Enormous Tiny Art Show #17, plus an etsy sale!

The Enormous Tiny Art Show is back! Over the holidays, I took a two week break from house construction and the vortex of chaos+debris we have been enjoying here at Hungry Raven Hill over the past many months. While Matt and his sister drove to Duluth to visit family, I spent my (working) vacation at Mom and Dad's house. Besides stuffing my face and cuddling the cat, I drew these six new works for ETA17. This is a really fun, diverse show with work by over 40 artists. If you can't see it in person, here it is online: Enormous Tiny Art Show. The drawings above are available on my page.

And also, there's a sale in my etsy shop! I'm moving my tiny studio into my teeny house, and there isn't room for all this art. Would you like some? zoetilleyposter.etsy.com

A terrier in the weeds

Everyone needs a wiry little mischief seeking mud puppy in their life, no? This is Griffin, the subject of my most recent pet portrait. It was challenging to draw a dog who really, truly does have a grin on her face much of the time... It's hard to make a smiling dog face not look human. Some pet portraits roll right off the tongue... or off the pencil lead... and others do not. I struggled with this one, but am happy with it in the end. When you only get to meet a pet in photos, on the computer screen, how do you know if you captured their likeness and their spirit in a way that will ring true with their person? I never know, and gosh darn it does make me nervous.

The toilet!

I promised I'd show you the composting toilet I built, and I never did! That's it up there. I wanted you to see it in a nice setting, and now that it lives in the tool shed, all cozied up amongst the splittin' irons, well... The bucket there on the side is full of wood shavings, and there is another bucket inside the box. This toilet is based on the Loveable Loo plans as described in the Humanure Handbook by Joseph Jenkins. I recommend this book if you're interested in a simple DIY composting toilet system, but you know what? I didn't read it! Because when it comes to Important Stuff You Should Read before you go ahead and do something, I leave that to Matt. He reads the whole whatever-it-is cover to cover, and then if I want to know something, I just ask him! Anyway, two pages in the book are the toilet plan, and it's very easy to build, and so far the toilet is working out quite well.

I have so much to tell you, and so little time. So I won't say much right now. I am squeezing in a half day here and there to work on my art, and the rest of the days are dedicated to house construction preparation and the daily workings of life here on the land: hauling buckets of water up from the spring, cooking, scything paths through the wildflowers (my scythe! remind me to tell you about my scythe!), driving into town for supplies. We have phone, internet and power now! And we're getting a driveway as I speak. This involves mayhem and destruction with bulldozers and backhoes, and I haven't even burst into tears yet! I sure have toughened up.

Happity hoppity

Malcolm

Malcolm is a rude, dirty cat. Grooming habits? He has none, but he does have a dirty chin and scabby ears. His motto is: everything I see, I pee on it. He destroys porch furniture, befouls the garden, and generally makes a neighborhood menace of himself. Such characters are easy to bribe, considering their low morals. Malcolm lets me scratch his chin, if I give him some barbecued chicken. Then I run right in and wash my hands. Gross kitty.

Gallery Nucleus

The Wheatfield

Unseasonable Heat

I have had precious little time for drawing lately, you know, with building my toilet and all. So I was really pleased that just as I was finishing these two pieces up, Gallery Nucleus in Los Angeles invited me to participate in their upcoming show, Terra. The show opens March 29, and man, there's a pretty cool lineup of artists slated for it... I am stoked to be included. The drawings will be for sale in the gallery, and online.

Oh boy oh boy oh boy

Sometimes I think I'm going to splurge on art supplies, and I add them to my shopping cart, and I decide to Think About It, and I go back to visit them in my shopping cart, but I never click Checkout. Well, I gone and done it! I summoned all my strength and ordered these Tombow Irojiten pencils, all 90 of them, and I can't! wait! to use them! Tombow is the kind of graphite pencil I use, because the leads are strong and don't shatter when you oopsy-daisy push the whole mess of them off your desk onto the floor, and also there is never ever any grit in them, which can scratch your paper and make you very grumpy.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Enormous Tiny Art Show

Feeling Feral

Catnip Mouse and Stardust Quilt

Two more drawings for the Enormous Tiny Art Show! The show opens tonight, and while I unfortunately won't be there, Otto will. I hope he doesn't dip his paw in the punch bowl. My new drawings are now available to order on the website. Except for that top one - that one's sold!

