Errands

I seem to like this journal page format of little snippets of life with little sketches. However, the little sketches are rather hard to see. Thought I would try a slightly different format for blog presentation today.

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This has not been a good day!

Taxes:
Picked up tax returns from the CPA. Refunds on both Federal and State! Yay! (This was the only good thing about this day.)


Norton Antivirus:
Picked up Norton Antivirus for 3 PCs. It was cheaper to buy new than to renew on-line. Installed it on both our computers. It hacks me that this is a requirement for being on-line. Do Mac users have to do this??? Boo.






Yafa Fountain Pen: (Made in Italy)
On a whim I bought a cool looking fountain pen that came with six colored ink cartridges. I wanted a pen that would glide across slick journal pages. This one looks nice, but it writes for a while then quits completely for a while. I even changed cartridges to make sure that wasn't the problem. Guess I got what I paid for. Boo.



Credit Card - Lost & Found:
Left the office supply store and headed to the drugstore. Got to the check-out and realized I didn't have my credit card. That was such a sick and helpless feeling.

I couldn't believe it! I never let my credit card out of my hand. It comes out of its designated slot in my purse, gets swiped in the card reader then goes right back in that slot before I sign. Arggh! Where could it be???

Broke the speed limit and most traffic laws getting back to the office supply store. When I walked in the clerk grinned and handed it to me. She said, "There's a message on your home answering machine from me." She had looked up my telephone number and called to let me know she had it. There are certain benefits to living in a small town.

Snake: (About 7" long)
Another late night gift from Cheezburger the Porch Cat. He is cleaning out the snake population from the front yard. This is a prime example of why I don't step out on the front porch barefoot in the dark.

He was very much alive, writhing around trying to fend off his 200 times larger attacker. Felt kinda sorry for him but not sorry enough to rescue him. Callously took pictures as he fought for his life.

Found him later, belly up in Cheezy's food bowl. Cheezy had saved him there as a snack.

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Better?

Spring Cleaning

Journaling:

Was seized with a fit of spring cleaning today. My stuff was stuck hither and yon (albeit neatly) all around my workspace. To find a particular sketchbook I had to look in five or six places. Argggh!

I cleaned out this little triangular shelf that was decorated with nautical stuff. I needed the utility space more than cutesy nicey-nice.

Collected all my arty creative books, sketchbooks, journals and art toys and fit them in the shelf. It's a little short for the tall books to stand up and the triangular space was a pain, but it all fit...for now.

I may have to put the completed journals on the top shelf next to the ceiling. Hate to do that because I would need a step stool to get to them and I refer back to them quite a bit.

I also culled and disposed of three banker's boxes of old projects I haven't worked on in over three years. Had to have a little Come-to-Jesus meeting about what projects would get my time and attention. Those lost.

Paint Organization

Journaling:

Finally got around to doing something with the new tubes of paint purchased almost three weeks ago. They wouldn't fit in the little boxes with the other tubes so I had to find a new system. All my other art supplies are organized in clear plastic pencil boxes but the little paint tubes would get lost in a jumble if they were just tossed in. Needed some dividers.

Figured out some nifty little storage trays made of accordion-folded cereal boxes. (Held together with blue painter's tape. Yes, I'm cheap.)

Each section is 3/4" wide and 1/2" deep. It holds the little 5 ml Winsor & Newton tubes perfectly. Each tray holds five tubes and six trays will fit in the pencil box for a total of 30 small tubes. Hopefully I won't ever have more than that. The big tubes live in a different pencil box.

The new paints were Winsor & Newton to replace the same colors of "cheap" paints.

The W&N Sap Green and New Gamboge are brighter and richer than the old ones, but the W&N Cerulean Blue is a huge disappointment. It is a very dull step-sister of the Raphael paint. The Raphael Cerulean Blue in the palette is very dark, almost indistinguishable from the Ultramarine, Payne's Gray or Indigo. The W&N is very light and different. Maybe I should look for Cerulean Blue in a different brand.

Also got some French Ultramarine and Quin Gold. These too were a huge disappointment. The French Ultramarine looks no different than Ultramarine Green Shade (the stock dark blue). What's the point???

