Monkeying Around...

I spent days drawing monkeys - with the consequence that when I went out to the market shopping - yes, I looked at people and saw monkeys - especially guys with beards. The inevitable parallels all get immediately drawn. I felt kind of bad about it, coming to that conclusion but don't hold myself to blame personally. Anyhow, nowadays on NOVA on PBS they openly refer to our kind as primates - cuz we are! lol! (insert chimp laugh here - like Cheeta on Tarzan - and why did Tarzan name his chimp Cheeta?)

My very first portfolio

Here is my very first portfolio - the 30 lb 'jumbo boy'.  It was gigantic and filled with astounding work! Art directors loved it. They ate it up like cake.

Each new portfolio I made got smaller and smaller until now they fit on an iPhone. But there's something to be said for the 'Jumbo Boy'. Art directors had to clear their desk just to look at it. 

I think the amazing thing is that I drew those in ink straight onto the newsprint page without any pencil or rough sketch. I loved how the fountain pen ink sank into the newsprint.

The muffin-man returns

The muffin-man returns - this week it's apple-blueberry-peach. The silicone muffin tin is fab - since it makes turning out the muffins so easy.

It's always nice to take a break from pushing pixels and do something real, like baking.

Draw!

Draw!

Umbrellas and cherry trees in the rain

Teetering umbrellas spring forth.

'Beneath the cherry blossoms there are no strangers.'

goes an old saying.

And in a moment or two...

And in a moment or two, the scanned line turns into full color techno-fruit! And to think they pay me to do this... in the rainy cold dark before the sun's even up.  

Jet skis on pencil lines...

Drawing, drawing, drawing... all day long! But when I get out my magic pens it's like putting jet skis on my pencil line... carving big sloshy inky curves and spraying splatters over the deliciously textured watercolor paper. What can I say - it's fun!

Bunny & Fox Go On a Picnic

This was a delightful little mini-book to do.

 

Bunny & Fox pack a picnic...

It's just marvelous!  Oh joy!

And it ends happily ever after, naturally.

"Website - we have a problem!"

My tiny little website has been misbehaving. Pages won't load - the site hangs - a small jpeg takes 4 minutes to load. That's not good.  

The expert GoDaddy web-hosting engineer ran a traceroute told me it was definitely a Comcast problem. I went to find any help at Comcast, but there isn't any.

To say I felt like I was up the creek without a paddle is putting it mildly.

So armed with this new knowledge, I went back to GoDaddy.  Finally after 25 minutes I was delighted to hear him say, "Whao! What's this? That's interesting... so it DOES look like it's on our end after all!"    

So I'm not crazy and it's not just me! It might be affecting many, many websites out there. It's all too complicated for me to figure out.

Update* - Website finally restored after 3 days - might have been there for a weeks if I hadn't noticed it.  Whew! 

A Magic Show on paper & screen

This was fun to see the comparison between the computer screen outcome and the printed page outcome. It really is like magic that the two technologies are almost identical - even allowing for the different lighting conditions.

Lucky for me it's the innate charm of the concept and design along with the talent of drawing that makes the difference in any image... so that a robot can't do it.

Freezer delivery from Burkina-Faso!

Yesterday we had a new freezer delivered (old one died). It was bought online and the delivery notification was via a computer robot voice phone call. The robot even called with a 30 minute warning. So sure as shooting, there the truck was, just like the robot said.

The truck parked in the alley. It turned out that the two freezer delivery men were from Africa - or more precisely from Burkina-Faso!  

One tall laid back cool guy in sunglasses (Djbril) and another guy who sounded like he'd might have a college degree with excellent english (Mathieu). They unloaded the freezer and began to carry it through my backyard, with a shoulder strap harness. At this point I remembered we were supposed to ask them for I.D. to prove that they really were the people who were supposed to be carrying a freezer through my backyard instead of some dangerous impostor freezer-carriers hellbent on getting that freezer down an impossible stairway and back door. But I went on trust.

Of course the first problem was the freezer wouldn't actually fit through the back door - even though I had taken the back door off. They don't make slim freezers anymore. They're all gigantic now. And this was the smallest freezer I could find anywhere online.  Oh no! Mathieu suggested we remove the extra panel that stuck out at the bottom. I got down on the ground sideways to try to see where the screws were. Excellent idea. We tried to get that off - but it didn't work.

There was some discussion in Bukina-Fasese and shaking of heads. It looked like they were about to give up and pack it back up to return. Oh no! Then it occurred to me we should try the basement window. Lo and behold - it measured out with 3 inches to spare! Djbril and Mathieu carried the freezer around to the side window. And in it went.

I got to chat a bit with Djbril, telling him that my dad had spent 6 years in Ghana, which is the nation just south of his. He said he'd never been there, but they had lots of tasty food in Burkina-Faso. Also that a good deal of french is spoken in Burkina-Faso.

I tried to not feel too guilty about my fat comfortable life as I imagined what kind of life a refugee from Africa must have had to wind up delivering freezers to cold, wet Seattle half a world away. I'm glad we managed to get the freezer in through the window so at least that little adventure ended happily ever after.

Corn is hard to paint!

Today's blog theme is farms and work. I tried to recapture the feeling of a kitchen I once had.  It was decorated with the most amazing 1940's wallpaper done in a vintage farm design.  And it had all the original counters, cupboards and stove. 

I discovered that corn is difficult to paint!  Too many parts... that's the problem.  Bicycles are difficult also.

And this photo is for all those poor folks who have had to shovel way too much snow this year!  Here in the pacific northwest we too have to shovel moss.  Hard work!