And, it's Matt's Birthday Eve! So we're going out for A Delicious Beer. Happy birthday, my favorite Matt.

Otto's foray into film

Otto doesn't have many aspirations, but he does enjoy the good clattery sound of Something Breaking... This is my first try at an animated gif, which is a simple moving image file. So, who knows what Otto will do next?! (I mean, after he smashes the vase on the floor.)

The dog alarm

Hello! I was going to write you a post all about 2013, and what was good and what was bad and what I could do better, and then I thought... Who wants to hear all that crap? Rumination is for cows.

So instead, I made you this story. I hope you like it.

This is my mom's cat, Charley.

This is my dad's dog, Leo.

These are Leo's paws.

They are tender and sensitive.

They are Leo's Only Possessions.

And they are Private.

When everyone else is just going to bed,
Charley is just beginning his day.

He runs. He jumps. He slides.

 He does so many things,
and he gets very, very hungry.
He barrels down the basement steps,
and checks his bowl.

No Crunchies.

Charley meows. His meow is a small sound, which surprises him, because he is a big cat. He tries again. But his meow is just a speck, a nothing... a tiny complaint in the great, vast night. Charley knows what to do. He charges up the steps. He zooms along the runner rug into the living room. At the end of the rug is...

Leo. His snores go in and out, and his paws quiver.

Charley taps Leo's paw, but Leo is sleeping so soundly, his paw does not notice. Charley tries again, with extra umph.

Leo's head flies up, his ears flap airborne, and a Great Big Bark escapes his jowls. His bark is loud and round and resonant. Charley presses Leo's paw like a button, and each tap is followed by a large, echoing bark.

Between barks, Charley hears something else, through the ceiling above him. It is two bare feet hitting the floor, then the soft scrape of slippers on wood. This is the happy sound of success: someone is coming to top off the crunchies!

  While Charley races back to his empty bowl to wait, Leo heaves the sigh of a still-very-sleepy Labrador. His head hits the rug with a weighty flop.

 All's well that ends well! (The end.)

The enormous tiny cat returns

Demise of the Tenmoku Vase

Thinking on the Tree Cathedral

I am cat obsessed, and I can't help it. There is a foul, scrappy little cat named Malcolm who sometimes sleeps on the glider on our back porch. He likes to pick at the armrest cushion and watch the green poofs of stuffing come out the hole he's made, and float away on the breeze. He is stinky and he pees on everything, and try as I might, I simply can not convince him to come inside and live with me. He only wants to be feral and free, not to have baths and overflowing bowls of crunchies.

And so. I have only this made up cat, Otto. I've drawn six of him and sent them off to be part of the upcoming Enormous Tiny Art Show at Nahcotta Gallery in Portsmouth, NH. This show happens twice a year, and I am honored to be participating in it for a second time. Thanks, Nahcotta!

In other news... Is there any other news? Matt and I have been tearing our house apart, sorting through Things, some of which we will take with us to Vermont and some of which we will unload before we leave Scranton. None of which we will drag out into the woods, douse with lighter fluid, set aflame, and tip down a mine shaft, which is sort of the ordinary (and super fun!) method of disposal 'round these parts. It's always your scruples that prevent you from having fun, people - remember that.

Our estimated date of departure falls sometime in the month of April. Til then, we'll be firming up house plans (can't wait to share them here!), and trying to sort our thises from our thats. I hope you're all well!

Happy turkey and whatnot!

Happy Thanksgiving, folks! We'll be off shortly with our pie and our turkey, for Little Sister's house. In the meantime I wanted to tell you all a couple two-tree tings (as we say around here):

First, thank you for all the Dream House advice! None of you said "a tiny stanchion under the kitchen counter to keep your miniature Southdown sheep corralled while cooking," which surprised me, but you had some really great ideas and we're taking them to heart.

Second, a bunch of my original drawings will be part of The Delicacy of Nature show at the Butternut Gallery & Second Story Books. The opening is this Friday, November 29th from 3-5pm, and I would love to see you there! There will also be Haibun writings from Melissa Whalen Haertsch, sculptures by Karen O'Connor, and paintings by Gail Bunting. Oh boy!

