Tag: Inktense

Losing Control of the Workload…

Whoa, losing control of the workload. Fun stuff. I had this plan for getting all the tests graded before next week (didn’t happen). All the digital stuff was going to be graded by today (nope. haha). All the packets were going to be graded on Wednesday (I have two more classes to grade). There are reasons (there are always reasons). Life sits up and says nah bruh. You gotta pivot. The plan is still to go camping this weekend (knock on wood). I’ll get the grading done. Somehow. I might have to grade a bit in the campground. I was going to try to grade in the car, but I think it’s gonna be dark. It’s fine. I’ll figure it out. But the art time is suffering at the moment. Also because my head can’t get around a few things until I get some other things done for once. I’m cleaning the office/studio still. Actually, what I’m doing is going through a bin and a bag of scraps and getting rid of those that are too small and sorting the rest. Plus trying to find an applique piece.

There’s one of the applique pieces in the bottom right…I have about 6 of them, maybe more, but there’s one in particular I’m looking for and it wasn’t in this pile. But really, this is about corralling these pieces into something so they stop wandering around the room.

Last night, that’s all I had the energy for. I got home, started dinner…finished the Zoom call I’d been on in the car, actually did some embroidery during the last bit of that, then ate, cleaned up, packed for camping, ordered tea, and sorted a few things. Not the most productive, but there were good reasons for it.

The night before, I did the eyebrows of the purple woman and yet another brown layer on the other.

Might need to go back with a light blue layer to bring the orange down. So complicated. Then wash it out and start making it into a quilt. Thing. Whatever.

I have an opening on Tuesday for this show…

I have two pieces in the show; stop by if you want to see them…or me. Here’s Desert Mother…she’s pretty fun up close.

Then this one…

Immediate Action Required…I had to look it up. Some piece’s titles take a while to sit in my head. This is a dye painting plus applique plus hand embroidery. Fun stuff. Gonna be doing more of that soon. Next week hopefully. If I can get my act together.

Today. Today includes two parent meetings in the morning, including one demanded by parents because we called their son a bully (hmmm…think about that). Then I’m giving a test. And finishing grading those packets hopefully. And maybe the other tests I haven’t finished. It’s Tattoo a Teacher Day at lunch. Gotta make sure I have something that will take those things off. Then home to pack and go camping, assuming the other stuff is OK. Hopefully spend some time sitting by a campfire or in a camp chair, relaxing, stitching, reading my book, (grading papers), hiking. Then home Sunday to do a ton of catchup. Not necessarily restful, but hopefully a reset of sorts. The run from now until Christmas is rough. Next week is Red Ribbon Week, plus a full moon, plus Halloween. Pray for your teacher friends. It’s a lot.

Hopefully It Will Hold…

My oatmeal revolted this morning. I’m not sure why. I don’t know what I did differently, but it was like a hard cake of oatmeal instead of like a mushy cereal. I don’t know what I did to deserve that. Probably didn’t put enough milk in? But I remember measuring it. Cooked it too long? That is possible. I don’t remember setting it, wait, I did…I did the right time. Am I eating it? Of course I am. Not wasting food. Don’t really care about it that much. Not the tastiest. Could be worse though. Giant blobs of hard oats. Weird.

Also weird, what I’m doing artistically at the moment, which is mostly cleaning honestly. The studio rarely gets a good clean, and it’s not getting one now either…but I had a bag and a bin full of little tiny pieces of fabric that came from IDK where and I can’t deal with them taking up real estate any more. Some are precut binding pieces, and narrower than anything I would ever use, so they’re getting recycled. The rest are getting cleaned off (dust bunnies), ironed if necessary, and stacked up by color, along with some other monthly shipments I got for a while and I thought I had sorted into my bins, but hadn’t. So now I am.

My internet is being cranky this morning; hopefully I’ll be able to add photos by the time I’m done writing. Anyway, those are the piles so far; I’m about 1/3 of the way through the bin. I got all the way through the bag. I also need to pack a quilt and ship it. So that’s on my to-do list. Plus grades are due soon, so I’m trying to get through one class of tests a night, but really, I need to do two one night because camping this weekend. I think last night was the night I was going to try to do more, but it was errands, talking to dad (or trying to), because it was his birthday (86!), and then talking to my bro, his lovely wife, and his delightful daughter. All good things. Just can’t grade when life is happening. Sigh.

Top right of that picture has some fabric applique pieces I’ve made but not finished over the years. I was looking for a specific one and it wasn’t there. Sigh. I do have them on my list to try to finish, but I need to find all of them.

So I’ve been adding Inktense pencil layers to these two dye paintings. The small one needed a background color and the larger one, the two bottom heads needed stuff.

