Tag: coronavirus art

Mostly I’ve Been Drawing…

Mostly I’ve been drawing. I’ve also been stitching on wool. And currently I’m watching a hawk in the tree outside my window, because that’s more scientific than some of the stuff I’m supposed to be teaching starting next week. It’s OK. We’ll fix it. It’ll give us something to do. I’m thinking during my online office hours, I can offer short draw-a-longs instead of science…or video of the hawk outside my window. Or the hummingbird nest I found while doing yardwork yesterday. Tomorrow I have two trainings on some of the online stuff we’ll be doing for school. I need a plan. I might have a plan. I certainly made a video for my students yesterday about my plan…which is funny. Because I don’t think I have a plan.

Anyway. Life moves on. We seem to be staying healthy, San Diego is not hard hit (yet?) by this disease, and the grocery stores are getting closer to normal. Not normal, but closer. Still can’t buy flour. We managed toilet paper though for the first time in a month. It’s OK…we had a lot. Cat litter will be the next issue. Although I think I can order that online. It just won’t come for a while.

The weekend was quiet…I did go for a walk on Saturday…

It was a nice day out…there’s that plant that makes the dog smell like maple syrup.

This part of the path had turned into a small stream…

Luckily, mud doesn’t hurt hiking boots. I saw bunches of people out on the street, but on this section, there was no one. Nicer that way. Easier than negotiating what side of the road you’re walking on.

Before I walked, girlchild was smart and sat out and enjoyed the sun.

Hopefully there’ll be more of that this week. The dogs like it too. Although yesterday, the neighbors violated stay-at-home orders and had another family (I suspect cousins) and grandparents there, screaming for hours. Ah, Easter. When God wants you to infect your family. My mom stopped by to drop off handmade Easter cards…but she opened the door and dropped them in (where we disinfected them…not really) and then briefly talked to me from the deck/driveway conduit. Which is much more than 6 feet away. I’m afraid we’ll get them sick…we have two essential workers in constant contact here. I don’t want to be the viral conductor. And today, I’m going back to school to distribute lunches…now with a mask and gloves.

So drawing…I spent over 8 hours ‘drawing’. Because a lot of it is just staring at the paper and trying to decide what goes where next…not actually putting pen or pencil to paper. I am still sketching it out in pencil before I do the ink.

At some point on Sunday, the cats started trying to eat the paper. Because that makes sense…

So I have a bunch of taped bits now. Thanks to this sweet biatch…

She is a sweetheart. Really. Except with paper. Her sister is more predictably evil…

So we have a big piece of paper that looks a lot like a kitten playground.

Mostly fixable. I kept drawing Sunday…

Not my first bat…actually did a lot more on Sunday…

The thought process is slow…but it’s moving.

The top half is done…at least as far as I know, it is. Now I’m in the bottom half.

At some point, the drawing starts to talk to me, and this becomes easier. It’s talking now. I’m thinking another couple of days of drawing and I should be done. Tracing Wonder Under with these cats will be interesting. I do a lot of it when the kittens are asleep. It’s easier than fighting them over the excitement of the big paper. Speaking of excitement…

Well, there’s Calli. She’s old. Toys are exciting though.

Two more dots…the snail on the bottom right…

That cat is so helpful…

Every night, I clear a space for her to sit in all the stitchery madness. Here’s last night’s dot…

Top right, basket of flowers.

And I also worked on the road on Saturday night…

Got a good chunk done while watching True Detective. I just need to connect the bits now, then put some feet on that bird, embellish a monkey and a hut, and then add ten tons of grass and flowers. No worries.

OK, so today I distribute lunches, plus draw some more and make a mask for a desperate friend. Then exercise in some way and stitch some more and tomorrow get my ass out of bed early for some school training. Woo hoo!

After the Rain…

I once again meant to write yesterday. But I have no real schedule at the moment, so everything is just hard to fit in apparently. And it rained all day, nonstop, gray and dropping water from the sky, mostly a lot for us. We don’t need 2″ of rain in a day…let’s spread it out. Some years, that’s all we get. We’re over 19″ for the year. Today is lovely and sunny with big fluffy clouds, though, so I’d better be taking a walk at some point. Remember that thing. Walk. Hopefully that’s the last of the really bad rain. A little rain once in a while would be nice, but yesterday was just cold and wet and damp and never-ending. Well. Until it ended.

