Blurry

Last night was just blurry. All the pictures are blurry. My eyes are still blurry this morning, not enough sleep. But I’m almost done dammit! With so many things! Tracing and school. Yeah. So I have 9 minutes before I have to leave for a student thing (yes, on a weekend, unpaid), but this is how I roll. If you had 9 minutes, you might stroll through Facebook or play your game online, or maybe you’d throw in a load of laundry (that would be smart, but I only do laundry on Sundays), but I sit down and START writing a post, even though I know I won’t finish, because if I get a draft on here with pictures, while I’m standing around at this student thing, I can maybe write the rest of it! No seriously. I guess I don’t have much down time.

And yes, I’m looking forward to having most of 8 weeks off (it won’t all be OFF, for sure, because school trainings are poking their ugly heads in already). It will be nice to not be panicking on a Sunday afternoon about prep for the week, it will be nice not to have to consider grading papers EVERY SINGLE NIGHT (seriously people, that’s how it rolls). I would love to come home and NOT think about my job, but that is such a rare occurrence…we really do need summer to recharge so we can go at it balls out for another 10 months. I work every Spring and Winter break. I work through Thanksgiving. I work almost every weekend during the school year. Summer is a fucking relief. I can’t afford to go anywhere, but at least I can relax for a time. I figure we have about 183 days of school (actual days, not counting weekends) and I work for at least 1-3 hours almost every night or morning during the school year, so that’s an extra 366 hours a year (or 9 weeks of 40-hour weeks…I don’t ever work a 40-hour week). Plus weekends probably average 4 hours of work…So let’s say 40 weekends times 4 hours is another 160 hours or 4 weeks there. Honestly, we work a full year of hours in less than a year and don’t get paid for those extra weeks of work. No paycheck until August! Whoo!

So yeah. Don’t begrudge me my time. Jealous? Hey. Come teach my class for a week. This week! I dare you.

So I traced last night…getting into the low 1800s.

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I’m up into the head area, so only about 150 pieces left. I want it DONE.

So I can then spend 15 hours cutting them all out.

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Sounds relaxing, doesn’t it? Plus reading books and drawing and sitting on the deck and long hikes and not having to deal with school!!! OK, my brain is already on vacation. I still need to finish grades and I have 46 more awards to type and print out, and there’s a field trip and the last day and I need to come up with 500 cookies. So it’s not free time yet…it’s still in overdrive.

Midnight does not do overdrive.

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OK. Gotta go now…I’m a minute late.

Simple

Some people sleep through earthquakes. Some of us have early warning systems that bark like little maniacs. And some of us have never slept through an earthquake, EVER. Yup. It’s funny though, because as I’m lying in bed, staring at the USGS map (yeah, that fucker is bookmarked), I’m thinking, “Only a 5.2? Really? That felt more like a…”. Being a Californian, we’ve experienced more earthquakes than most. And living in San Diego, we don’t actually experience a whole lot of them.

I didn’t have Calli last night. I wonder if she barked before the earthquake too? The mockingbird was quiet most of the night…I continue to believe he’s going out on dates, or if that guy was right, his baby birds are now fledglings and he feels safer about his nest. No need to yell at ME about your territory dude…because you’re in MINE.

Like much of this week, last night did not go as planned. No worries. I roll with the flow on a regular basis. Or is that roll with the punches and go with the flow? That’s one of the things that drives my kids nuts, when I mess up idioms. My brain does weird stuff with words…it always has.

But once I got home (and I did figure out how to get today’s lunch out of last night’s endeavors), I was mostly awake (tea helps me believe I am more awake than I am), so I settled down to tracing. I’m on a roll! Don’t you hate it when people misspell those. I’m on a role! NO you’re not. Unless you’re in a play. Web sight was one that amused me. Because you are seeing things. So that almost makes sense. There are more of course. Homonyms kick our uneducated asses on a regular basis.

I’ve been tracing for an hour to two hours every night. I’m at 15 hours and 19 minutes in. See if you look at artmaking as just spending an hour a day (if you’re like me and have a fulltime job…trust me, I’d do more than that if I could), then it’s not so bad. Eventually everything gets done, even if it’s only a little bit each night.

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I started in the mid 1400s last night and traced through the mid 1600s, doing almost 200 pieces in an hour and 45 minutes.

Not bad. Last year at this time, I was quilting the first of the bathtub quilts. I end up tracing a lot of leaf parts in these Earth Mother quilts. Leaves are complicated little fuckers. I did a lot of flowers and leaves and arm parts and part of a snake and then more leaves.

