Countdown to Vacation

In 23 minutes, I leave for Arizona and caves and who-knows-what, but I've got both cameras with brand-new batteries, my sketchbooks, and a bunch of fabric to cut out (see white box below, but imagine it full to the brim of 543 various-sized Wonder-Undered pieces of fabric). When I get home, I have 24 hours before I leave again for Anaheim and the National Science Teachers' Convention...WHOOOO. No really. It probably will be cool. I'm hoping to bring back a bunch of photos and new drawings and all the pieces cut out, and ideally a well-rested and much calmer and more-centered me. It is Spring Break, and when you're as old as I am (um, OK, I'm not really THAT old except to my students and my own kids), you don't party like you used to. OK, I never partied like that anyway. Give me a nice glass of wine and some fabric, and I'm perfectly happy. Sad but true.

Duck Update: Mom duck is gone (probably nesting) and now the two boys are sharing the pool with a minimum of pecking. Maybe they like each other.

Bored? Crazy? Both? Must be time for Spring Break

You are Jack the Ripper You are completely insane. You do things spontaneously and always live in the moment. You are unconventional and strange, but you can act otherwise to fool people into believing that you are normal. You also may or may not be angry with prostitutes for giving you Syphilis. Take this quiz at QuizGalaxy.com

The Fat Cat Sat on the Quilt

Look at today's earlier post about the quilt I'm working on. All the ironed-on Wonder Under fabric pieces are in that white plastic box on the ironing board. It looks like this:


This is what it looks like with a fat cat in the box, on the quilt pieces.

Studio Being Used

Something needs to be done about THIS. Those fat quarters must be breeding. I don't even know where to start. And why do I have fabric, not cotton, with Cruella de Ville on it? What the hell was I thinking?

And here is the current quilt in progress. Pretty blah looking, ain't it? Not really...I'm ironing little itty bitty tiny pieces of Wonder Under (540 plus or so of them) to fabric. I'll trim them all down when I'm in Arizona next week.


Linda Schmidt came to my guild last Monday, but most of my pictures of her quilts SUCK and you should go to her website anyway. http://home.comcast.net/~shortattn/Linda_Schmidt_Gallery_Nov_2002.htm This closeup of a quilt is pretty good.

Unfortunately it doesn't have a picture of this quilt with a NAME on it, and I know it had something to do with peace on the planet, but can't remember for sure. If I made a quilt with this many fabrics in it, I might be able to use the Cruella de Ville fabric. Not only that, but the number of quilts she brought made me feel like an incredible underachiever. And when she likes a big quilt, she makes a smaller version of it, and sometimes she makes more than one of the same quilt...maybe when my kids are grown and out of the house I will feel like I am achieving at that rate...but not now.

I need to get to work...more fabric cutting right now (after grocery shopping and getting ready to teach tomorrow). I'm teaching this...

Violent Duck Sex

I'm a science teacher. I should be able to deal with this. The ducks are still here, swimming happily in the pool (the very green pool) in the sun. Then the marauding male interloper (another male) appears and starts violently humping the female duck. He pecks and grabs the female's head while mating, pushing her head repeatedly underwater. The other male, the one I assume is the bonded male, is attacking the male interloper, flapping his wings wildly and pecking the violater's head and neck, pushing him (and his mate) further underwater. I should leave it alone. It's nature on its normal course. But I can't. I go out, and I don't bring a camera, because you know, they're not paying attention to me and I could take closeup pictures of this bizarre dance, BUT NO. I stomp my feet and all three fly off, quacking wildly.

150 pieces of Wonder Under ironed onto fabric last night for the next quilt. Achievement.

Fuzzy Mitten

The view, West Mitten. It's a little fuzzy. I should retake it, but that would mean standing up. Not an option at the moment. Too tired. Block number 8, finished more than 24 hours before the next class...WOOO!

I haven't had much to post, because it's pretty boring to look at 6 boxes of cut-up pieces of Wonder Under. They are sorted, although there's still a few I have to recut or redraw because the dang paper keeps falling off. Frustrating. I need to start picking colors and ironing to fabric, but I have so much work to do for school (and I'm getting sick again), I don't have time to do anything I want to do. What's new? That's why we get Spring Break...otherwise we might commit murder on the sweet young thangs.

