Is Your Daddy Home?

Journaling:

3:35 this afternoon brought the sound of three basketballs in the neighbor's driveway. The boys are home from school - Eli, who is about 5, his older brother and their cousin. Then the familiar bam, bam, bam on the front door. The older boys have given Eli the flat basketball again and he needs some air.

Hubby is Eli's go-to guy for air and Hubby loves the honor. Hubby makes a big deal of getting out the air tank, airing up the ball, having Eli test it to be sure it's just right, and checking out Eli's basketball moves. Eli loves all the attention. I'm not sure he doesn't let the air out so he can come over and get Hubby.

So, the knock on the door and there stands little Eli with his mushy ball. He looks up at me with big eyes and asks, "Is your daddy home?"

I stood there feeling rather decrepit with my gray hair and bi-focals, realizing I'm old enough to be his grandmother. Yet in Eli's eyes I'm young enough to be Hubby's daughter.

Bless you my child. You just made my day.

This little guy really made my day. I walked around the house the rest of the afternoon chuckling to myself and repeating, "Is your daddy home? Is your daddy home?" Hubby's gonna love *this.*

Open Studio - Tuesday

Appeared in the doorway of the studio and was met with a chorus of "There she is!" and "We know all about you!" Ack! My anonymity was shot before I even opened my mouth, so I just dove right in like I had known these folks all my life. They were a very jovial and welcoming group.

Everybody had *huge* palettes full of yummy colors and they were nice enough to let me poke in my waterbrush and try them out. Tippy even gave me a squirt of Daniel Smith Quin Gold for my palette. Luscious! Must. Have. Some. Everyone was fascinated with my Niji waterbrush. They had to see all about it, take it apart, fondle the bristles, and take it for a test drive. It was fun watching their expressions.

Spent very little time drawing, mostly table-hopped and chatted. Woo Hoo! New stuff to look at and learn. After seeing how these folks work, I now fully understand Ramona's gasp yesterday. It wasn't that I draw in ink, the gasp inducing statement was "There is no next time." They go through several iterations of pencil drawings, trace stuff on the light box, then begin to paint, and paint, and paint. It takes weeks apparently to produce a single piece. But these are big gallery works, not sketches. I was the street graffiti kid amongst the atelier denizens. Yep, a stranger in a strange land once again.

I did a show-n-tell of my sketchbooks about halfway through the studio time. Gales of laughter at the hotdogs, ohhs and ahhs over some pen drawings, exclamations of delight at daily journal entries. After that I think we all began to realize that sketchbooking was a totally new and foreign concept around these parts. By the end of the two hours a glimmer of understanding was beginning to show. What I do is so new and different it will take some time for the idea to sink it and them to grasp it. I even got the question, "What's a blog?" Yep, a little time.

About the drawings:
The lady on the left is Gay the instructor. She was sitting still for a few minutes doing a critique of Tippy's painting. Unfortunately Tippy kept leaning back and blocking my view so I lost her face. She has the most delightfully curly hair. Love it.

The guy on the right is Joe working at the light box. I'm loving the light box addiction because it gives me a sketch target that doesn't change position. Showed the sketch to Joe and he laughed and said, "Yep, that's me!" Whew. Good-natured sketch victims are a Good Thing.

I need to work on drawing people so I'm thinking future studio time with this group will be spent drawing the members. Hopefully they will all be good-natured about it and won't toss me out.

It was a very good day.

Open Studio - Monday

Journaling:

Only two people in the studio this afternoon: Ramona and Tippy. A group of two didn't seize me up too badly. After brief introductions I sat down to sketch and Ramona was an obvious target.

She asked if I minded her looking over my shoulder while I painted. Not at all, come on over. Had a bit of show and tell on the Pentel Pocket Brush Pen and Niji Waterbrush.

She commented on how fast I had drawn this. Told her I go straight to ink without a pencil sketch.

She asked, "What do you do if you draw a line in the wrong place with ink? Do you fix it the next time around?"

I replied, "There is no next time. The first time is the final time. I just deal with it."

She gasped just a little and her eyes grew wide.

Uh oh. Wrong answer. Dang.

Somehow I have managed an artistic faux pas in under an hour. DANG!

There it was, the Uh-Oh moment I had been dreading, when I suddenly realize I said something I shouldn't oughta. As with similar Uh-Oh moments in my life, I don't understand *why* what I said was wrong.

Sigh.

I remember now why I don't often leave my house to be around other people.

My "Stuff"

Journaling:

Was invited to drop in on two different open-studio painting groups to see if I would like to join. One meets Tuesdays afternoons and has an instructor on hand for help if needed. The other meets all day Mondays without an instructor.

Both folks I talked to said, "Bring your stuff so the group can see it." Eeeek! My stuff was hither and yon in no particular order. Had to figure out when I drew things, date them, and get them in chronological order. Thank goodness for my blog. I need to get better about dating stuff.

I created covers and title pages for the Blog Art album and Portfolio. The portfolio is really just the loose stuff that wasn't bound in one of the sketchbooks. I didn't know what else to call it. Some of my sketchbooks didn't even have my name in them so I created title pages with appropriate info.

It's going to be scary having real people see my stuff and me see their immediate reactions. I won't be able to hide behind the safety of the anonymous Internet.