The Quin Gold I had was just a small squirt of Daniel Smith brand I got from a friend's tube. Fell in love with it. I wanted to stay with the same brand for all my paints so I got W&N's Quin Gold. It's not thrilling me the same as the Daniel Smith does.

To this point I've loved all my Winsor & Newton paint. I was not a Happy Camper to have three duds of five in this order. Dang!

Sunday Stuff

Note: There's a little bit of overlap here from the last post. I should have waited until the day was over and my daily journal page complete before posting on the blog. Sorry 'bout that.


Journaling:

Tried sketching Hubby but he wiggles too much. He was trying to sew up the rotten boat seats. Gave him a pinhead again, and pin feet. Did OK on the body because I did it as a blind contour, but then I looked down at the drawing for the head and feet. That's where I messed up. (Original in Black n' Red - Staedtler 0.3)

Our CPA called to tell me my deductions are not actually deductible. Gaaahhhh!!! This was after I had called her to make sure they were.

Income tax returns make me crazy! Why are they called returns anyway? If I calculate things correctly, I shouldn't return anything to the IRS, they should be returning things to me.

Something blew up or fell down in China over the weekend. TV news reports showed ambulances responding to the scene. Why does a Chinese ambulance have the word AMBULANCE written on the side in English? Why not Russian or some other language? Seems odd.

Hoarding: Buried Alive is my new favorite TV show. Not quite the trauma dramas as the original Hoarders but it will do. Makes me want to clean my house after watching an episode.

I think it would be fun to be a professional organizer, but maybe not for a hoarder. I don't know if I could handle finding a sailcat in the middle of the living room.

Boat Repair

Journaling:

Hubby was trying once again to patch his raggedy boat seats back together with fishing line and force of will. They are rotten and need complete replacement, padding and all. But he won't part with the coin, so he sits and stitches.

I gave him a pinhead again. He really has a normal sized head.

Cheezburger the Porch Cat inspects the progress. It's tough to sew when your superviser keeps zotting the thread with his paw.



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Process notes:

Hubby kept wiggling and it's tough to sketch a wiggling subject. Need to work on that.

I wanted this to be a really loose sketch. I started with the shirt and shorts almost as a blind contour drawing. Then I started looking at what I was drawing when I got to the legs, shoes and head. That was a mistake. When I get absorbed in the details my drawing gets smaller. Crap.

I debated whether or not to post this sketch. It obviously has problems. But this is my journey of discovery, and this was my day in it, so I opted to show all...the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Dis, Dat, and De Udder Ting

Jollydog asked if the new journals I bought at Wal-Mart would take watercolor. I didn't think they would because the paper was thin, but I did a test for her to satisfy my own curiosity.

This is a Black n' Red casebound notebook with ruled, 90 gsm white paper, purchased for $5.00 in the clearance aisle. It has a yearly date planner, 3-year calender, Table of Contents, Contact list section, World Time Zone map, as well as paper, envelope, measurement, speed and temperature conversion tables inside the front cover. Inside the back cover is a map of Los Angeles and the United States, and maps of the New York, Chicago, and Washington DC metro systems.

This paper is so slick the ink from the Staedtler Pigment Liner smudged a little at the first blob of paint. I should have let it dry for just a minute. Thirty more seconds of dry time and no smudging on the rest of the drawing.

I slathered a lot of water on this trying to build the layers of color without letting it dry between colors. In some places it picked up the paint like WC paper. (I'm not used to that.) The paper crinkled a little bit but it wasn't bad enough to deter me from using WC again. Neither the pen nor the paint bled to the reverse side.

I was very surprised at how well this paper held up. It gets a double woot...Woot! Woot! That opens a vast new territory of possibilities on how to use this journal.

Next was a Mead Genuine Bonded Leather Graph Paper Journal, Product #88185, brown, with padded, top-stitched cover and ribbon bookmark, purchased for $9.00 in the clearance aisle. I searched for this on-line hoping they also made a blank paper version, but was unable to find even a mention of it anywhere. Maybe this was made exclusively for Wal-Mart.