This is what my kids have been singing to me all evening: "Extra Extra, Read all about it. I didn't take a bath tonight and my mom allowed it!" Very entertaining.

Gettin' Published (with 300 or so other people)

I love getting published. It's my favorite post-art-making activity. ART-RELATED post-art-making activity. Be specific. This journal quilt was at Houston in October 2005 and has been chosen for the book they are publishing on the project. I would have bought the book anyway because it is such a cool idea to have little pieces of art from so many people, but now I will be in the book, so that rocks.


I ran into one of my old students today...she will actually graduate from high school. I am very happy for her. It gives me hope.

I am still buried in Wonder Under pieces, so I don't have any good new pictures of anything to post. Oh wait, except I "found" these again (or remembered they existed) and thought I should do something with them. I used to take a life drawing class just for fun...I like drawing people (shocking, I know). On these, I ironed a big piece of fabric to freezer paper and then used those Pentel fabric crayons (only 8 or 10 colors, and none of them flesh) to draw these models. I like the green one best (jealousy!). The yellow one, eh. The red one is missing his headdress...or the top of his head...depends on how you look at it.


Thing is, these are totally not like anything else I do. They don't seem to have a real purpose except to see if I could do it.

OK, I just kicked out two rampaging kids who were knocking things over in my studio/office. I'm not in the mood. This room is so small, and with the number of in-process projects I have lying around at the moment, I am barely tolerating the cats in there. Friday-afternoon grumpy flailing kids? GET OUT! I'm such a mean mom. I really need my personal space on Friday afternoons...I wish the rest of the world would realize that.

Duck update. They've been here every day. This afternoon, though, only the male is here. He lands in the pool, quacks a lot, and flies off. Then 10 minutes later, he comes back and quacks some more. Weird, huh? Hope Mrs. Duck is OK.

Things I...Should...Be...Doing (sigh)

Grading student work
Editing a friend's essay
Planning lessons for the next 2 weeks
Cleaning house (yeah right)
Negotiating peace treaty between two children battling over the bathroom
Figuring out how to add 1/2 an ounce of weight to the Pinewood Derby car by Friday (I left a message for my dad that I needed Bigger Nuts...we'll see what he shows up with tomorrow morning)

Here's the car:

There's more.

I've been cutting out Wonder Under pieces for the last two nights. This batch of Wonder Under is better than the last, but still not even and not great. There are some pieces that will have to be retraced.

On the new Southwest block, if I stitch 2 pieces on each night, it'll be done by the time I have my next class. That's a goal I can handle at the moment.

Here's a picture of what happens when a digital camera is handheld for sunset photos.


And here's my wimpy snow that closed my school down...it was more the black ice that kept us away. Lots of accidents. By the time we were allowed back, it looked pretty benign. Yes, I know you people in the Midwest and back East think we are wimps, and we are when it comes to weather. But it bought me art-making time, and for that I cannot complain.

Snow Days Yield Art

Yes, I am in Southern California, but I teach in the mountains, so I was rewarded with a snow day on Friday. I spent the day messing around and tracing the last drawing on Wonder Under...4 whole yards of Wonder Under. There are pieces I traced that are the size of a piece of rice...and I wonder (under) why I am somewhat unstable.

And when I wonder why my house is such a disaster area, I can walk out of my office after the kids and I spent a timed 20 minutes cleaning our respective spaces, and I can see this...

And wonder no more. Their version of snow forts...the kid you see is throwing all manner of plastic food and balls and other projectiles at the other kid, who is behind the baby gate (which happens to currently be blocking the door to my bedroom) and yes, they left all the projectiles and walls set up until I started yelling...gently yelling, of course. Because my room was full of plastic cantaloupes and cucumbers...

A Successful Evening

OK, I feel much better. I added 13" of drawing to one side and 5" of drawing to the bottom of an existing drawing to make it big enough. I numbered the pieces. I had found these retractable Sharpies that I thought would work well for the numbering, but they weren't fine enough. Fine vs. Ultra Fine. I needed ULTRA. Oh well. Maybe next time.

