Ready or not…….

It seemed that Thanksgiving snuck up on us this year, with summer easing quietly into a warm fall.

And you don’t even have Thanksgiving dishes done and the National Dog Show watched, before being slammed into the Christmas season, via ads and watching your social media follows decking their halls.

As I always confess at this time of year, I have a very hard time getting into the ‘Christmas spirit;’ the one that includes decorating, shopping, and parties.

My Christmas includes advent readings, candle lighting, reading by the fire with hot chocolate, avoiding malls, and doing what I do anyway - like my daily sketches. My sketches recently have been ‘holiday’ themed. I am not a total Grinch. I put a tree up for the cats to enjoy, and I have done some minimal hall decking.

And I am doing an ‘advent challenge’ in IG to sketch a weekly holiday themed sketch, like ‘Mistletoe Kisses’ above. But, just about the time the holiday mood finally overtakes me, it’s time to celebrate a new year. Who can keep up anymore?

 

Inktober… I didn’t miss it!

I have participated in Inktober each October since 2016, but I forgot to post the ink sketches here this year. So here they are. They were all done in a large sketchbook that has paper that won’t take paint, so just ink, Inktense pencils, and ballpoint pens.

Each day in Inktober has a prompt, which I pretty much stuck to, but I think I’ll just let you guess the prompts this year!

I enjoyed sketching with ink this year, even more than in previous years. The sketchbook I used is a larger format one, and I have grown to like that.

Recent trip sketch journal

 I previously added a few pages from my travel journal from a trip we took to New England. I used the same small sketchbook for our trip a few weeks later to Bryce Canyon National Park, and to view the recent solar eclipse in nearby Utah.

We stayed in a VRBO ranch just beyond Hatch, which was secluded and very nice.

My favorite activity was while my husband was biking through Bryce, I sat and did a small (5x7”) oil painting. The resulting painting was not great Art, but it was great Fun! 

I did a few little watercolors in the sketchbook on site, as well. And I also sketched the cow and turkeys at our cabin before we left there. 

One of the fun new things I did in this sketch journal was to buy a little Bluetooth printer that prints small 2x3” Photo stickers, from my phone. I did try to do at least one actual sketch on each spread, though, and not just fill it with photos. That was pretty hard though, as my sketches do not do justice to Bryce’s beauty! But then, neither do photos, do they?

After our several days in Bryce, we went to where we could see the eclipse best. My husband set up his photo equipment to track the sun, and take photos every few minutes, then seconds, as the eclipse progressed. I sat nearby with my sketchbook, solar glasses, and a few colored pencils and documented the eclipse in my own way. My result isn’t as stunning as my husband’s photos, but what a great way to remember the event!

My husband’s photos.

Between the two trips, I filled the little sketchbook. I wasn’t sure if I would like such a small book, but it turned out to be just right!

 

 

The trip that finally happened!

 

 

 

 

 

 

We finally were able to take the trip to New England that my heart attack at the airport had delayed. Our flight was the same one we had booked before, very early in the morning. I brought a small sketchbook with me, to use as my travel journal, so sketched for a part of the flight, to pass the time. (I am not fond of flying, and having a heart attack at the airport did not improve that.) Our flight agenda took us through Texas, then on to Boston, where our son and puppy, Milly, met us at the airport.

                                                          

 

 

 

 

After a great day and a good night's sleep at our son's family's house, we left the next morning to drive to the Berkshires. We stopped along the way in Concord, one of my favorite spots, for coffee and a pumpkin donut, and a bit of a walk-around.

 

 

 

Our next stop was Amherst, which was a bit  out of the way, but I wanted to at least see Emily Dickinson's house, then go to Eric Carle's Museum of Illustration.

 

Eric Carle's studio makes mine look downright tidy!

I loved seeing the original paintings from some of Eric Carle's children's books, and there was another exhibit there of the  lovely book illustrations by Claire A Nivola, whose work I had never seen, but will be looking for.

We traveled on to our lodging in Lenox, which happened to be right next door to Edith Wharton's home, The Mount, which was on my list to visit. We walked through the beautiful grounds and gardens of both our lodgings and The Mount, then went to find dinner.

That was our first day in The Berkshires, with more to come....

 

Every little thing is gonna be alright!

 I was hoping to be adding sketches and photos from a trip to New England now. But that is not to be. We went to the airport, checked our bag and went through security, and settled in to wait to board our plane, when I had sudden and severe pain in my chest, and down my left arm into my hand. We waited awhile, took something for heartburn, then an Excedrin (the only thing we had with aspirin in it) but nothing helped. I finally told my husband I could not get on an airplane, and we called 911. I had indeed, and surprisingly, had a heart attack, so ended up in the hospital, instead of in New England.

I had a couple of stents put in blocked arteries, was given a bucket load of medicines, and was sent home.

 

I was pretty discouraged, but a friend brought me a decaf americano and a flamingo bubble machine, and we sat on my porch, enjoying ourselves ‘anyway.’

I happened to hear Bob Marley’s ‘Three Little Birds’ and decided it is my new ‘theme song.’ I am playing and singing it every time I reach for my guitar.

