the Each Week, One Beast project: weeks 34 and 35

Well, these beasts just don't draw themselves. I didn't post one last week, and I'm just barely making it this week. I've been drawing plenty, but nothing I feel like sharing. So. I've just done these Ottos, they took about seven minutes, and they're way better than the other Ottos I worked on for, like, a million hours. Does this say something about my usual technique?

I've been trying out these little fast side-of-the-pencil-lead sketches because I think they help me loosen up and determine the basic shapes a someone ought to be, before thinking about details. They're fun and satisfying.

Other than that, I have only one other little happy event to tell you about. The baker's brand new 25 pound sack of organic dark chocolate chips took a tumble (which Otto had NOTHING to do with) off the stack of boxes by the flour. This sucked for the baker because a bunch of them spilled, and while I really did feel sympathy for Matt and his lost investment, it's hard to feel very sorry for someone when their misfortune is your big bowl of chocolate, you know? Floor chips really can't be baked into cookies for customers, but they can be eaten by your wife. That's lucky old me.

Happy weekend, everyone.

More night windows

meadow hunt

 

lover and the cabin

 

the surprise coon

 

shelling peas

 

coming storm

Here's the rest of my series for the Enormous Tiny Art Show. Of course I drew Otto the cat, who is both Enormous and Tiny. The six pieces are now available on their website. 

Night Window 1: late encounter

You might recognize an earlier beast-of-the-week here... This is the first itty bitty drawing (3.5" square) in a series of six for the Enormous Tiny Art show at Nahcotta in New Hampshire. I'm super happy - way, way happier than Otto looks here - to be included in this exhibit, which features work under 10" by many artists. The show opens September 6; works will be available for purchase in the gallery and on the website.

Man on wire

One of the great things about my husband Matt is, when I really want a chicken-of-the-woods for dinner, and then we see one, bright orange off in the distance, he will cross a creek, bushwhack a thicket, and climb a tree, just to bag the chicken.

We had a short weekend getaway of hiking, mushroom picking, and cooking over a campfire. As Scranton has felt like a sort of soul-stifling place to me lately, it felt good to spend some time in the woods, laughing and enjoying life.

the Each Week, One Beast project: week 33

We've talked a lot about what Otto doesn't like, but not so much about what he does like. He likes cooking. But alas, he is not technically allowed on the kitchen table. Here he is, about to be whisked off.

I thought I'd share the before picture for this finished drawing, from my sketchbook, below. Sometimes I get a sketch I love, and man, it's so challenging to capture the energy of the loose sketch in the next drawing - the one I do on the nice, expensive paper. If I'm lucky I get something just as good as the sketch, but different. If I'm not lucky I get pages and pages of F-ed up Ottos, ready to be recycled into something more useful, like toilet paper.

August and onward

The Bittersweet Moods of Late Summer... that's a weather system, isn't it? I hope so, because that would mean it isn't just me feeling foul, and then inspired, and then foul again. I know - it isn't even late summer. But these cold nights, these shortening days, the insect noise and goldenrod scent...

I've started sketching little houses, one of which we might build on our land in Vermont. Matt is calling this theoretical structure The Shabin, maybe because he thinks its architectural style is going to be a perfect falling-apart blend of shack and cabin, or maybe, since we've always called our current house The Crapshack (even though it's really quite cute and not crappy at all), this is just an affectionate term for a future construction project which promises to be rife with miscalculations that will seem very unfortunate indeed, in hindsight.

Actually, we've got higher hopes than all that for this project, and it's fun to dream and plan - the sweet to balance the bitter.

the Each Week, One Beast project: week 32

The cat whose name is a palindrome. Again. Sheesh.

Early awake

I got up at 4:30 this morning, after having dreamt all night about fleas and woken up itching. Hmph.

The next thing I did was stand in the kitchen with one finger on my lower lip, and one hand on my hip, and contemplate, blueberry waffles: yea or nay?

And just then... There was a loud crash on the back porch!

Now let me tell you about the back porch, when it's in the dark. It's scary. It has always seemed to me that at some point in my residence here on Fig Street, I will come upon either a) a homicidal maniac in a drug-induced coma on my glider, or b) the recently expired body of said maniac slumped on the steps. It's a shadowy, tucked away place - the back porch. It harbors deep forebodings in the night.

So as you can imagine, the crash alarmed me. I turned around slowly, with a grimace, and in the light from the kitchen shining through the screen door, I could see zero hulking lurking things. Good! But kinda bad, because now I had to approach the door to flick on the porch light. Throwing caution to the wind, I did just that. I turned on the light, looked out the door, and... relief! No men on the glider, bleeding!

In fact, nothing at all, except one fluffy little raccoon cub the size of a cantaloupe, scampering round the end of the glider and down the steps.

Doom turned to glee, just like that. I made like a raccoon cub and scampered down the inside stairs to alert the baker to These Exciting Happenings. Outside we could hear little skitterings, and then we saw six tiny eyes glinting way up high in the dark bulk of the hemlock tree. When our eyes adjusted, there were three raccoons, clambering over one another and dangling from branches. They considered us briefly, and just when the horizon split open a little bit of blue light, I think they realized how sleepy they were, because they all three scritched their way down the hemlock trunk, and off they went through the garden. One paused to peer in the bakery window, which starts a few inches above ground, at raccoon's eye view.

Matt said he knew I wouldn't be grumpy once all day long, on account of the raccoons, and well, he was right. I wasn't. The end.

the Each Week, One Beast project: week 31

One more Otto. I'll share the complete drawings that these little Ottos came out of soon. Happy weekend, all!