I've got 3 weeks until Spring Break to get this thing traced and ironed on fabric. I have to go to a 4-day science conference (like you do) in April. I want to take the ironed-on-fabric pieces to the conference so I can trim them all. And maybe have another one traced as well. I want to be super-efficient. SLEEP? What the hell is that? I don't need no stinkin' sleep.

One of these is a closeup of the back of the drawing. Why? I thought it looked cool, that's why. The other one is a detail shot of a numbered uterus. Why? Because I needed to post a uterus. It had been too long. I was having withdrawal symptoms. Which reminds me, I need cookies.

Ducks

Two ducks keep hanging out in my pool. Not surprising, since it's so green it looks like a natural habitat for them. They are fussy about having their picture taken. After I took this one, the female quacked boisterously at me for about 30 seconds, at which point they took off, and thanks to the slowness of digital cameras, left me with a blurry photo of tree branches and sky (and not a single duck part). I won't even post that one, because it really and truly sucks.

I'm trying to finish all my work stuff early tonight so I can work on the drawing for the next quilt. I taped three drawings together on Sunday morning, but was too stupid to take a picture of them. Besides, then you'd know what I was working on :-). And we can't have that.

So here's a picture of the ripening tangerines. The tree was an anniversary present (10th?) from my (NOW) ex-husband. In the early stages of the divorce, I almost tossed it off the deck to its death. But then I thought it wasn't really the tree's fault that he was such a lame-ass, so I reprieved the poor tree. Hence it thanks me annually with a multitude of tangerineyness. Bless it.

This is a logo on a sign (photo taken from across a 5-lane street, hence pixilation and teeny-tinyness) that I liked. That logo and the waves Pamdora used in one of her vacation sketches are poking around in my brain right now. Like I need more things poking around in there...

Art tonight! I decree it! But first I need to turn the heat on. It's hard to make art when you can't feel your fingers. Oh yeah, and I need to feed the kids. It's probably illegal not to...

Making Your Own Mugs

My goal is to have a cupboard full of mugs painted by me and my family and friends. Much better than that store-bought crap. I just did a new one to replace one that suicide-bombed into the sink, lost its handle, and cracked irretrievably. I will still try to use it in a mosaic. Here's the old one.


Here's its replacement. While I was painting it, a girl about 10 years old kept coming up and asking me questions. "What are you painting?" "A naked lady." "Oh." Followed by "What's that black thing in the middle?" "Um, when you get older, you get hair down there" (and where the hell is your parental supervision right now!). She then came back and told me I was really talented. Um, thanks. Note to self...paint after kids' bedtime, not on a Saturday afternoon. I did try to keep it somewhat concealed.




Here's one painted by a friend, which produced oohs and aahs from my kids.

And here's one I painted a while ago.

I need 2 more, I think. I have another one in my cupboard, but I forgot to photograph it.

Drawing under the influence

I need to stop drawing during CSI. Eyeballs. Body parts. It's obviously disturbing my little mind.

Song Lyrics

Why? Because it's been bugging me since I last posted. Deal.

Artist: Manfred Mann's Earth Band (1976), actually written by Bruce Springsteen
Song: Blinded By the Light

Blinded by the light,
revved up like a deuce,
another runner in the night...

Madman drummers bummers,
Indians in the summer with a teenage diplomat
In the dumps with the mumps as the adolescent pumps his way into his hat
With a boulder on my shoulder, feelin' kinda older,

And it just continues on in this sorta weirdo vein. Sometimes I hate knowing lyrics because they're so dumb. Of course, about 1/3 of my quilts get NAMED using lyrics, so maybe I'm the dumb one.

I mopped the floor. I picked a night when it was damp and humid and about to rain, so (1) the floor took forever to dry and I couldn't actually trim the quilts that night and (2) despite the fact that it appears to be a drought year in sunny So Cal, it was raining, so mud would be immediately tracked back into the house onto said entryway floor. It all made sense to me at the time. I trimmed the quilts the next day, avoiding the muddy footprints of small children. I am ready to bind! Ha! Except that whole work/exhaustion thing gets in the way of getting anything GOOD done. Wanna make art. Don't wanna work.