Green Glass

Pears to go with a good whine

I'm plugging away at "drawing live subjects in public" the on-line class I'm taking with Roz Stendahl.  SOOO much information, much of which she circles around on her blog, so it's not that the ideas are all new, but just that it's all mashed together in my head.  

I include the two pear sketches I did last night, after a day of trying to sketch various people with pretty pathetic results.  Pathetic because they were neither fish nor fowl, none of the specific ideas from class, just smudging the page up.  So I simplified things and went with the pears.  Still too many ideas, but at least I see them (and what I'm not doing).  I'm not sure I'm cut out for all this technical stuff. 

Did I sign myself up for this?

Lovely, cool and calm

Not much to say.  Working along in my journal on Roz's class.  Oh my goodness.  So many ideas, so little brain.  Today was lovely, cool and calm.  Yay.

 

 

 

And it tis done

And thus concludith my June/July/August journal.  

I include this right side up.  I didn't realize it was upside down until it was done.  I wasn't attending to the map, I guess, or maybe that explains a lot about how I read maps.  But I loved doing the sketch so whatever.

I always like it when I finish a journal on a good set date, like the end of the month or right before a trip.  Tidy that way.  I jumped from this right into the next one, where i'm doing a lot of work for Roz's on line class.  The homework has derailed me a bit, and made me think about what I'm doing, which is good, but also a bit off the rails.  So a little of this and that.

You know, I can only take so much thinking on any given day.  Then I'm done.

Maybe a very good reason

My words are not connected to the pages.  Like a lot of what I do.

Tomorrow (today) my son returns to school.  Summer is over.

He is in an extended calendar school, so they start early and go late compared to the other schools (and many of his friends) around us.  It works for him, but I'm about to enter withdrawal.  

There are few people whose company I enjoy more than my not-so-little boy.  Today, after getting new school clothes (he'd outgrown everything over the summer.  ever-y-single-thing) we had ice cream for no good reason.  Except for a mom, there are few better things than sitting with ice cream talking random nonsense.  So, maybe a very good reason.

As bad days go, not so

Pages from my visual journal.

Most days now I don't have lots to say.  As a matter of fact, trying to stay out of my head as much as possible.  But I love a place to stick 'stuff' and doodle and sketch.  At worst, on a bad day, it allows me to shift to just looking, settling and drawing a line.  Then another line.  Or some paint.  On a bad day.

Never

I finished one journal and began another.  I was so excited with this one, that I had to post something even though I'll go back and show some of my last pages from the last journal.  This is Stillman & Birn Delta square 7x7" journal.  It's like the Beta in weight but has a beautiful ivory color.  I don't remember using ivory before but hey, I'm up for it.  I am doing work for Roz Stendahl's on-line class 'No Excuses'.  She gives a ridiculous amount of information and my little head is just bursting.  I learned about layering in with pencil in the last lesson.  Oh, so much to practice. Off to do more.

And just in case you are worried, which you might be if you were me, I didn't sketch the polar bear live - I have a little toy one.  Which is weird because I have a real fear of polar bears which is why I want to reassure you I would NEVER stop at a polar bear enclosure and sketch because you never know.  I'm not sure I could live in a town that had a zoo with a polar bear enclosure let alone live where they might migrate through (I'd never sleep.  Never).  So rest assured.  No live polar bears.  Never.