Seattle "snow"...

Or as close as we get here... May always brings on the cottonwoods (one source of the 'air decorations' that I so enjoy). Where they cluster, they drop copious amounts of fluff that drifts and gathers in mobile clumps - resembling a more wintery time of year....


It was a perfect day out. Lots more pictures of the latest yard progress, but they will have to wait. I'm leaving on a mini-road trip tomorrow right after I finish teaching my class. Am going to see a glacier in Montana with a friend (maybe with *real* snow). Will see you next week!

Some sites of note:

A couple of very good art sites: The Web Gallery of Art, and The Art Renewal Center. Gorgeous, classical stuff.

And, thanks to Gretel's link, I know there IS a chocolate blog out there! Hurray! Saved me from myself!

And now, a break from our regularly scheduled blog...

Pardon the diversion - but Andrea and I have been (only semi-joking-ly) discussing finding a chocolate blog. "Out there". Somewhere. In the meantime, I can't quite refrain from posting chocolate finds... (I don't have time to start another blog. Really. I don't. Don't even ask).

Today, while looking up where to find Chocolove bars locally, I stumbled across Chocolate Nirvana: Chocosphere! Featuring 37 world chocolatiers! I have only tried a fraction of these. So much chocolate. So little time to walk off all the calories....

Reviews welcome. If you have had a particularly delectable chocolate experience, feel free to share!

Gotta find me some of these!....

My sister, back East, just discovered these chocolate bars. (Could there be a better name?) The packaging is wonderful, and there are lots of different varieties. This particular one is described thusly:

Chocolove Extra Strong Dark Chocolate Bar
77% Cocoa Content

One of the strongest chocolates made for eating, crafted especially for the dedicated chocolate enthusiast. Extra cocoa butter is added to this artful blend of African and South American cocoa beans.

Sounds like chocolate heaven for me. Going to have to see if they are available out here....

Early stage sketches...

Thought I might actually post some ART in progress on my ART blog... These are very early stage sketches of the new project...





As much griping as I seem to do, I *do* enjoy this stage. (Part of the problem. :-) I enjoy pretty everything while I'm doing it!) Three down, 10 more to go...

Egg Babies and other terminology...

It is that time in 8th grade health again. Egg parenting. My daughter decided to have twins. They have names. She is fairly solicitous (although she *did* forget to bring them or make other arrangements for them during guitar lessons lessons today. Ooops). She is very funny - we were driving around earlier and I took a corner faster than she was comfortable with, and clutching her basket cried "Think about my babies!" They are to accompany her for another 5 days...

It was a bizarro day. Sun, clouds, sprinkles, downpours, sun, breeze... Petals and blossoms covering the ground. During the sunny interludes, the air was filled with cotton fluff from the cottonwoods - the only real 'snow' we seem to get here. I love it when the air is filled with things... Petals, leaves, fluff, small-winged-things... Feels magical. I want a 'term' for it. Air "decorations" is the closest I've come - but that doesn't really cover it. Other suggestions?

Leonardo...

Leonardo da Vinci has always fascinated me. Such a global thinker. So interested in everything. And he nicely wrote things down, along with his sketchbooks so that we can see the way he thought. I was cheered to read Robert Glenn's newsletter today where he lists Leonardo's Seven Virtues (which I heartily applaud):

"Curiosita"--an attitude of curiosity and continuous learning. What, when, where, why, and how?

"Dimostrazione"--an ability to learn and to test knowledge by experience. Experimental nature.

"Sensazione"--a development of awareness and refinement of sight and other senses. High sensitivity.

"Sfumato"--a tendency to embrace and accept uncertainty, ambiguity and paradox. Free thinking.

"Arte/Scienza"--a development of balance between science and art, logic and imagination. Whole-brain thinking.

"Corporalita"--a calculated desire to achieve poise, fitness and ambidexterity. Physical action.

"Connessione"--a recognition that all things are connected. Systems thinking.

I love these and have been pursuing many of them (with various degrees of success. My little brain still struggles with 'ambiguity and paradox' for instance, but hopefully that becomes easier as one becomes more integrated in general...?) Art is not a discreet activity, separate from the rest of our lives. It is (or should or can be) the way we *think* and approach everything. That's one of the reasons why I admire William Morris as well - the attempt to meld form and function. *Everything* can be beautiful. Everything can be art.

