Distracted

Here's the 'next post'. You totally expected me to leave you hanging, right?

So the last EDiM (Draw something Every Day in May) topic was:
Draw something round.

And I thought, OMG. Something round. Like: A sphere. A hockey puck. A roll of tape.

Cylinders and spheres. Part of the basic geometric forms. I've drawn them. Over and over and over and over, in school and in teaching demonstrations. In pencil, in markers, in chalk. Core, shadow, shade. OMG.


(Yes, I know. These are cylinders, not spheres.)

My brain cramped up and I went, "No. No roundy things today."

I decided to draw my craft punch, which creates round things. It's kind of like drawing the negative space. Sort of. Look, it worked in my brain.


I didn't punch all these circles out. I just drew in those ellipses.

While painting in the ellipses, a lightbulb went off ('bing!') and I went "Hey...". I got my flower craft punches and went to town to execute an idea that I've had marinating for a long time (Wow. I have a lot more work that I need to post in my Creative Journal Altered Books set. Stuff to do, stuff to do.).

I've been playing around with some ideas, flipping them over in my mind, and the punched flowers and the negative spaces left when you punch out the flowers totally pushed me over the edge.

There was a flurry of cutting, ironing, painting, ironing, finding my embroidery stuff.

I've been working on a few quiltlets. Here are a few very coy photos:







They're not done. I'll post pics of the whole quiltlets when I'm done.

So, J looked at me, as I sat on the sofa, watching listening to 'X-Men', hand sewing very intently. He's used to this whole flurry-of-activity mode and knows it's best to just stand back and let it all happen.
J: "These are really different."
Me: "Yeah, I've been thinking about them for a long time."
J: "Hm. They're elaborate."
Me: "I'm thinking of selling them."

J: "You want to get rid of them?" He looked concerned.

Me (I was surprised. You'd think he'd be glad that I'm thinking of getting some of the art clutter out of our house.): "I think if I make a whole BUNCH of them, I won't feel bad about letting some of them go. This is part of my Plan. That I was telling you about. To make Craft items and sell them. To make money."

He looked at me, then at my little unfinished quiltlets, and blinked.

And then 'X-Men' suddenly got really exciting.

That's right, people. I might sell them. OMG OMG OMG. This is part of the larger plan that's been marinating, that I've been turning around in my brain. What do you think? I have some reading up on Etsy that I need to do and business-planning I need to finish...

Stay tuned.

Every Day in May, update

So, how far did I get on the list of things to draw, one a day, every day in May?

I was trucking along. I was ambitious and drew the facets of our salt shaker:


I drew something tart (akaume):

(I'll admit: The temptation to draw people was hard to resist. Something 'tart', eh?)

Drew a bowl:


and then started to get a little, ehm, bored with the subjects. I took liberties interpreting a shopping cart or basket (here's one of my grocery bags):


and something green:



(I would have preferred fresh herbs, but didn't have any on hand. This is what I had on hand that was green).

And then I got to 'Draw something ugly you love and keep for sentimental reasons' and looked at my collection of pajama pants and decided what I really needed to sew up some new pajama pants instead of draw them.

So, I did.

(this pic especially for Hashi. This is the last of the three that I've made; they're all in bright Hawaiian prints.)
Okay.

And then my computer started to run really slowly and my internet connection got even worse. And because I'm cheap and tired of dealing with stupid Sprint (I could stab my eyes out), I've let this situation fester to where it's become sort of irritating to scan images and upload them (and it's impossible, too, to do that when you're blind because you've, you know, stabbed your eyes out).

And then I got back to the list, took liberties with one more drawing and got totally distracted and totally derailed from the whole 'Every Day' part EDiM. I got half of the days done, which is actually better than my normal stick-to-it rate. I'm still distracted (see next post) but sort of ready to get back to the list and try to finish off the list. Keep tabs on my EDiM Flickr set is here.

A new (ugly) addition

She: “Look what I got!”

He: “From the graduates?”

She: “Yes! Isn’t it so cool?!”

He: “It’s kind of … ugly.”