Speaking of, we walked on Wednesday…I remember that. Here’s where the kids are blaspheming against my taking pictures of them…

I think today I will be walking by myself. Which is OK. Although a local hiking area I’m often in had a guy with a gun threaten a young female runner. Because now that we’re all wearing masks, rape is OK? Or easier? There are still assholes out there. Always. I’m not actually hiking there now because we’re not supposed to drive places and then hike there. We’re supposed to stay in our neighborhoods. Yes, I’m tired of my neighborhood, but so be it.

I’m still stitching dots…one a day…like an apple but more fun. Wednesday on the right, top.

I finally caved yesterday afternoon and ordered some threads, so I can stop stealing from all the other unfinished kits. Thursday night top right, with cat butt.

She wouldn’t move. And then my favorite this week, Friday night’s on the top right…

That’s 12 done…78 to go. Ha! Makes tears come to my eyes. Someone asked about purchasing this. I don’t think that’s happening. Sue Spargo says it’s 30-45 minutes per dot, and some are, but some are much longer than that. So let’s just say 50+ hours of work. Yeah. At my normal rate, completely unaffordable. I’m OK with that…I’m just doing it to occupy time and my brain and give me a focus each day. And hopefully, when it’s done, 90 days from now, we won’t be quite so socially distant? Maybe? Sigh. That shit scares me. Send the teachers back to school, without testing to see who’s had it and who hasn’t? Nah. But they probably will.

In other news, I started the new drawing. I just randomly cut and taped paper to get this size. It’s a little big for moving around, but I wanted big. I want something in your face. I started drawing in pencil on this one. Couldn’t get my head around it in pen to start.

I usually start with a smaller drawing and enlarge it, and then add around it. But with no access to the copiers, this is what I’m doing. You can see bits and pieces of it have started to appear in ink (there is pencil on there as well). I spend most of the drawing time just staring at it…

Or yesterday, just staring out the window at the rain. So this drawing will take a while. Also, the kittens like to play with the paper, so I try to draw when they are asleep…it’s just easier. Nova already took a bite out of the middle. Art in the time of kittens. So expect to see me drawing this for at least a few more days.

I also continued working on this little quilt and the video of making it.

I think there’s about 20 videos I have to put together and then timelapse or something. I’m not actually sure. I do know it’s at least 2 hours of video…so something has to happen to it.

I did finish it yesterday, so now I can move on to something else. Or keep making little quilts. I don’t know.

All my socializing seems to end up in the end of the week…here was Thursday night’s stitching group…I was working on the road for Folk Tails, which needs a flat space.

I’m in the middle of the big piece right now, which is kind of a pain in the butt.

Then while gaming last night, I did one of the Spargo dots and stitched all these pieces down.

It’s brainless, so that’s easy. There were lots of pieces though. And now I can do embroidery or do more brainless stitchdown. Hard to say which is better for me right now.

This is what gaming looks like at the moment…

Puppy likes girlchild love…

At least he seems to…

Kitten follows me wherever I go. And plops down near me.

Girlchild finally made a dessert/bread without chocolate in it so I can eat it. It’s very good.

There’s been a lot of Bon Appetit in the house in the last few weeks.

OK, well, it’s Saturday. In my future is a walk, some video creation, some drawing, probably some more dot sewing. Tomorrow, we attempt the purchasing of toilet paper…we’ve made it this long without buying more, but now we need it. Hopefully it will not be an issue. Ha! Next week includes a bunch of school stuff in preparation for going online for realz on the 20th. That’ll be different. A schedule might be a good thing for me. We’ll see. Oh yeah, and my credit card had a fraudulent charge on it last night. Fun times. Remember what I said about people still being assholes? Yeah. And no, it wasn’t a grocery store…I’d have some sympathy for that. Anyway, it’s handled. Hope you all are staying well, getting exercise, making some stuff, whether fiber or food, and not stealing people’s credit card numbers. That would be wrong.