And on Sunday, I'll be selling prints and notecards at the Buy Local Holiday Market at the Scranton Cultural Center, where there will be all kinds of other delights. If you've never been inside this building (Scranton's Masonic Temple), it's awesome. I'll be on the 4th floor.

Wishing you much merriment!

Gift tags! With chickadees!

You might not think you need something cute to decorate your holiday packages with, but then, have you really thought about it? Maybe you do! Or maybe you don't! But should you decide a bunny or a chickadee would come in handy when it comes time to get festive, here's where you can get it.

Now through November 30, this set of downloadable, print-at-home gift tags is free with any purchase in my etsy shop! You'll automatically receive a link to download after checkout. Then you can print your own and get crafty with your packages. This is just a suggestion to get your creative juices flowing: you could get out your glitter and your gluestick, and give the squirrel a jewel-encrusted stocking cap! For HIS TAIL!

Happy Holidays Woodland Animal Gift Tags

Happy Monday

We had a fun weekend off, beginning with cranberry-picking in the bog with Ellen and Mark. I met Ellen through blogging, which is very cool, and what is even cooler is getting to hang out with her, because that's just plain fun, but also educational: she knows a lot about foraging and cooking. Her new book, Backyard Foraging, has become a resource in our house... and this ties into the next thing I want to talk about, which is...

Has my husband turned into a squirrel?! No, he has not, but I can understand why you might think so. There are heaps of nuts in our house, and I do mean HEAPS. Black walnuts, English walnuts, and acorns. Matt has been collecting and shelling these, and also putting up other food for the winter - grand proportions of other food. There are things fermenting (curtido, kimchi, sauerkraut, salsa, cider, mead, and more) in pretty much every corner of the kitchen. This means there are little crocks and jars and tubs and bottles, each shrouded in its own kitchen towel, bubbling and burbling and keeping me company. So thank you, Matt, for keeping us fed and happy!

There have also been divine things stewing on the stove top. I get to eat them when I come in from the cold, where I have been cutting parts out for my shed. My shed! I can't wait to show it to you. But it will be awhile. I can't put it together until we take the parts to Vermont, because how would I get it there, if it were already put together? I have to keep reminding myself of this, because I do prefer instant gratification to wait-four-months-till-you-get-to-nail-your-shed-together.

That's all, folks, except: Happy Monday, from me and Otto!

Butterflies and an interview

Working on butterflies this week. Plus hopefully an Otto-the-cat or two. He's surely up to no good. And! My fabulous friend Cadyn, the artist behind these gorgeous beaded accessories and the owner/curator of this delightful shop called gathered, interviewed me recently. She asked good questions and I had fun answering them. Thanks, Cadyn!

this week, a beast

It's a bear with some rose hips!

Things haven't improved any with my brain function. But that isn't all bad - like yesterday, here's what happened. I had tallied up all my completed drawings, based on my multiple countings, my torn apart scrap paper lists, my hormones, and the position of the moon relative to this and that but nothing much. I need a total of thirty pieces for the two shows I have coming up. My precise calculations had shown, disappointingly, that I had only 24 that were exhibit-worthy.

Then I says to myself, you know, you're more of a pictures person than a numbers person, so maybe you should spread all the drawings out on the bed, and see where you're at, just to be sure. Lo and behold, I had thirty-three totally acceptable drawings! That means I was off by, like, a really big percent. Which is no matter - I'm going on vacation soon, and my to-do list just shrank measurably. That puts it not quite into the can-do realm of things, but closer.

The moral of this story is, sometimes your own ineptitudes will delight you in the end!

the Each Week, One Beast project: week ?

The beasts are on hiatus, because their maker is overwhelmed. I feel like doing what Otto is doing above, fleeing from his responsibilities. Matt bought me an enormous bottle of gin, and it wouldn't be hard to go sit with it out in the garden, with the season's last flowers, and then eventually tip over, from which perspective I could enjoy the vees of geese as they pass by.

One thing about this art business is that my busy season is the holidays. Or so it seems - I'm still learning. So - I'll be sharing what I'm working on as I'm working on it, and beasts will come on an irregular basis, and if you want to come visit me, I'll make you an awesome cocktail and we'll sit on the back porch and not answer any of our email or fulfill any of our promises.

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.

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.