Monday, January 2, 2017

Ultimate Grooming Gesture Drawings

 
The point of a gesture drawing is to get the gesture or movement of a moving model.  Jesse spent all afternoon snoozing on the back porch.  I went outside a few minutes ago to draw him while he slept.
 
Immediately he snapped into action and began to vigorously groom every square centimeter of his pelt and in between each toe.  Luckily he would return to some positions, giving me a second shot at the gesture.  Each of these took under two minutes total.  Now Jesse has gone back to sleep.

Sunday, January 1, 2017

Springerle and Acorns

 
Springerle made by our friends L and B and 
 
Acorn halves and cap from Milledgeville 
Happy 2017.  May our eyes be open and our spirits robust.

Saturday, December 31, 2016

Putty Root Leaves

 
Every winter P and I enjoy finding putty root leaves growing in a few places along the trails.  Late this afternoon I spotted a large patch of them in a place I pass often.  These guys must have popped up last week.  We've never found the flowers, but this time I mapped the location of the leaves, and will put on my calendar to check on them every couple of weeks.  Enlarge the page and read all about them!

Friday, December 30, 2016

Catch-up, Sibling Reunion

 
On the road, grabbing lunch somewhere in Georgia a.  Interesting hair at the salad bar.  Why the flags stuck in sandwiches?
 
This reunion is the most fun ever.  Today we're talking constantly and laughing a lot while walking around a big estate/park/museum-like place where G and S got married two years ago.  Odd artifacts including a glass case of cotton bolls.
 
In an upstairs hall a tiny treadle sewing machine.
 
Hours later. so many of us play musical instruments or/and draw.  Tonight P and D and S and F are playing while D and I sketch and E, D, G, and B and P sing and talk.
 

 
During the days we go on adventures in and near Milledgeville.  Here is St. Stephen in his church where an icon writer has done beautiful icons and where horses were stabled during Sherman's sweep of this area.  At night we have wonderful meals and sit around the table for hours playing hilarious word games.  Here's the King Cake that D and G made!  E got the baby, so we meet at her and F's house next year.
 
Last night after Mad Libs D brought out his lute and played so wonderfully.
 

 
 
One day we went to a very old cemetery and saw this haunted tomb. P told us to knock on the tomb and ask "Mr. Fish, what's going on in there?", which we did. I heard an odd rustling and so did D--- 
Nearby was a tiny sexton's cottage, with a single small window and the remnants of a narrow chimney.  The lovely sloping bag of coffee beans was in our favorite cookie/coffee shop downtown.
 
On the road home, people in a SC restaurant.  We are so sad to leave Milledgeville and everyone.  Here is a group picture and as a special treat the lantern F and E brought and lit as it rises over the lake behind our house. 
 


Friday, December 23, 2016

Time to Re-Subscribe to the Onion

 
There was a time early in the long, tedious reign of George the Lesser when we stopped listening to and reading the news and instead read the Onion for our news.  I think I've reached that point now.  Tonight when I heard that the drumpian pretender to the leadership of the so-called free world had chosen the medium of tweeting to publicize his exhortation that we should amp up our nuclear weapons supply, I felt like all of the above faces.
 
As I listened to yet more outrageousness my mood shifted to more of an eye-rolling scorn and I switched to drawing the above-- a clay mask, a Mayan guy, and my favorite little moon sailing across the deep blue dome of a small chuch in Chiusi, Italy, rolling her eyes and curling her lip at the lunacy below.