Big Catch-Up Post, Part I of III

I've divided this two weeks' worth of drawings into three parts, starting with our first stay in New Jersey.  The drawings above were Asheville airport drawings.  Every single person was attached to a phone or iPad.  There weren't very many people in the waiting area, but really, the scene has changed from the days of people reading newspapers and books and talking on phones.  It was eerily quiet, too, with only the ever-present tv keeping us all up to date on sports scores and the weather.

 Another airport drawing on the left, and on the right, in Maplewood, Abby, whose became a one-year-old on the 28th, and Nate who became 4 1/2 on the 16th.  I helped poor, neglected Nate celebrate his half-birthday by taking him on a long walk to the bookstore and buying him some long books, one of them A Birthday for Frances, about a little badger whose birthday it is NOT, but whose little sister is the birthday girl.  Nate could identify, and we had a jolly time reading and re-reading that book in a corner of the bookstore.

Nate drawing in his notebook, and then a drawing by Nate in which he says "Nate chews gum and doesn't swallow it and then he did."  On the other side, Nate bakes cupcakes with his Mom and reminds us that a watched cupcake never bakes.

Okay, the annoying black dot is on my scanner.  Please ignore it!  These are drawings of one of the cats, Rosie.

Rosie again, and then some drawings made on the train when P and I went in to the city to meet a friend and go to the Armory Show.  On the left below are some sketches of some Brancusi sculptures, and on the right our friend Pat standing in front of a painting by Jacques Villon.

After the wonderful Armory Show we wandered around the rest of the New York Historical Society building and did some sketching.  I especially enjoyed the old toy exhibits.  There were several Noah and the Ark sets, which reminded me of one that I had when I was pretty young.  The sign explained that in the 1800s these were made in villages in Germany out of the trees in their forests and sold all over as appropriate toys for Sundays.   

On the left above is a carved wooden cat, one of many that we saw.  On the right is an assemblage made in a plastic cup by Nate, who collects what he calls junk and puts it in containers and sometimes under sofa cushions.  This one was typical:  he had decorated the outside of the cup with stick-on eyes, mustaches, and a mouth.  Inside there were a lip balm, a black plastic spider, a styrofoam peanut, a plastic peanut, a plastic donut, white paper peels from stickers, some fun foam characters, two glass jewels, and a plastic frog.  We would find these things all over the house.  His parents said he makes them all the time.

Here, above, are a few more assemblages:  on the left is one that was under a sofa cushion.  It has a number of the recurring elements-- styrofoam peanuts, jewels, polished rock, and this one also has a plastic gear from Abby's refrigerator toy as well as a soft sticky zombie draped inside of a small treasure chest.  On the right at the top is one made of a decorative champagne cork, some blue jewels, and a polished rock, all in the back of a dump truck.  At the bottom is part of a ship that Erik made out of Legos while N watched.  After E finished, N went and collected every wheel he could find in the house and put them all in the hold of the ship.

One more collection of Nate's, this one in his man bag that I made for him last summer.  Note the styrofoam peanuts, the spider, and many strings of jewels.  And on the right Nate's drawing of diesel 10, featuring his claw on top.

On our way to New Hampshire, while waiting in the Amtrak room at Penn Station, I drew a tricky scarf tie and also different kinds of boots that I saw.  On the right, a woman playing with her phone as she waited for a train.