Wow this paper kicked and screamed at the watercolor. It sucked up the paint, turned a nasty looking gray, and the surface came off with a few strokes of the brush. The paper crinkled badly and paint bled through to the reverse side. I might could live with the crinkle and bleed, but when the paper starts falling apart under the brush there's no hope. Copy paper performs better under watercolor than this stuff. Pen and ink only in this journal.

I was surprised at this performance too. Of the two journals I expected this one to take a light wash and the Black-n-Red to crinkle like a Ruffles potato chip. It was, in fact, just the opposite. Ya just never know until ya try.

It was luscious under the pen though. Gave me an adrenaline rush. Wanted to draw everything in sight and fill the pages. So I did, kinda, sorta.

I have a little game I play late at night when I'm brain dead but still want to draw. I go to Flickr's Most Recent Uploads and pick the photo three columns over and three rows down (3x3) and draw it.

I never know what I'm gonna get, but there are lots of drooling babies and wedding photos uploaded to Flickr. It's good to know the world is reproducing, or preparing to reproduce. The lighting on the subject is never good, composition is wonky, and more often than not the pic is out of focus. Camera phones are the bane of my drawing existence.

Guy at a Concert - Lighting was horrible, angle was worse. Messed up his eyes in a big way, but thought the foreshortening wasn't too bad. It was a challenging angle to draw.



Girl and her Mom on a Tram - Went quicky sketch caricature on this one. The big fat pen I was using doesn't do details well. I guess I should have changed to a smaller sized pen. I like the shape of the girl's face. Might recycle that into another drawing.



Self Portrait in Mirror - Once again the lighting and focus was terrible, but the subject was a very interesting composition. Broke out the drawing pencil to see if I could capture the delicate shading on the face. It looks a little wonky to me but an Asian face has a much different structure than a European face. The eyes appear wider and shallower and the nose bridge much flatter.


I need to learn to draw the Asian face if I keep playing 3x3 on Flickr. In the wee hours of midnight the majority of faces being uploaded are Asian.

Hubby at the Bank - Hubby and I were at the bank Wednesday waiting for the Customer Service lady to fill out a pile of paperwork. I suddenly noticed how awesome Hubby's face was bathed in the diffused sunlight. I snatched up a tiny 3x5 notebook and a ballpoint pen and started drawing.

He is almost recognizable. Woot!

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And the journal page to document all this:

Spring is Here!

Journaling:

Spring is here and my garden is coming to life. Small signs of rebirth are good for my soul.

Hosta - Have gone from purple nubs to pale green spears. Plant marker made from mini-blind slats.

Dianthus - Mother-in-law calls them 'pinks.' These bloom in the heat, cold, wet, dry, sun or shade; and bloom from frost to frost.

Loropetalum - Blooms long spears filled with delicate spidery magenta flowers. The foliage is a deep purple.

Creeping Phlox - Fluffy mounds of tiny delicate flowers. My great-grandma had this in her garden. They are actually a soft pink color. I got carried away with the magenta paint.

Sweetheart Supreme Azalea - Six bushes, all on the verge of blooming. One more warm sunny day and they should be glorious. Keeping fingers crossed that we don't have another cold snap.

I wish all my sketches were as light and airy as the azalea one. I tend to overwork. :(

Heart Attack in a Box

Journaling:

Hubby and I were out running errands and arguing (or discussing) about what to eat for supper. He wanted a Sonic burger (Yuck!) and I didn't think I could stomach that.

I had suggested a local burger joint where I could get a good fish sandwich. He agreed and we were en route when we spied the Long John Silver's catering truck. I loves me some Long John Silver's.

Our little town isn't big enough to support a Long John Silver's store, so they send their catering truck up from Louisiana (I thought; Hubby says Texarkana) to hit all the little towns in southern Arkansas.

They show up unannounced and set up in the parking lot of a vacant store. Word gets around fast when they arrive and usually there's a huge line snaking around the parking lot. If you don't get there quick they run out of food. Usually I don't make it in time. Victory today!

I love the crumblies.

It's probably a good thing I don't get to eat LJS except two or three times a year.

You know you live in a small town when the highlight of your day is eating fast food from a taco truck in the parking lot of the old Piggly Wiggly.