Strange and Stranger Still

 This afternoon Jacob and I went to lunch and then to Tobacco Barn in search of good images.  I found a few santos to add to my collection of santos drawings, including some baby jesi.  The santos are interesting in that they have painted-on place-holders for hair but no actual hair.  They look androgynous.  They are on top of wooden cages so they have no legs or feet, and their clothing (and maybe they also get wigs?) completes them.  The one on the left here is just like one that I bought a couple of years ago.  The one on the right is a very boyish-looking one wearing a price tag around its neck.  Its neckline is dress-like.  I don't know enough about santos to know if they were given clothing to complete the saint they were supposed to be.  I do remember an Infant Jesus of Prague statue at the convent school I went to in New Orleans that wore elaborate jewel-encrusted dresses and gold crowns.  A nun was assigned to the job of changing his clothes according to the ecclesiastical season.  Santos come out of a different tradition, but the idea of dressing up statues seems to lie deep in catholicism.

After we gave up on TB, which was scarily hot and humid as a result of the sun beating down on its metal roof, I dropped J off to go cut the lawn at his house, and I went to the air conditioned Y.  I decided to see if I could draw while working on the boring weight  machines.  I balanced my sketchbook on the machine while I lifted, and on those that involved legs only I held the book in my hands and drew.  You can see the jerky lines and inaccurate anatomy in drawings 2565, 2566, and 2567.  I thought about sitting on a recumbent bicycle and pedaling while drawing, but I just can't do those treadmills or bicycles-- too Souls in Purgatory for my taste.   P jogs on a treadmill at the Y.  I would much rather scramble up and down poison-ivy-laden hills and snake-ridden trails.

J brought along a new acquisition today-- a WWII army surplus gas mask that he and his Dad found at a World of Warcraft expo yesterday.  He put it on in the car to demonstrate how it works.  Here's a drawing of him in his new mask.  He says it helps filter out pollen.  I drew this from the selfie he posted on his blog last night.  He sounds Darth Vader-ish when he talks while wearing it.  It came in a very nice army green canvas bag.