Hats!

Yesterday my friend Annie, who inadvertently started me drawing these 10,000 things over a year ago, gave me the wonderful hat on the left.  I wore it today and it is soft and warm and perfect in every way!  It seemed only right to draw it.  So Annie, this is a thank-you drawing.

As it happens. I stumbled into a cache of great hats the other day and bought several of them to give to various people.  I won't say who gets what, but the Viking hat on the right above, cleverly knitted to look like chain mail and complete with a pair of formidable horns, will go to a little boy who must fight off mighty foes on a daily basis-- pirates, dragons, you name it.

The cyclopian hat on the left will go to another boy who must defend his snow fort from foes such as older brothers and rambling free-range chickens.  I especially like the tongue sticking out from between the fangs.  And on the right, a manly winter chores hat for a guy who spends a lot of time dealing with snow.

I didn't want to devote another whole day to the tulips, but the astonishing growth of the runts prompted this comparison of the two smallest sprouts with the giant one!  Andi, you might be right!

Fast-Drawing Jesse in Slow Motion

I didn't have much time for drawing today, so when I caught Jesse taking a nap in the kitchen chair late this afternoon a few  minutes before I had to leave for a meeting, I did these very fast sketches.

For a couple of them I moved around to get different points of view.

Then he very obligingly rolled over and stretched in slow motion.  About 30 seconds per drawing, pretty rough, but I think the gestures are pretty good.

Back to the Race

It feels kind of weird to be so engaged in something as minute as tulip sprouts growing.  But there are interesting differences on a daily basis!  Today the runts are about half the height of the tallest plants;  one runt is developing a second leaf;  and two of the big girls are carrying baby leaves as well as split-offs.

Meanwhile the amaryllis has sprouted a tiny new baby white leaf from the center of the tall leaf and its short leaf partner.  I also think the tall leaf is taller, but not much else is happening here.  Must be growing roots.  The tall leaf is alarmingly pale.

Nurse Jesse

As any of my kids could tell you I am not Good With The Sick, especially when the sickness involves a seemingly constant honking cough.  So when P came down with some kind of swamp fever that we think he picked up on the train coming home from New Orleans last week,  I gritted my teeth and tried to refrain from heaping advice on the patient, very difficult because I do know best!  This afternoon, a gray and gloomy afternoon after a gray and gloomy morning,  Jesse walked up to P where he was languishing loudly in the kitchen easy chair.  He stood looking at him for a few minutes then grabbed a quick bite to eat.

He walked back over, cocked his head, and then climbed up into P's lap.

It took him a little squirming around to get perfectly situated, but after a few minutes he began to purr,

and P said the vibration from the purring felt really good on his chest.  The two of them sat like that for a long time, and oddly enough P didn't cough at all while he was holding Jesse.

Day Two: Color

The biggest change in the bulbs today is the browning and at the same time greening of the tulip sprouts.  The secondary leaves seem to be more pronounced, but none of the sprouts are taller than yesterday.  The amaryllis looks slightly taller .  Since I was focused on color today I noticed it more:  the many shades of green, the yellowish browns shading to bluish at the darker edges.

And They're Off!

Our sweet eldest son and his sweet family sent us a basket of bulbs yesterday, and today they're popping up and turning green.  I love to watch bulbs develop into plants.  I used to assign my college drawing class the assignment of drawing the same thing every day for a month sometimes, and bulbs are the perfect subject for this project.  It's not really a race, but after seeing a real live horse race (at the track that I grew up across the street from) last week in New Orleans, I'm in the mood for cheering on these babies.

Tiny Pale Harvest

Today is overcast and chilly, but still just okay to run barefoot out to the languishing garden and harvest the last of the summer crops.  I drew everything actual size-- the wan pale carrots that I planted too late but that managed to create themselves in miniature and to smell carroty sweet in spite of having grown during short, dark days;  the still-crunchy red lettuce only a little bitter.  After I drew them I ate them, right there at my drawing table.

The arugula lasted pretty well, not really full-sized, but not ridiculously miniature either.  I left a few plants to see if they'll survive inside the frost blanket for a little longer.  And on the right is my prize-winning carrot, almost as big as a baby carrot, plump, sweet, and slightly orange.