She: “Yeah, it’s an (reading label) ‘Ugly Doll’. I think 'ugly' is the whole idea.”

He: “Hm. Here. Put it up on the TV [note: that’s a place of honor around here. We don’t go leaving just any ol' stuff out on display, nilly willy, I’ll have you know]. Lean it up against my ‘Teacher of the Year’ award, so we can enjoy it...”

Everyday in May

May 2: Draw a power plug

Isn't social media great? You can keep up with what everyone's doing (you're going, "Duh, Wendee"). On Flickr, even though it's all about the images (ie - I have to wait for the blog posts to get the nitty gritty details in words), I can keep tabs on where people are camping, painting, eating gelato, stitching up, or drawing. When there's a group project, I find that I slowly start to notice a trend, drawings or photos of similar things here and there.

"Oh, isn't that fun?!", I think as I wave off the temptation to join in.

And then sometimes, things just snowball to the point where I just cannot stand by, uninvolved. Karen Blados and Liz Steel's work pretty much pushed me over my tipping point. I haven't drawn much at all this year. Even though I'm already needing to catch up with a couple online courses as it is (ahem), the everyday drawing always does me good.


May 3: Draw some exercise equipment

See everyone's sketches at the EDiM2011 Flickr group, here.

More info about the daily list here.

Sketches from Spring Break

Tenaya Creek, during our Mirror Lake hike:



After the strenuous calf-killer hike to see Yosemite Falls:



Stopped, on the way out:

Spring Break

I think this is the first year that we've both had Spring Break at the same time. We took advantage of this and headed off to Yosemite. We usually go at least once, maybe twice, a year, but didn't go at all last year. Not at all. Can you imagine two more growl-ly, homesick bears? I think not.

We stayed in a canvas tent cabin at Curry Village. It's a big step up from pitching your own tent, which we typically do, but the end of April is a little too cool, even for J. We stayed in a cabin with a heater, which improves the experience even more. Two thumbs up from both of us.



Outside, we had a bench next to our bear box. We managed to cram three (count 'em, three: food on ice, dry food, and food-prep) of these coolers in the box. I had to disassemble the handle off of one of our coolers to make room for the box latching mechanism to get the box to close securely, but we got them all in there. It pays to be mechanically-inclined. Our food was all safe and secure, out of reach of squirrels, chipmunks and bears.



We'd intended to eat mostly only our own food through our stay, but discovered that the room rate for our tent cabin included the breakfast buffet. Scrambled eggs! Toast! Oatmeal! Muffins! Fresh fruit! Country gravy on biscuits! Bacon! Sausage! Passion fruit –  guava juice! HOT!! COFFEE!! We were good with our granola bars, oranges and PB&Js for lunch and ramen noodles for dinner, but breakfast is, after all, the most important meal of the whole day.

Nom nom nom.

We did a pair hikes. One was far and mostly flat; the other was shorter in distance, but with a 1000 foot vertical gain.

The hike to Mirror Lake was a good warm up for our legs. At one point, we discovered that the wide expanse of boulders that people normally sit on to stop and eat was transformed, filled with hundreds and hundreds of cairns –  –  is that the right term? Little piles of stacked stones –  –  everywhere. This must have happened in the past year or so; and no one seemed to have the heart to clear away any of them. It was both humorous and deeply compelling at the same time. You could sense a want to participate, the number of piles building and growing over the months, the want to leave ones mark and be a part of that community. There were elaborate piles that included branches and pine needles that protruded out. There were piles everywhere. It was quite an unexpected sight that captured the attention of almost everyone, a surprising detour stealing attention away from the huge expanse of nature around us.



 

Here's a photo with a sketch from our other hike, up to Yosemite Falls. I think it's best that that's all I say about it; I might start cussing. I'm still not a fan of the whole traversing-uphill thing. Geh. Something to work on, I guess …



On our way out, we stopped at Tunnel View and took our obligatory photos across the valley.



We drove for five hours, got home and woke up early the next morning to watch the Royal Wedding and start in on the mountain of dirty laundry … wistfully looking forward to the next trip...