Sunday Sketching - plus Easter chick(ens)!

Drawings from church today -

 Pen in the teensy purse Moleskine...

 (which makes the pencil look a bit anemic.... but I tired of having to 'look' so hard after awhile.)

In other news - at our critique meeting this past week, our hostess Suzy was incubating some Serama chicks (which are about the cutest tiny bantys you've ever seen! Look at the pictures in the link) in the studio where we gather. We were insanely lucky to be able to watch the last two break out of their shells!

Is that awesome or what???

She has 18 brand new, variously colored babies! Cutest little fuzzy things evar...

(and more - just cause they are darling).

And in a related story - Gertrude (studio chick #2 - the giant, partridge Cochin), has just gone broody.  She now sits in the nesting box all day and night all rumpled and grumpy (she'll hiss and peck if you try to move her to get at all the daily eggs from the other hens (that she steals and sits on. I've given her an egg-shaped rock so that she doesn't feel completely bereft...) Hopefully she'll return to normal in about a month...

Happy Easter to you!

Figure Friday -

Life drawing today. Was great to get to try out the gesture drawings I've been practicing (was Long Pose day, so sadly, we didn't get too many of them).

..Aaaaand, my long pose drawing....

... and here is sneak peek at my new chicks v. 2.0. (This little chipmunky-striped baby will grow up to be a rustic-red and orange Welsummer who lays chocolate brown eggs. :-)

Semi-Succulent Saturday - Kitchens and Chickens

The bulk of the cabinets are in. The stove (and the gas line) get moved over tomorrow. The last of the cabinet-stuff should be pretty much installed by Monday. Then it's just waiting on the counter top folks and some finish work. Still nearly 2 weeks more until a kitchen sink... In the interim, my back is getting really tired of washing my dishes in the bathtub...

So - for fun, I bring you photos of Baby Chicks!!

One of my critique group friends, Suzy, has a couple of flocks of 'fancy chickens. These are the very cute, and very tiny Serama Bantam chickens (look at those completely vertical tails!) She incubated a new batch a few weeks ago - see how tiny the chicks are?

But they are nothing compared to the most itty-bitty, stripey, jumpy batch of Buttonquail that hatched this weekend! They are the teeniest, most active little fuzzy bird babies you've ever seen! They are like bumblebees with beaks!

See! Compare! There are *17* buttonquail babies being held in these hands (compared to the two tiny serama chicks above..) It was amazing to see.

And in other Good Chicken News, all three of mine are successfully laying again.

Yay chickens!

Chicks!

There are not many things much cuter than a nearly-new, baby chick (this one is just a few days old - with egg tooth still attached to its beak).



Besides watching British mini-series whilst working for the past many months, I also listened to a number of books on tape. These two quite caught my interest. I've always been a fan of Barbara Kingsolver's writing, and this memoir (although a bit preachy in places) was compelling - and the hilarious chapter on 'turkey sex' was an added treat.

Michael Pollan was new to me, but once I started listening to "The Omnivore's Dilemma" I couldn't put it down. Engaging and enlightening, told with self-depreciating humor and fascinating experiences. Between the two, I was totally motivated to 'unplug' from the Big American Food Industry where-ever possible. In this instance, by raising my own free-range, organic egg supply. ( I see a number of blogs popping up with similar un-plugged themes, this one by local artist friend Angela who has an even more interesting challenge since she lives in an apartment. )


Luckily, I do have a yard, albeit a modest, suburban one. Seattle sponsors an Urban Chicken program (and do click on the link. Insane chicken houses featured - from the charming to the elaborately ridiculous... This is Seattle, after all) and even with my modest land holding I can have up to *three* hens in my very own back yard. Alas, no chicken palaces for me - I am converting an old, wooden dog house into a coop to house my three chosen chickens. [If you are interested, the center chicken is an Araucana and the outside two are both blue-lace Wyandottes... I opted for a bit fancier chicken with 'good' egg production rather than for your typical, less visually-interesting Rhode Island Red that lays gangbusters... I'll be able to see the coop from my studio window and want to maximize my visual enjoyment - both of the actual hens, and of my blue-green and brown eggs...]



One of my POBL cohorts, who has a very respectable flock of fancy chickens of her own is allowing my 'babies' to grow up with her new chickens this year (I am not set up with cage, feeders, heat lamps, a barn to put them all into, etc...!) I have visitation rights, and when they are large enough to be 'out', they will come here to my backyard, and I will see how we fare adding fowl to our organic, backyard experience!

If nothing else, I'll have ready chicken reference to sketch.