Cuz there’s lots of them. When there’s leaves that are all part of the same plant, I try to trace the same part of the leaf in the same section (light side vs dark side) and then cut them all out as one large piece of Wonder Under. It saves trimming time at this stage. I’ll cut them apart later.

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The kids are trying to help around the house.

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I realize that doesn’t look like help, but the girlchild was known in her past for slamming doors and a particularly violent slam took out part of her door framing, so boychild pulled out the old nails and fixed it. It was on the white board list of chores mom left on the door.

Simba is entirely no help in all of this. Unless there’s an earthquake coming, and then he’s useful. Although if I ran and got into a doorway every time he barked, it would be silly.

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His last cone day is today. His stitches are mostly healed. It’s unfortunate, because it allows us to control him a bit.

I have about 300 pieces left to trace. I’d like to say I’ll get some done tonight, but who knows. I’m pretty tired. There are only 5 days of school left and a lot to do. And I haven’t been sleeping well between randy mockingbirds and random earth shaking and just general end-of-year stress. Hopefully that will change soon. What do I look forward to in summer? A normal sleep and pee schedule. Lots of artmaking time. Simple.

That Bird

There’s been this mockingbird outside my house chattering away almost every night for the last 6 weeks or so. I hear him start up before I ever go to bed, and most mornings, he’s still going until around 5:30 AM. I know this because I’ve woken up at 5 and still heard him, but 5:30 seems to be his stopping point. I’ve read a couple of websites that seem to have a variety of claims…mostly that it is a male with no mate and once he finds his fucking true love, he will shut the hell up. Then there’s this guy, who claims it’s territorial and somewhat desperate. And then there’s a bunch of websites that warn me I can’t do anything to hurt the bird; it’s against the law. And one crazy ass person who says I should carefully listen to the damn bird (which I have done, trust me, for hours) and eventually my body will consider it a lullaby and fall asleep quite happily while listening to it. That guy is on crack.

There were two nights last week when he was silent (finally got a date?), but now he’s back in full force, and I again have the pillow over my head. This isn’t gonna fly when it gets really hot, so hopefully he’ll either move (seriously, same guy comes back every year) or find a female. Now. In fact, I’m willing to find one for him. There must be some older, slightly chubby, female mockingbird out there somewhere who would love to live in that tree.

Sleep. It’s for the weak.

Seriously, I’m up early today for a meeting (ugh) and I’m already tired from staying up too late again tracing stuff. I had a union meeting AND book club, and then came home and dealt with grades again (getting close to the end, hallelujah)…and still managed to trace some stuff. Did I clean the house? Fuck no. I did not.

I’m getting closer to done though…in the mid 1400’s…

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Back to watching Outlander after finishing Magicians. Both have their painful moments.

The problem is that I’m happily tracing away and NOT watching the clock, and then when I look at it, I’m shocked by how late it is, and THEN, instead of just stopping right there, I finish whatever logical section I’m working on before I go to bed. Because. Shut up. It was hard to stop last night. I only have 500 pieces to go.

So I traced a tiger, a cat, and a heart. Oh. And another lung. I have most of the torso done at this point…just some flowers on the one breast at this point.

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Then I have an arm left. And the head. And then I’m done. I have about 4 yards of Wonder Under traced so far. No doubt that the larger pieces of the head and arm will take it to 6 yards.

Kitten came out…she’s not very friendly with puppy.

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But she deigned to sit on the desk and watch for things outside. Should introduce her to the mockingbird. Meanwhile, Simba went bonkers running around last night, barking at Calli, trying to get her to play. Eventually Calli came to me, all worried. Why? Why is he doing that? What does he want? It’s amusing. Exhausting, but amusing.

So tonight, I will hopefully get another batch of pieces traced. If I weren’t so tired, I’d go for broke…I could be done by Friday night, but I know I probably won’t be. Unfortunate. Although once grades are done, I can then just cut stuff out at night without having to fit grades in there as well. That should help my goal of being done by the time I get out of school…we’ll see. I would get BETTER sleep if that damn bird would get his ass out of the tree and force himself to get out and about to meet the womenfolk.

Can’t Be Done Yet

One of my quilts, One Paycheck, is included in a book that is coming out just now, Quilts and Human Rights…

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I had forgotten about this…with communication stretching back to 2014, it’s not surprising, right? One Paycheck is about being homeless and a mom. I’m looking forward to reading the book and seeing some of the other quilts that were included.