As I continually tell my students: As in art, so in life... I just always want to be more conscious, more purposeful - like the "Connessione" above, recognize and act as if all things are connected... Maybe I shouldn't worry quite so much about my lack of focus on illustration alone. My life can be a work of art... (Hmmmm.... Warning - Musing out-loud here:) My drive and passion seem to revolve around beauty and creation. Illustration is just one outlet for this... Of course, I would get better at it, and be more 'succesful' (in recognition, monetary terms, and facility) if I focused more closely on illustration alone, but thus far I haven't been able to do that except at the expense of the other aspects of my life. I *love* teaching. I love interacting with my yard and gardens (they are a constantly evolving work of art themselves) and with nature in general. I love spending time with my children and family. I love the emotional places that music takes me to. I love making things with my hands - not just illustrating... I love reading and exploring new ideas. I would like to be better at all of these things - but the way I seem to be approaching them is in a very gradual, holistic way, where none are focused on to the exclusion of the rest (and therefore I don't reach 'greatness' at anything. But maybe that is not the point).

Maybe the point for me, is that "life is art" - not 'life is illustration'....
(Gretel - feel free to weigh in here at any time! :-)

"Painting Days"

A friend from my critique group and I have been drawing/painting together once or twice a week for about 6 years now. Her place is amazingly artistic and absolutely idyllic. (It used to make me cry just driving up there, it is so beautiful).


She has fields with horses (and dogs and cats and chickens and birds and fish and lizards and rodents, etc...) (and is my garden's manure source), which makes all of her beds and gardens grow beautifully and effusively.


There are 'fountains' of roses. And the rhododendrons are at their peak right now.


Rhodys can get so tall here... 15, 20 feet or more.


There are also new baby chicks in the Bantam Surama (sp?) flock. They are the cutest, tiny chickens ever!


All four of the little hens sat on the eggs together, and now hover and cluck around the babies together.


The very handsome, bitty rooster was willing to stop and preen for the camera. Later, as I was walking around the yard taking pictures, which apparently made him very nervous - he kept rushing me and pecking my shoe.


He's so tiny that he can't really cause any damage - but he certainly acted protectively fierce! What a guy! :-)

Wicked scents...

If you have a very adventurous olfactory sense, you must check out Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab. I love the gothic illustrations, the inventive names and the creative descriptions of their hundreds of customized scents.

It is worth a look, if not a smell...

Happy Mother's Day!

Day of multiple desserts. I had butterscotch oatmeal cookies that I'd made this weekend leftover, so I needed to eat some when I was starving and waiting for lunch (which was sweetly cooked by my husband). He had made me a very dark chocolate ganache to dip fresh strawberries into for dessert, which was wonderful. Later, the kids and I went over to some friend's for M's fabulous, homemade cheesecake with fresh passionfruit squeezed on top - which has got to be one of my favorite things. Fresh passionfruit has an endorphin-like effect on me, I think (maybe hence the name?) - and makes me *very* happy! We stayed and played games until nearly bedtime.

We're supposed to be having record-breaking temperatures tomorrow. Will have to water heavily! And I really need to get motivated to work on my new project... argh....

The Joys of Research...

I must say that research is practically my favorite aspect of illustrating. As you may have noticed, I tend to work with a realistic bent, and enjoy idiosyncratic things like historical and anatomical accuracy - hence I generally photograph models or reference search for the majority of the jobs I do. Luckily, I love learning about things, and must therefore, watch myself so that I do not become too immersed in the research phase and never get to the drawing phase...

The current story I'm illustrating is a bit hazy on the time frame, but there are enough references to quaint, older-style living that I'd like to set it in the early part of the 20th century - somewhere between 1905 and 1915 or 1920. (Who has reference sources to recommend for clothing and log-cabin-in-the-New-England-woods from that time period? I need 11 year old boy, and period post-man attire, as well as some building interiors and exteriors). I could set it later, but once we hit the 1940s, everything becomes too formal for me.

