough. I fiddled with the scanned image to see if darkening the border would help. It looked worse, so here it is as painted.

Posting the successes as well as the failures.

Childhood Treasures

I thought it would be a neat idea to do a series of all my treasures. The first one I wanted to paint was a seashell. I've moped around for four days now doing everything but painting that little seashell. I couldn't get motivated. I did other things, drew other stuff. Something just didn't feel right.

So today I gave up on the whole treasure series idea and started putting everything back in the treasure box. Then the monkey spoke to me (figuratively) and I sat down right then and drew and painted him and his buddies.

I guess the little seashell didn't want to be drawn or its story told. Sometimes that's just the way it goes.


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Process notes:
Painting has improved; composition has tanked. :(

Cat Toy

The little bird probably was blown from the nest during the hellacious windstorm earlier in the evening.

I never know quite what to do in these situations....intervene or let nature take its course.

Giraffe

It was a giraffe kinda day I guess.

Watercolor Practice

Painting with abandon, smearing paint around to see how it mixes, flows and dries.




The little bird below started life as a pear. I showed the freshly painted pear to Hubby and he guessed it was a parakeet. I'll admit it looked more like a bird than a fruit, so I just went with it. Painted in some feetsies and a branch and Viola! a bird!

Sleeping Beauty

I had envisioned this spread with color just in the windowpanes with the suggestion of raindrops falling outside. However, the kitty on my shoulder came out so cute I didn't want him to be overlooked so I painted him too.

I suppose I could have stopped there because the blue and orange would have been nice complimentary colors. But, fool that I am, I keep going. It was one of those "it looked better 20 minutes ago" things.

I started the window by putting frisket all over in little blobs and outlining the whole thing. When I peeled the friskit off the surface of the paper peeled up too. Eeek! That caused me some panic.

Maybe the paper in my journal just isn't designed for that. Moisture may have oozed under the friskit just a little and hadn't dried yet. If I try friskit again I'll let it dry for an hour or so before I try to peel it.

The white blobs looked stupid, so I went back with blue-black to try to make two or more individual drops out of each blob. They ended up looking like white drug capsules with a blue middle band. Finally I just painted over the whole mess and let it be. It looks more like a snowstorm at night than a rainstorm during the day, but eh, it's OK.

Just Another Day at the Farm

Deer season is open in Lower Arkansas. Yard dogs are having a grand time with the leavings.

Don't mean to gross anybody out, but this was my day...dead deer to cookies.

Zonkey Farm

The zonkey kept disappearing over the crest of the hill the one day we finally remembered to bring a camera and stop to take pictures. Pfft. Couldn't get a good shot of him.

The llamas were nowhere to be found and the buffalo would only show me their backsides. Pfft again.