So I’ve been adding layers and then fabric medium and more layers. Last night, I ironed the smaller one, so I’ll wash it out probably tonight, see what holds. The larger one, I thought I was done, and then in the photo, noticed I’d forgotten the eyebrows.

And they’re totally obvious and bug me. So I’ll do that tonight. So it’s not an hour’s worth of truly art stuff, but the cleaning needs to happen. I’ll get there. The heads piece and another long skinny one need to be finished next.

I finally made it to ceramics and made some decisions. I was able to remove the ‘cloth’ piece from the arms and I’m putting it in the bisque fire.

Hopefully it won’t change shape much. I’ll try to glaze fire it in place. I just needed it out of the way so I could try to do a better fix on the arm. We’re at bone dry though and it’s problematic. It is a clean break though, so if I can fire it next to the main piece after I fix it, I’ll be able to make it all work I think.

I’d say I need to do something smaller next, but this was supposed to be smaller and maybe I just can’t do small? I also can’t finish things quickly. I do think the arm is more stable now, so that should help.

Speaking of help, here’s Scribble helping to grade tests.

She is ever so helpful.

I drove past this during errands yesterday. I like to let the GPS tell me which way to go, so I end up on random streets I’ve never been on.

Their reviews are average, but it’s worth a try to drag some kid there, yeah? Maybe just for coffee.

This is legit.

That man is so incapable of doing his job as it is.

OK. Today should be a chill day. Kids have an independent assignment to complete before a lab tomorrow. I have a million packets to grade and I really need to finish if possible. Or get close. Then I have pilates after school and need to set up a flood barrier for the rain that is coming over the next few days. I have an outside drain that isn’t working and needs to be cleared out, but I don’t have the time or the equipment. It’s on my list for Thanksgiving. The new gutter drains in an inconvenient location. Then I’m going to grade more than one class worth of tests, fix those eyebrows, and finish cleaning up in here. Maybe put a label on that quilt I need to ship (probably not; let’s be honest. There are only so many hours in a day). It’s all good though. At least I have a plan…hopefully it will hold.

Be Prepared

Pro: I finished a quilt. Con: Now I have to do all the other things I wasn’t doing because I was finishing a quilt. Friday night I finished the sleeves…

Still needed to be ironed and cleaned up, but that was the plan for Saturday morning…

And while I was trying to fall asleep, I remembered a set of mushrooms that needed embroidery…

So that was Saturday morning…

I dropped the quilt off with the photographer and then ran some errands. I came back and started to get some of the home and school to-do lists done, never enough. After dinner out, I remembered I decided to color the background of this. I’m using Inktense pencils, so after you color, you have to paint. But I think it’s OK. I might do another layer.

This is very small, but not small enough for an upcoming show I need to enter. It’s a drawing I did summer of 2025, then colored summer of 2026. Still not done.

Then last night (yesterday was crazy busy), I got about 15 minutes to work on this.

Mostly this piece is fine as is…or at least, it’s ready for the next stage. But the yellow person is still yellow. I got through the coloring part with the pencils but not the painting part, so I’m expecting (hoping) the yellow becomes less yellow and the purple hair gets darker. But we’ll see tonight. As of tonight, I have a ton of grading to do. We’ll see how that goes. I’m also hoping to finally make it back to ceramics, to deal with the broken arm. Sigh. We’ll see how that goes.

Another school shooting.

Tough one. Kid with a gun going back to his elementary school. Special needs kid, special needs classroom. We don’t teach kids to deal with trauma. As a classroom teacher, we see a lot of it, and the resources don’t exist in schools to deal with that and teach content and teach them to read and all the things we’re supposed to do. But this is not a solution. Guns are never a solution. Little kids. All of them. And this…

That.

My pilates studio has these skellys all around in pilates poses. For something a little goofy.

And this is too true.

Microsoft does some weird shit on my computer and I don’t really understand it all.

I do love this woman.

It’s definitely something to think about, maybe more now than later. Vote. A pedophile/rapist is in charge. Him not being in charge won’t solve all the problems, but if we can get more people against him in the government, it might start to reverse the crazy. Because it is crazy.

OK. Grade lots of things. Although I think not today…I think today is a lot of demos and stuff. Things where I have to be directly involved all day. Sounds exhausting. Then a staff meeting. And a grade-level meeting that is not relevant, I think, but I just don’t have the energy to argue about it. Grade-level matters when we get closer to promotion. Less now. Then ceramics, home and grade a bunch of stuff, then paint that stuff. Maybe color more on the other one. Somehow get the book I’m reading on my iPad to sync up with the same book on my phone. Usually it does; not sure why it’s being idiotic. It’s cooler today. Maybe. This fall has been ugh. I need to go buy some flood control stuff before the next storm shows up. That would be Wednesday, I think. Try to be prepared. For everything. Can’t possibly be prepared for someone jumping a fence and killing little kids. Not ever.