Music Monday - Gallows

Do you know Cocorosie? Such an addictive combination of disturbing eerieness with gorgeous imagery and  reluctantly compelling musical phrases  ....

(and in case you need some more - you have to listen to this at least twice):

Sunday Sketching -

My weekly sketching in the teensy purse Moleskine...

Figure Friday - The Curse of Baba Yaga....

Awhile back I posted some Work In Progress shots of my painting of Baba Yaga....  Since then I have entered her into a local juried show for artEAST (the poster is at the end of this post) and she charmed her way into an acceptance.

This means she needs to be framed - so she was taken to a local place to pick out one, plus matts, etc.. After much deliberation, I did so, ordered and purchased. And waited.... Finally called since I hadn't heard anything and the matts were ready. Went in to pick them up, and the order was wrong. I think Baba Yaga is cursing this project. They cut new ones for me and assembled it for me in penance. I went to pick it up today -

- and as soon as she was home and unwrapped, she fell and broke the corner of the brand new frame. of course. She has to be ready to turn in to the gallery by Monday, so the husband got creative and figured out a way to brace it while the glue dries....

And clever wordsmith friend, The Laundry Fairy, has already written an aria about the suspect saga:

  (tune: "Hotel California")

Welcome to the Curse of Baba Yaga
Such an ugly name
In a broken frame
...Broken the frame with the Curse of Baba Yaga
Not a nice surprise
Get the angle vise.

We'll see how the saga continues. If I am very lucky, she will make it to hang on the wall and not injure anyone else around her. (If you're local, you're invited to the open on March 11. If you dare.  :-).

Music Monday - White Winter Hymnal, plus, winter garden pics.

Thought we should listen to a bit more wintery stuff while it still is!(they are threatening snow here later in the week). Here is a lovely ditty from Fleet Foxes:

And while it is still chilly February, thought I'd post what the yard look like this time of year:

The north side - with the newly pruned grape vines against the fence, berry bushes, newly cleaned out raspberry bed... Looks pretty drear, but they are all budding, awaiting for a bit more sun and warmth.

 The raised beds are mostly cleared out with a few left over kale and onion plants (I've left a covering of the pulled plants mostly so that the chickens don't tear them up completely). There are also the beginnings of parsley and chervil and elephant garlic.

 I still need to clean out the strawberry bed (before the chickens demolish it) above, and have to decide what to put in the new large round bed in the middle of the yard...

 (You can also see the chicken coop, the dwarf fruit trees, the pots of herbs...

 You can kind of see the columnar apple trees here growing here against the deck stairs...

(which the chickens also like to come up and root around in the herb boxes on the deck - much to my husband's great dismay. He does NOT like them underfoot, and cannot fathom why I like to pick them up and pet them....)

Figure Friday - plus, *more* Ducklings!

Sleepy life drawing today. Certainly make drawing slower and harder...

Couldn't wait to get outside afterwards, and check on the status of the ducklings -

The good news is they are still darling, the sad news is that there are only 6 left (last week there were 8).

Due to the sunshine and the holiday weekend, there were any number of children there - many feeding the birds (and note the seagull in the foreground. Another variety to add to the mix..)

(duckling scoring hunk of biscuit!)

Momma duck continues to herd them along...

...their favorite place continues to be in the water...

... and the ubiquitous crows continue to supervise.

Music Monday - Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy chocolate and hearts day! :-)

So many love songs to choose from that could apply to today. I settled an old Barbara Streisand mash-up favorite from The King and I.

And the day just doesn't seem right without a few lovely handmade cards. Valentine's just lends itself to hand-crafted doesn't it? Maybe it is just a sentimental flashback to making them for classmates in gradeschool, but a find and good tradition to uphold, don't you think?

I hope you received lots of hugs, kisses and chocolatey goodness today.
xxx



Sunday Sketching - plus, more Ducklings!

 Breaking in the teensy new purse Moleskine...

And since they were so darling, I thought more ducklings deserved posting... :-)

 More mommy and babies... They can't be more than a couple of days old, they are still all fuzz, no feathers...

 Herding them along the embankment...

 Despite being uber-young, they seemed to know just what to do and raced down to the water...

 ...and sorry for the blurry, but I thought their return 'in formation' was too cute..

And here's her herding them back - while all sorts of other birds watched, but did not interfere (a couple of roosters are just out of shot).  It'll be interesting to see how much they've grown by next week.

Figure Friday - plus, *Ducklings!*

 Costume life-drawing day....

 5 and 10 minutes...

 20 minutes...

...and one hour.

And then *after* life drawing, when strolling out to the car, guess what I saw - 

There be ducklings! Eight of 'em even!

Here's a Where's Waldo picture for you - how many types of birds do you see? How many males? females? babies?

And while I don't think any crows made it into the above picture, they were around as well, supervising all that was going on.

WIP Wednesday - Catch Up

Am on hold again with my latest book (long, sad story. Waiting on publisher) -

-so I am using this brief reprieve to catch up on any number of long-delayed projects, such as assembling my 'treasure'/scrapbooks of awesome imagery. I have a number of these; differently themed, full of photos, postcards, images, quotes, sketches, etc... - that are used for inspiration and jump-starting creativity when needed.

Quote on the page in front of me: "It's the questions we ask, the journey we take to get where we're going that's more important than the actual answer. It's good to have mysteries. It reminds us that there's more to the world than just making do and having a big of fun."   Charles de Lint

How do you organize your sources of inspiration...?

Music Monday - Eye of the Storm

Love, love, love the look of this one....

Sunday Sketching -

Here are the last two pages of the latest teeny purse Moleskine balanced upon my knee.

Time to break into a new one. :-)

Figure Friday -

Fun, fun dancer model today -

1 minute gestures - 

5 minute pose...

10-20 minute poses...