I've reserved some books at the library and hit my favorite used book stores. Pretty slim pickings for the decade I'm looking for, but lots of old readers from the late 1940s. Some of them are hilarious and so culturally dated that I had to pick them up. These are from a reader, copyright 1949, called "Peter's Family":


Baby safety has come a long way. A couple of gals from my critique group are currently working on some educational readers - and we are always bemused at how politically and culturally correct they insist on being. (You have anthropomorphic chipmunks who are riding oak leaves in the river like a canoe - they MUST have life jackets on! Where they get ready-made, chipmunk-sized lifejackets out in the woods is a mystery, but one must always model 'correct', proper and safe behavior!)


I was amused at "The Family Works" chapter. Everyone dresses very nicely, regardless of the task. Mother always wears a dress, and father paints furniture, rakes leaves, and builds tree houses all in his shirt, tie and trousers (not to mention all the times he wears his suit coat - like at the dinner table, shopping, reading the paper in the living room, and playing the violin).


This is probably my favorite spread. I love the colors of the kid's bedrooms (which run counter to our current cultural-color-mores) and the master bedroom picture just cracked me up. What a difference 50 years make!

Baby Hippo and friend...

Have you seen these darling pics circulating the internet?

The hippo and the turtle
NAIROBI (AFP)

A baby hippopotamus that survived the tsunami waves on the Kenyan coast has formed a strong bond with a giant male century-old tortoise, in an animal facility in the port city of Mombassa, officials said.


The hippopotamus, nicknamed Owen and weighing about 300 kilograms (650 pounds), was swept down Sabaki River into the Indian Ocean, then forced back to shore when tsunami waves struck the Kenyan coast on December 26, before wildlife rangers rescued him.

"It is incredible. A less-than-a-year-old hippo has adopted a male tortoise, about a century old, and the tortoise seems to be very happy with being a 'mother'," ecologist Paula Kahumbu, who is in charge of Lafarge Park, told AFP.

"After it was swept and lost its mother, the hippo was traumatized. It had to look for something to be a surrogate mother. Fortunately, it landed on the tortoise and established a strong bond. They swim, eat and sleep together," the ecologist added. "The hippo follows the tortoise exactly the way it follows its mother. If somebody approaches the tortoise, the hippo becomes aggressive, as if protecting its biological mother," Kahumbu added.

"The hippo is a young baby, he was left at a very tender age and by nature, hippos are social animals that like to stay with their mothers for four years," he explained.

This is a real story that shows us that our differences don't
matter much when we need the comfort of another. We could
all learn a lesson from these two; look beyond the differences
and find a way to walk the path together.

Bloomage update:

I know, I know - I should be in the studio working on my next project, but it was so gorgeous out that I had to document some of the new things growing and blooming, as well as get the last few things in the ground that I had scheduled for this week. Now I'm waiting for it to seriously warm up out there so that my 6 different varieties of basil seedlings can go into the ground.


It's still a bit chilly out at night, but I couldn't wait to put the tomatoes in the ground, so I'm protecting them with these very attractive "Wall-of-Water" shields. Will see how well they do.


I have all my singular herbs potted (pineapple and peppermint, rose and lemon-scented geraniums, bay leaf, lemon balm and stevia).


This is one of my 'experimental herbs'. I put in this angelica last year. It's a biennial that grows about 3 feet tall and wide the first year, and blooms the second year - which takes it up to 7 feet high. I didn't believe it was really going to get that tall when the blooms began emerging - but it has passed me up, by over a foot.


My giant rhody is full-out. It is gorgeously covered with nearly-flourescent hot-pink blossoms.


I taught a private lesson this evening, and have class again in the morning. After that, I *promise* to get on these sketches...

"Make Way for Ducklings"

Rebecca sent out a photo link showing the saga of a momma duck and her babies negotiating their way out of a construction site in a Seattle area park near the Seattle Art Museum (SAM). Apparently, the construction workers protected her nest until the eggs hatched. These pictures document the workers sheparding the family off the worksite, and down to the waterfront.

Isn't spring great?

