Deck the Halls
Ink paintings of seasonal odds and ends. I’m trying to finish some socks and mittens for Christmas gifts, so feel a bit like the lady above.
Also:
How to Grow Your Own Lemon Tree - I started seeds from a grocery store lemon this past summer and the seedlings are now about four inches, growing on my windowsill. It’ll be eons before they’re full-size, but if you need a winter pick me up, this might just do the trick.
There’s a huge sale going on over at Society6 and I have art prints (and more) over there.
This Barbara Pym biography looks splendid.
Meow, bark, chirp and glub
I heard someone say Christmas was three weeks away and my first thought was, “Ha! Wrong! It’s at least a month and a half away!” and then I looked at the calendar and admitted “Blergh, no, argh, yes.” My interior monologue quickly devolves in the throes of panic.
The year is winding down and so is the big project that I’ve been working on during that time. I have a bit of room in the schedule, so opened up two slots for pet portraits. I grew up in a home with a dog, cat, parakeets, lizards and several fish tanks. We had gerbils, mice and hermit crabs for a stint, too. And briefly we had a monarch, that had been rescued, badly damaged, floating in the waves one Thanksgiving weekend.* In short, I like pets and I like drawing them. So if your iguana/chihuahua/ferret/what-have-you is in need of a portrait and you have any questions, feel free to drop me a line and I’m happy to help.
*The monarch lasted about a month, perched on the Christmas tree and eating sugar water. He also survived a 15 hour car ride in the back seat with my sisters and I.
Pokeberry Ink
I’ve wanted to experiment with natural inks for ages and finally got around to it, making this magenta shade with the pokeberry that grows near the river. Oh my, what a color — it practically glows on the page before drying to a more subtle hue. While I suspect its archival qualities are poor to middling, that shade is really unlike anything I’ve painted with and I’m itching to see what else I can make inks with. Here’s a tutorial if you’re so inclined to try your hand at pokeberry ink. I also have a Pinterest board of natural dye and ink resources.
Et cetera:
Roadside Cake Fridges are a thing!
The Tundra Illustrator Gift Guide is out and I’m very glad to be included. There’s some amazing artwork available from the illustrators mentioned and well-worth a look. I snagged one of Ben Clanton’s Mermicorn shirts for my niece a few years back.
Owen Pallett covering Guided By Voices might be my very favorite internet discovery of 2021. Looping pedals! Violins! It’s musical catnip! What’s fascinating about that cover is how ultimately a melody can be made, broken and put back together and that while something remains, there’s a considerable amount that’s purged and purified. And that had me looking at old sketchbooks in a different light. Also, that bow technique, yasss….
Sketchbooking
I haven’t done a sketch dump in ages, so here’s bits from my sketchbook. In the interest of full disclosure, I’ve taken things from assorted pages and it looks nowhere this clean and orderly.
It’s funny the things that rise to the surface when you zone out and start drawing, but also what remains unanswered. I have no clue why the young lass is triumphant about chopping off a couple feet of hair. No idea. And for years I’ve gotten those Elvis Perkins lyrics wrong. Yawns are useless, not arms. But for anyone that’s shown up at a social gathering and agonized over what to do with their hands (fold them? put them in your pockets? keep them behind your back?), perhaps the misheard lyrics make sense.
And Happy (almost) Thanksgiving if you’re stateside! I’m wrapping things up here, ready to consume Very Large Quantities of Pie. I’m profoundly grateful for family and friends, work that I love and a roof over my head. I’m also specifically thankful this year for two new nephews, 90’s party playlists, a car muffler that works and Jaffa cakes. And coffee. Always coffee.
November in a Nutshell
Bits and pieces of November. It’s one of my favorite months. I like the slowness of it all. The buzz of summer is over, winter’s lethargy hasn’t yet set in. It’s dark early and dark late, but there’s still bursts of rust and bronze on the trees. And Thanksgiving, which of course means tangentially, pies.
It doesn’t look like Open Studios will be a go this year, having been cancelled again. I spend most of the year prepping work for the weekend event (like the embroidered pin above). I thought about stashing things for next year, but instead will be slowly listing things in my online shop. I’m not doing commissions per se, but am planning to have a custom offering here in the next week or two (more on that later).
Speaking of Open Studios, my studio neighbors are the incomparable Joy Lane Farm. They make some of the most amazing soap and they ship near and far. They’re good people, doing good things, so have a gander.
I love the activity sheets Tundra puts together for its books and there’s a new one out for Anne’s Tragical Tea Party, the next book in the Anne of Green Gables inspired series I’ve been illustrating.
Leaving Exams
Here’s the finished version of the illustration I teased out back in September. As the year winds down, it feels good to slowly be crossing things off my to do list. And bonus points if you can identify the album sitting behind the record player.