So when I’m slogging through the last two weeks of teaching or a pile of awards and my printer’s being cranky or driving around doing errands even though I asked a kid to do one of them…it’s cool to get an email that reminds you that yeah, you make art, and sometimes it matters. Plus I got into a book!

Oh man, I went to bed too late…second time this week. I told you, my brain is already on summer break. It just can’t figure out why I’m getting up so early in the morning. But I finished most of the team’s academic awards last night…now I just need to do the fun awards and hope my printer cartridge doesn’t run out in the middle of it (you know it will).

Back to the tracing of course…

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I know this phase is totally boring for my readers. Like every day, she shows us another picture of Wonder Under lying on a light table and her pencil. And maybe a cat or a cup of tea or her phone. Like SHEESH woman, get on with it.

And then I try to get creative…like there’s the three yards of filled-up traced pieces that I get to start cutting out at some point, right?

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And a close up so you can reiterate to yourself how crazy I am…like some of those pieces are crazy tiny and what the hell is she thinking, and holy crap, they’re numbered in the 1300s or something.

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But here’s the thing. This is one of the most calming, meditative parts of the quiltmaking process for me. I don’t have to think very hard about colors or ironing, it doesn’t hurt my hand like cutting stuff out does…it’s just meditation. Which is probably what I need right now. My SIL said I sounded cranky last night and I was. Still am this morning. It’s the nature of the beast…the end-of-year teacher. Too much to do in too little time. Not enough of the relaxation I need right now. Really, honestly, right now I need a nap. Yes, I know it’s only 7:30 in the morning, but shit. I’m tired. And done. And I can’t be done yet. Really. I can’t. I can’t.

I’m through piece 1300-something. Another hour in. Traced an octopus, some arteries, some grass, one lung, and some cactus. I have the tiger left to do on one breast and then the heart and the whole other side (breast plus arm). Plus the head. Then I’m done meditating and on to cutting.

Something to Point at…

The closer I get to the end of the school year, the louder my art brain yells about free time and summer days and being on vacation. It’s hard to focus on school stuff at all, because people around you are lazing around, leaning back, taking a break, when we have a run for another 9 days, a sprint if you will. I mean, you can do anything for 9 days, right? OK. I’m pretty sure I can come up with something that I wouldn’t be able to do for 9 days, but right now, I keep telling myself I can get through 9 more days of students and teaching sex ed and dealing with whininess and hyper behavior (oh wait, that’s kind of my household at the moment).

I did take Saturday off though. I had to deliver a quilt to Oceanside, but I got to enjoy some art there (more later) and bought some teeny tiny art, two by high-school students and one by an adult. Go ahead, you guess which is which…

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Top left is the adult (female) and the other two are high-school students (both male). Interesting pieces.

Then I spent a few hours roaming Art on Adams (more pictures later) and seeing mostly mediocre art with some standouts.

Sunday was a whole shit-ton of grading and school stuff (see that’s what happens when you blow it off for a day) and I think every day from here on out will be like that unfortunately. I did make it through all the makeup work, so that’s a plus. And my aide can input grades today and tomorrow.

I finally finished (well, got to a point of ending stuff and frustration) at around 9:30 PM and headed in to trace stuff. Midnight spent most of the time trying to lie on the drawing. There’s the girlchild talking to her…

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Simba is still a spaz, even with a cone on his head. Here he is trying to get me to play with his toy while I’m tracing.

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Girlchild was bored, so I handed her the coloring books I ordered from Jamie Fingal…I didn’t buy them to color, but because my art group is planning on doing a coloring book and I wanted to see what hers looked like. You can find them at that link. Girlchild’s been quite happily coloring while watching TV, in between job applications and brief spurts of cooking madness.

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Cleaning the kitchen is still not her forte.

I traced for over 2 hours. Girlchild had gone to bed because she was tired (I should have noted that as a clue it was getting late…because I stayed up way too late).

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I’m in the 900s now…still not halfway, but getting close. It’s 9 1/2 hours so far…I keep having to adjust my time estimates. It’s somewhere around 20 hours total, I’m guessing, depending on how fast I go. Last night, I was quite fast…250 pieces in 2 hours. I completely lost track of time, which is always nice. I traced cocoons and poppies and passionflower vines, plus a hand, some pine branches, and up the arm, minus the crane. That’s where I stopped: at the crane’s foot.