I'd say a big *Yes!!* I finally got to spend some time out in my yard yesterday afternoon - and didn't come in until it was too dark to see what I was doing. It was an absolutely perfect gardening day. Sunny, just warm enough, and a light breeze filled with the scent of lilacs and cherry petals. I got all my new starts that were big enough into the ground (cherry, grape and roma tomatoes, lemon cucumbers, yellow and acorn squash, calendula, comfrey and dill...), did some more transplanting and rearranging of plants in the beds. I'm aiming for more vertical growth this year. I put up a bamboo teepee for the pole beans, and arch for the acorn squash. I have another arch to assemble which I'm going to attempt cucumbers on. I have bird-netting stapled to my fence for the peas and then later beans. And am arranging to have an arbor put in for kiwi vines and a framework for my grapes... My daughter asked what I will do if we ever move from this house? :-) Good question! I'm not sure I can bear to leave all of my 'babies' here... My pineapple quince, guoami, jostaberry and seaberry pair. My dwarf plum, fig and cherry. The herb beds and berry beds.

Luckily, it is supposed to rain for the next few days, so hopefully I can get some sketching done on the new project...

Feature artist of the day:

Kathleen Kemly is a very talented illustrator in our critique group (and a *very* lovely and interesting person as well). She has been experimenting with using new mediums and using mediums in a different way, along with somewhat different subject matter. This recent painting is called "Jo's Reverie".


It's been so interesting, that as a group, we all started out very 'children's book' oriented (we did all meet through SCBWI), and most of us worked in watercolor. Through the years a number of us have branched out into different genres, mediums and approaches - from oils, pastels, sculpture, digital work or painting on silk, and from designing catalogs to painting botanicals, still lifes, portraits, undersea scenes, or figures from Celtic mythology...

An interesting point was raised in our meeting last night regarding focus. Our members are all female, and most of us have very BROAD interests and approaches to art. We enjoy so many things that it is difficult to pin ourselves down to really focus on one area or approach to art or illustration. It seems possible, as a general rule, that maybe men don't have this problem in quite the same way? (This is a big generalization, I know - but mostly applicable I think). Most of the male artists I know can really focus - almost with tunnel-vision intensity - and get really proficient and consistent with their work. Maybe it has nothing to do with gender - but it seems to follow that pattern in my limited experience...

Maybe it's more of a personal flaw, but I seem to get bored if I stay with one thing or approach for too long. I'll paint compulsively for awhile, and then I'll get the hankering to teach. Then I'll want to play with something more three-dimensional (be it fairy wings or jewelry or gardening). Then sketching and academic studies appeal. Then I'll want to collage or make books... I've tried to curtail myself over the years and just refuse to attempt yet another craft or medium - else I'd be spread so thinly that I'd never spend enough time to produce anything really finished. Yet, I love it all. A curse in having too many interests, perhaps? The generalization is that I have a compulsive need to *create* - just in varied ways...

Does anyone else have this problem, and if so, what have you done?

Getting back to 'real life'...

Back in Seattle and right back into the grind. Taught my last two classes of this session in the last two days. My ongoing one was today. Next session starts next week. Had critique group this evening. (Suzy (of the silk-painted stag) had baby chicks hatch while I was gone. Cute, fuzzy little things.)

I received the manuscript for my next free-lance project (another Christmas story. Santa and reindeer this time). 12 illustrations plus one cover by this August.

I got a minute to run a few errands after class today - the fruit market (which also sells heirloom starts of things, like tomatoes - so had to pick up some of those!), and the used bookstore - looking for some 'period' books for reference for this new project. Need clothing and housing for around the turn of the century. Found all kinds of *other* things as well... Fun though. :-) Also stopped in the art gallery in Country Village and discovered that they have just recently begun carrying books and cards by Charles van Sandwyk. He has long been a favorite of mine, and you can only find his work in-person in two locations in Washington state. I bought a copy of his "Gnome King's Treasure Song". I *wish* I could afford to buy ALL of his books - they are so charming. I want to *be* him when I grow up...


Tomorrow, I hope to get some more things in the ground - as well as some thinning of the millions of 'babies' out there that have grown since I left last week...

Now, I must go prep for next week's class...

I know it was a wedding...

But it's all about the flower girls, isn't it?





Well, I'm back to the grind after a lovely near-week break at a family wedding. It was warm, sunny and filled with relatives, food and flowers. Now, it's back to teaching and the next free-lance project (the gardens will still have to come in second once again...) It's nice to be back in my own bed at any rate.