 

And I am trying to let myself notice things that give me Joy, like noticing the view from my doctor’s office waiting room window.

I have good days and not-so-good days. Good moments and a few not-great moments. Don’t we all have them? But this is my message to you-oo-oo…Don’t worry about a thing, cause every little thing’s gonna be alright!

Summertime, and the living is….HOT!

My life recently has been showing up mostly in my sketchbooks. We went to Kansas to bury my Father, and I sketched on the trip. I also sketched the very small town we lived in for a few years when I was young, from a few photos my brother took. (below)

 

 

July is apricot season at our house, so I sketched some, based on a Cezanne painting that was probably peaches. The rest of this 2-page spread was done at our cabin, where dragonflies were busy (hopefully eating mosquitos) at the lake and caterpillars were busier than usual at the cabin (sign of another big winter?)  You can tell that the fishing wasn't great, because I was actually sketching in the boat, with my pole in the water, attracting nothing at all.

 

 

 

I have been trying to sketch more, and to fuss less with the outcome. In fact, I have not been using a pencil or eraser, but have been jumping right in with ink or paint, as I did on the spread above at the cabin. I've also been doing as much from life, not relying on photos. The end sketch is not great art, but I really believe it captures how I feel about whatever I'm sketching much more honestly, than it would if I were sketching from a photo and being concerned about making it 'look good.' 

Yesterday we went out to the County Fair. Every year, for a long time, I'd said I wanted to go sketch the animals at the fair, but, with parent concerns, etc. it just never happened, so I was determined to go this year, in spite of the heat. I only took a small sketchbook, a black pen, and 2 charcoal pencils; a black and a terracotta one. I sketched the 3 goats and the pig onsite, but added the girls with their animals when I got back home, with colored pencils. I am not very experienced at sketching in public, so wanted to not draw a lot of attention to what I was doing, and sketched the animals very quickly and simply.

 

 

In addition to sketching quite a bit, I finished and cut off the large tapestry on the loom. It is resting on the dining room table, waiting for me to complete the finishing process. I have also warped a small loom to weave a tapestry postcard to be mailed to another tapestry artist when it is complete. 

I am trying to find my way back into the world of creating, after long years of primarily being in the caregiver role, and, in many ways, I feel like I'm starting at the very beginning once again.

Come see us, if you can!

 

I have a few tapestries ‘out there in the world’ right now, which is a big change from the past few years, when the pandemic made all exhibits online only. This one, “Yin/Yang” is in the 14th American Tapestry Biennial at the Appalachian Center for Crafts in Smithville, Tennessee, May-July of this year.

“The Duet” and “Tapestry Arch” are both in the 2023 Biennial of Textiles exhibit at the Hudgens Center for Art and Learning in Duluth, Georgia, now through July 15th.

This small tapestry, “The Caregiver (selfie#3)” will be in the Handweaver’s Guild of America’s Small Expressions exhibit, July, 2023-June, 2024 at various locations.

Right now, I am weaving daily, attempting to get to the end of a large tapestry that has been on my loom for much too long! I have set myself a deadline of having it off the loom by the end of July, though right now it is not quite at the mid-point. It is a dark and brooding tapestry, conceived during the pandemic and while I was dealing with difficult family times. I need it to be finished, so I can weave something light and cheery!

In the meantime, I am sketching almost daily, and have a few sketches that might become small tapestry ‘sketches.’ 

If you do happen to run across one of my pieces on exhibit, let me know, OK?

 

Selfies....Why?

 

 

 

This afternoon I did this self portrait to end my current sketchbook. I have made a habit of beginning and ending my sketchbooks with self portraits. It is a way of checking in with myself, to see how things are going. 

 

I am not really a fan of 'selfies.' I do not have a 'selfie stick' for my phone. I rarely take, or even like, photos of myself. (I also confess to deleting many of those my husband takes of me.) But the sketches I do of myself are not to capture my image, as much as to capture my mood, and even more, to capture my life at the time.

The Sketchbook

 

 

This past week I posted on IG this tiny tapestry (7x7") that is a 'selfie' of me, sketching in my sketchbook. In fact, here is another confession: many of the tapestries I have done, though they may not look like me, are 'selfies' in that they are about my life, my interests, my beliefs, or my moods. That is probably true of most artists, if they are honest.

 

 

Acadian Autumn,  Selfie#1

 

This tapestry (8x10") is a selfie of myself as a photographer. It was done at a time when I rarely went anywhere without a camera. It is Me, as an Artist.

Not the Enemy,  Selfie#2

 

The above tapestry is of me, during the years that I marched in several Women's Marches, and marches for intelligent gun control. It is Me, as an Activist. It is also 8x10".

 

 

 

 

Yesterday. I cut the third selfie from my loom, of a masked Me. For three years, I wore a mask as I cared for my father during the pandemic. It is Me, as a Caregiver. It is being blocked right now, but I will post it when it is ready. It is also 8x10".

These small tapestries are woven journal images of my life. They are bits of me, in time, and in tapestry; the medium that is also Me.