OK, so I plan to do some more, hit the halfway point even, tonight. Grading may get in the way, but hopefully there will still be time. Remember my goal to have it all traced AND cut out by the time school got out? Eh. It’s looking a little more difficult…but we’ll see. It’s OK…I set the goals with the realization that I might not meet them, but sometimes I’ll beat them. It gives me something to point at.

Art over Work…

Although I have 700 things to grade and the deadline is positively LOOMING over me (it always does…some times of the year, it just feels like I’m ducking down to avoid responsibilities for weeks at a time), I am blowing it all off today for art. Seriously. It’s the weekend. I’ll deal with it tomorrow. And Monday. And every freakin’ day next week. Whatever doesn’t get done…doesn’t get done. Honestly, nobody’s grade is changing THAT much at this point.

Teachers at the end of the year…sigh. I was done yesterday, and we still have nine more days.

Anyway, I got nothing done last night because of gaming and exhaustion, but I will today. First, I have to deliver Mammogram to the Oceanside Museum of Art…the opening of the California Fibers: Eclectic Fibers show is Saturday, June 25, from 6-8 PM. If you’re planning on coming, let me know and I can put you on a list so you can get in free.

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There will also be some sort of artist talk on July 12 from 6:30-8. It will either be artist meet and greet or an artist panel, but I’m planning on being there either way. The show is open for quite a while, so you have plenty of chances to go see it.

The closing exhibition for Feminism Now is next Saturday from 6-10 PM, which is part of the Barrio Art Crawl. I will need to be there at 10 to pick up my work, but I won’t be there for the whole 4 hours! (Sorry)

I have a post-it attached to my computer with all the upcoming deadlines and ideas for some of them (at least one of them needs a drawing in the next month or so). However many things I have on my phone to remind me of stuff, sometimes I just need to go old school so I can SEE it every day. All the ways you can poke the brain into remembering shit.

The rest of today will be tracing stuff and then the Art around Adams two-mile art and music event this afternoon and evening. Because it’s a weekend and summer and it doesn’t all have to be work all the time. Because that’s what makes us cranky. But first I have to drive to Oceanside. Eh. Oh well. It’s for a good thing. The other stuff today will help with inspiration for the next few pieces (that nightstand thing is currently rolling around in my head, and not necessarily in a good way). Hopefully I can get some drawing in soon too.

But Soon…

Oh wow. Friday tired and it was only a 4-day week. Can’t imagine how next week will feel. Puppy is behind me talking to Kitten. He has this funny growl that sounds like he’s talking and she is just staring at him, like WTF is your deal, dude? He still has a cone on his head, which means he bumps into everything and needs his head scratched on a regular basis.

I had my stitching meeting last night and finished another bird in the Sue Spargo thing I’ve been working on for like three years…there are only four birds left and then I can piece them together. Maybe I’ll get to that this summer. AND finishing the other one, which is pieced, but needs a flower, a stem, and a leaf, and then to be sandwiched and quilted. I really should do that.

I also got confirmation that I will be doing that little owl as a commission, so I’ll get working on tracing that soon. I pulled my Etsy site…nothing was selling and I suspect only my friends were liking stuff. So that was a bust. I’m honestly flailing a little this year on increasing income…I bid on a bunch of copyediting and proofreading jobs, but suspect there is always someone there who will underbid just to get the job. I can’t afford to lose time unless I’m getting paid the going rate, so I spend time preparing a bid and doing sample edits, and sigh. Maybe I just suck at it. Or maybe I don’t work hard enough at trying to get new jobs. Because I’m buried in school work. And tired.

So last night, I figured I had earned tracing time…I graded all day in class while students were watching puberty videos. Today they’ll be working on vocab, so I’m gonna keep grading…because hey! School’s almost out! And I’m going to sleep in a lot! Because I’m so tired! I always give my co-teacher shit for overusing exclamation points and there I used like four in a row. !

Last year, on this day, I was ironing the first bathtub quilt together.

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There are now two bathtub quilts. There are at least three more bathtub drawings, one of which is enlarged but needs some heads (seriously, both people are headless due to my drawing off the paper, which drove my 5th-grade teacher bonkers. She was an artist and kept trying to get me to fit ON the paper. But my vision was always bigger.) and one that will never be a quilt because it’s just too loosey goosey. But the other one, with its crown of thorns, it could be a quilt. HEY! One of the shows I’m looking at entering is about WATER. And bathtubs…they have WATER. Wait. !!!

