Knife Drawing Challenge

 

Today I needed to carve a bunch of very small images to use in a book.  The little olive trees are about 1/2" high each.

 

These pages are just test prints, not laid out.  I like the small cicadas better than the big ones I did a few weeks ago.

 

The back of the rusty Fiat raising a fog of dust from the road is my favorite.  253 to go, 9747 done.

Jesse , Rainy Afternoon

 

I think this new sketchbook may take me to 10,000.

 

Jesse slept for the entire afternoon, and I got inches away from his furry facial landscape.

 

He shifted and adjusted himself from time to time.

 

Occasionally rolled into a ball.

Man is [Still] a Wolf to Man

 

Many times since the dark day last November when the LPV slouched toward his would-be throne I've thought about the dark proverbs of 15th century Hungary, of which the most resonant in these times is "Man is a Wolf to Man."  

 To calm myself down today I went down to draw the hens.  By some fluke of the internet my phone started playing a Morning Joe podcast about today's latest repug savagery.  I quickly shut it down. 

The hens were sweetly dancing around in the dirt, sharing their resources, laying eggs for the farm, replenishing the soil in the little pasture, ignoring the preening rooster.  No wolves in sight.

 

Scribbles in the Light Rain

 

At the top some very humble car line sketches.  I drew the dog, then moved up a space and was able to see the cat lying down next to the dog.  The black face sheep was part of a scramble to get down information about the constantly-moving sheep as the rain drops started.

 

Oh those yummy wooly frantically chomping sheep!  The babies are getting tight curls now, growing fast.

 

These mamas came right up to us.  Maya and I fed them grass.  I wanted to feel their massive wool but the fence holes are too small.  Love the flatness of their heads!

The Lone Orchid Plus Some Stuffed Power Figures

 

While on hold with an airline for 32 minutes this morning (by the end I had memorized the ads that interrupted the upbeat spa music track) I started drawing some little pacquets that I made a few years ago.

 

The one on the left is a simple stuffed cloth figure that is part of a boat sculpture from a couple of years ago.  I'm interested in putting the girls and pacquets together to see what if anything germinates.

 

Two more stuffed girls and then:  a startling sprouting black walnut seedling that I yanked out of my square foot garden this morning.  The nut had split open like a bean cotyledon. And in the upper right:  the sole surviving orchid flower.  All others were completely dried out ths afternoon.  Nice job, beetles!  This little orchid is only about 1/2" across and had dried and fallen off the raceme.  But I could see the minute stamens and tiny purple dots on the flower parts. Okay, enough about orchids, right?

Lambs Revisited Plus Manicurist's Things

 

I decided to draw some of the 10,000 things that I have not drawn yet.  I was waiting for a haircut and sitting adjacent to a manicure station.  Several of these objects were new to me, as I've never had a manicure by a manicurist.  I'm completely guessing about the little bake oven-like thing at top left.

 

Later P and I visited the sad orchids.  All but two blooms are dried up, thanks to the work of the black beetles.  I drew one of the two better ones at the right above.  To cheer up we then went over to the farm and visited the wooly lambs, who are thriving and eating grass non-stop.

 

There is one lamb that was snuggled down in a pile of straw while everyone else ate.  The mamas are more or less ignoring the lambs, walking away whenever one tries to nurse.  Spring is smelling wonderful and the grasses in the pastures are knee high.

Orchids Under Siege

 

Today starts out with soft rain, which reduces the middle distance to values of lovely gray.

 

Then P reminds me that today is the day we play plumbers and replace the seals in our leaky tub faucets.  This is not a big job except that in order to turn off the water we need to go outside and pry up a manhole cover near the driveway and use the large rebar T to reach down into the mud and turn the faucet-like thing.  We ran outside between showers and got the water turned off;  then I disassembled the faucet handles and he then went to Ace to buy new seals.  Meanwhile I drew the parts in the order that we took them apart.

After this actually enjoyable fix-up event I ran down to check the orchids and discovered many tiny black shiny beetles sucking the lifeblood out of them.  I carefully picked one and brought it home to see if I could rescue the blossom from the beetles and help it open in a vase.  Tomorrow:  Safer Soap spray on the plants in the woods.