Should I introduce myself as "Speck?"

The rest of the story:
I started thinking it would be a good idea to get out of the house and find other creative, artsy people. I knew there had to be some out there somewhere.

Ran into a co-worker of Hubby's at Wally World and she mentioned her hubby was in the Tuesday painting group. Called him to find out about it. He said to come on down.

He also mentioned another lady who writes and illustrates children's books was a regular in the Monday group, so I called her to find out about that. She said come on down.

I'm a big 'ol Introvert, not a people-person. Being in a group of people saps my energy. Plus, nobody locally knows me as Speck so I can blog away on the Internet without repercussions from small-town attitudes. If I show up with Speck on everything my cover will be blown.

It sounded like a good idea at first but on the Eve of Destruction I'm experiencing a boatload of anxiety.

What have I gotten myself into???

I need Xanax.

Nana's Prayer Lily

Journaling:

I've been at Nana's house eleven days now and have largely forgotten what my husband and kitties look like. That's a Good Thing actually. I needed an extended break from my everyday life.

Nana has worked me like a dawg these two weeks and fed me only junk food and take-out. I'm craving green things and salad. Can't wait to get home to my own cooking.

We finished all her home improvement projects and she is very happy about that. We still need to work on the garage but that will have to wait for warmer weather.

Haven't drawn much since I've been here and was having withdrawal symptoms so I drew what was in front of me - Nana's Prayer Lily on the kitchen table.

I'll be heading home tomorrow if it doesn't snow again.

I did make it home on Thursday, and arrived to find a pile of bills, screaming hungry cats, and an overflowing litter box. Sigh. I remember now why I volunteered to help Nana with all her projects.

The Lodge Room

Journaling:

Nana's Guest Room - Decorated like an Adirondack lodge, with ducks, fish, sticks, twigs, and bark...and a TV with remote. Discovered the "Arts" channel. I'm in love. Can go to sleep to the sweet sounds of Bach, Vivaldi and Tchaikovsky.

Woke up dog tired and decided going back to bed sounded like a good idea. Slept all day and finally started feeling human again around 10:00 p.m.

Monkey Touch the Monolith

Summary of the past four days:
Tuesday: Move, tote, lift; move, tote, lift; move, tote, lift; cull, cull, cull; toss, toss, toss; box, box; tote, tote, tote.

Wednesday: Shovel, shovel, shovel (snow); hammer, hammer, glue, glue, screw, screw, screw (building bookcase, not sex); errand, errand, errand, errand, errand; sort, sort, sort, wipe, wipe, scrub.

Thursday: Move, move, move; wait, wait, wait; shop, shop, shop, buy; putty, putty, putty; sand, sand, sand; kerchunk, kerchunk, kerchunk (new pneumatic nail gun installing trim); caulk, caulk, caulk, caulk, caulk, caulk, caulk, caulk, caulk (Nana is addicted to caulk), caulk, caulk, caulk (see me watching all this), caulk, caulk, caulk.

Friday: Scrub, scrub, caulk, caulk, caulk; shovel, shovel, shovel; confer, confer; queen on king, three on four; errand, errand; caulk, caulk, caulk (there are 12-step programs for this...); paint, paint, paint, swoon, paint, paint, paint, paint, Tales of the ER until 2:00 am.

Note there is no "draw, draw, draw" in any of that. No artwork happening during those days.

What does this have to do with the monkey you might be asking? Nothing, but it catches me up to where the monkey comes in.

Nana was painting away this afternoon, all glaze-eyed, zoning away in a happy place in her head, and she said, "I *love* to paint."

That's when I had an epiphany.

I would have said the same thing five years ago, but wouldn't now. Painting has lost its appeal for me. I used to love all the prep work, imagining what the finished product would look like, creaming on beautiful paint, and watching the ragged transform into the sublime. Everything looks better with a fresh coat of paint.

I realized over the past ten years I have completely painted the insides (walls, ceilings, doors, trim and cabinets) of my house, my mother's house, my mother-in-law's house, and Prissy Sister's house. I've also painted my neighbor's entire kitchen (including cabinets), and Nana's nursery. Now I'm here painting Nana's two new closet shelving units and a new set of pantry doors. I think I'm done painting for a while.

An epiphany is really not the same as a Monkey-Touch-The-Monolith moment, but M-T-T-M was the only thing my tired brain could muster up to draw to preserve and illustrate the thought.

Nana's Photos and Frames

Journaling:

Arrived at Nana's yesterday afternoon. Wanted to start with a small project that we could finish by bedtime. Decided to straighten up these two cubbies that contained her photos and frames. Turned out to be a big project that took four hours yesterday and all day today.

These cubbies were packed with formal portraits, photos in frames, and empty frames and easels. Forty years of snapshots are lurking in boxes hidden under the stairs. That will be a major project for another day.

Sorted all the multiple copies of portraits by person then put each sitting in a page protector for the moment. They will need to be mounted in an album in the future. Took all the photos out of the frames and sorted them into the page protectors.

Put the page protectors in some old albums that had sticky pages and tossed the sticky pages. Culled any tired, tragic, or broken frames and sent two big boxes of decent ones to Goodwill.

Now Nana can find what she needs in here without an avalanche of stuff falling out. She was thrilled.