Yeah. I’m a little punchy.

Puppy and I are equally NOT interested in our boring breakfasts today.

So I traced last night…Still filling up the third sheet. Most of what I’m doing now is tiny, filling in between the ribs.

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Last night, I traced some more grapes and grape leaves, and then a homeless woman with her shopping cart and her sign (which is bloody tiny, I must say), and then I did a butterfly. But I stopped when I got to the cocoons, because it was after midnight, and I really do try to go to sleep at a “reasonable” hour (I know my doc thinks it should be two hours earlier, but then I would get NO ART DONE and that is unacceptable. Plus it’s hard enough for me to fall asleep at midnight.).

See the tiny little pieces interspersed among much bigger pieces? Yeah.

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I’m at piece 714…with another hour in…at this time of year, slow and steady is about all I can handle. Not quite halfway, but maybe…well, tonight maybe not. But soon.

Plod on…

So when the kids are here, I can’t blast music in the morning. Well. I guess I COULD, but…it would be mean. I didn’t realize I’d gotten used to being able to do that whenever I want. To their credit, they tried to organize the kitchen counters yesterday, but there’s piles for me to deal with, and I don’t have time. This makes me laugh. Because that’s why the kitchen looked like that in the first place: Time. Not enough of it. Been the story of my life. Really, no. It’s just that my priorities are different. Probably most people don’t come home and grade for a couple of hours and then trace Wonder Under for another hour or two. Or iron a few thousand pieces of fabric. Or quilt around a uterus. Boychild wanted to know why I had expired coupons. Plus they found one of my reproduction folders (I was looking for that…it has the printouts of circumcision in there…I was trying to explain that the other day). And the girlchild’s senior photos (whoops. I’m pretty sure I should have handed those out to people like last year. I suck.).

Hey, I am not a perfect parent. For one, it’s just me here. For another, there’s no manual for how to fix this and do that. I’m winging it. After spending all day with 7th graders. I can’t be amazing Supermom. I can just be me.

Speaking of uteri, I am full on into teaching human reproduction now, so my days are full of explaining spontaneous erections and semen and periods. It’s tiring, but it’s easy enough, except my voice is not trained this year…we talk less now that everything is online. So it feels like a stretch to talk almost all period. There’s some minor behaviors to deal with this week, certainly, but we should survive it. It’s almost a relief to get to this unit, because I know they will pay attention and I’ve been teaching it so long that it’s second nature. I used to have to look up the answers to a lot of their questions (because I like to be accurate), but now I just wing most of it. I looked up some data on cervical cancer yesterday. None of today’s questions require more than a basic knowledge of how stuff works. Although there were a couple of boys yesterday that wanted to know when their periods would start. Oh my. Parents? Are you telling them anything? Or are you just fucking with them? Because with those two? I’d be OK with that.

So that’s the daily grind. Grades are due in about a week in a half, so I’m trying to stay on top of it, but it’s hard. I’ll get there. The hard way.

Last night, I managed to go to the gym, finish my book for book club…in July (seriously, I think I’m a month ahead? Plus I am totally Gaiman over Pratchett…Pratchett is funny at all and sometimes really good, but not like Gaiman. Sorry if that’s blasphemy to you.), grade a pile of science journals (not all of them though, because the couch was co-opted by college kids and I was forced to work in here), and finally persuaded myself to come out and start tracing stuff. I was really tired, but I always want to get some time in.

Luckily, I was pretty efficient. Got over 100 pieces traced in about 45 minutes…that’s the channel changer on the light table…the girlchild went to bed about 5 minutes after I went in there, so I got control of the TV! This is another thing that I have to get used to…

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I did the section with the giraffe and started the leaves and grapevines above it.

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I didn’t do a lot of the grapes though. Look at the clock. It’s midnight. You’re tired. But you can see a whole pile of giraffe spots on the right…

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I cut those out as one piece of Wonder Under and then iron that down to one fabric…it saves time. Then when I cut out the fabric, I can cut out each piece. I can’t do the same thing with the grapes in the lower left corner, though, because they overlap, so they’ll have to be a variety of colors. If I were really smart, I’d figure out a 1,2,3,4 range for those and mark them now and draw all the 1’s together, then the 2’s, etc., but I don’t usually like thinking that hard at this stage. So I’ll just have a million small grapey pieces of Wonder Under floating around.

There is no shortage of small pieces in this quilt…with the big pieces tucked behind. Most of the lower torso is now done and I’m moving up into the upper ribcage area. I think I’m in the high 500s now…yup. Checked my notes. So a third of the way through…6 hours and 16 minutes. So 19 hours? Not a bad guess. So much easier to meditate with Wonder Under at night than to do work. That damn mockingbird is still torturing me every night. I had one night last week when he wasn’t out there until almost 3 AM…and then he was further away. I could barely hear him. Last night? He’s back at it, loud as hell. I’m tired of sleeping with a pillow over my head. I tried earplugs, but they make me feel all clogged up (doesn’t help that my sinuses are being all stuffy with allergies).

Anyway. I plod on.

Countdown

There aren’t many days of school left. I’m trying to get caught up, but little things get in the way. Yesterday I bid on a proofreading job…which meant a sample edit…plus some other stuff that needed editing…so I got no grading done. I’m behind. I need to focus today during prep, which is often really hard for me. Here…teach hard for about an hour and a half and then STOP. Then focus on grading stuff. Then teach again. My brain doesn’t like that, so it often refuses. Whatever. Plus I have yard duty before and after school for two weeks, which is a giant clusterfuck to my organization and schedule. Plus the kids emailing me about their grades. Please please give me a giant extra credit packet to fix my grade! I wasn’t gonna deal with that. Bloody hell.

School is making me cranky. Said every teacher the last month of school. Plus other crap. Think I’m gonna just crawl into bed and come out in July.

When I’d finished all the tasks at hand (and I’m sure there’s some I forgot), I did trace stuff. The first thing I did was a full trace of the owl that’s in this drawing…

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I think this is Owl 3.0. He was originally under a rib bone and a uterus, so I drew those bits out.

I’ve done two others (one of them multiple times)…here’s 2.0, still available.

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And 1.0 (although I didn’t think of him as that)…which I made three times in three different colorways for three different people…

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Yeah apparently I have an owl obsession. This new one is small…fits on an 8 1/2 x 11″ piece of paper, but has about 100 pieces. That guy up there has about 26.

Anyway, from there, I went on to the real business of tracing…apparently very slowly, because I only got about 60 pieces done in an hour…

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I traced a uterus and some tulips and the background stuff behind the giraffe. And then I looked at the clock. Time flies when you’re staring at a light table apparently. I’m on my third yard of Wonder Under, although I’m still filling in smaller pieces on the other sheets.

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Told you this wouldn’t be a quick one. That’s all three yards laid out on the table. You can see I just started filling in the third one on the right.

When I shut down the tracing, I sat down on the couch for a quick moment…just to relax a bit after standing all day. Midnight was looking for attention (I guess puppy got most of it this evening)…

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So there was some attention given.

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I spend a lot of time petting furry creatures. It makes up for being yelled at and dealing with teenaged crisis. And trying to bid on jobs when I have to BE at my other job. And getting left alone a lot when I really don’t want to be. Rough night. So today I go on to teach puberty (because that’s an easy thing to teach to kids who are going through it)…and tonight there is exercise on the calendar (yay!) and I will trace some more. And pet more furry beasts. And count down one more day until summer break.

Recap

Three-day weekend recap: Sleep? Not enough. Art? Not enough. Grading? Not enough. Exercise? Not enough. Glad I got an extra day off? At this time of the school year, absolutely. I start teaching human reproduction today and I don’t feel ready. It’s time-consuming and challenging, even though at least I have their attention…not a small thing for the last three weeks of school.

So I spent about 6 hours yesterday putting together a post about the Feminism Now exhibit I’m currently in…if you want to see the whole show, you have two choices: go to the FIG blog here, or come to the closing show Saturday, June 11, from 6-10 PM. The owner might open up for appointments…I’m waiting for an answer on that and will update the blogpost on FIG when I have one. So that ate up a lot of time, but I’m glad it’s up there to document the show.

I did manage to get in some tracing time last night, but late…I did trace the owl…you can see him on the right.

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Lots of wing pieces. The bigger pieces you see are mostly the flesh background behind all the tiny plant and animal pieces. I’ve done one whole side under the hand, which is just above the belly button, plus the middle section. Tonight (assuming I get to it) will be the giraffe and whatever else is on that side.

More big pieces from the earth at the bottom and little flower pieces filling in the blanks in between.

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It’s faster now. Smaller pieces. I got just past 400 last night (only 1550 to go, right?). So I’m at 4 1/2 hours…catching up. Sixteen hours to go? And school calls.