Illustration Friday: Alphabets

I was excited to see today's word, because I was thinking of doing some elaborate initials for my Cafepress shop. It is all more easily said than done.

I used to have really beautiful handwriting when I was in elementary school. When I reached junior high, however, there were kids who would threaten to beat me up if I didn't let them copy my homework. It didn't take long for me to figure out the meaning of the word "intimidation." So I began to develop really poor handwriting, so poor in fact that the thugs couldn't read it to copy it, and eventually they left me alone.

I hated school.

All this left me with a less than perfect relationship with letters. Doing a really fancy letter is a challenge. Keeping up a style for an entire alphabet is an art form unto itself, and I am not likely to go there. But I hope you enjoy a couple of this morning's adaptations of letters I had hanging around the house. I think I'll do some more...

Peas and Carrots

Today is my daughter's 12th birthday, and although it is not yet 8 in the morning, we have already opened presents and had birthday cake for breakfast. What would Jenny Craig say? My daughter wanted a carrot cake for her birthday, so yesterday was devoted to that. We downloaded a recipe from foodtv.com, one that was marked "easy." I imagine it is easy if you have the right tools. We did not. But we persevered through the hand grating of carrots, lack of allspice, and broken hand mixer to make a cake so heavy it would take a forklift to pick it up. * In reality, the cake was not all that heavy, there was just a whole lot of it. Add to that a heap of homemade cream cheese icing, and two large cans of decorative icing in orange and green in the hands of an almost 12 year old, and it was quite a piece of work. She has planned a day of shopping, knitting, and bookstores, not to mention more eating. I think we'd all better stay out of the pool for awhile. We're likely to sink. *

Illustration Friday: Visitors

I pretty much hate visitors. Not ones I know are coming and plan for, but the drop-in-anytime kind. I don't drop in on others without asking. I wish the Jehovah's Witnesses could take the hint. Not that I mind them coming by, only that I wish they's make an appointment.

Years and years ago, I moved to the beach in NC. a lovely place to visit. I had lived far away for a long time, so I just knew all my family and siblings would just love to come and visit.

Or not.

Now I live in the Arizona desert where it is 115 F every day, and no one visits me. And, at this point in my life, I guess that's good. The drawing is of my longsuffering husband, with a visitor of sorts. He didn't like this drawing very much. It's available on eBay right now. You can also read about how I did it on ottosartsupplyreview.blogspot.com.

PS to my siblings who read regularly and never comment, I know you're there. *

Telephone Time

Remember when telephones had cords, and you were always stretching them to the limit so you could talk on the phone while cooking dinner? That was convenience. Who knew? *

I wonder whose idea it was to name a phone a bluetooth? I marvel at the mind that thinks something like that up. I wonder what caused them to put "blue" and "tooth" together, and what might they have tried before settling on bluetooth? And why tooth, if you are going to clip the thing to your ear? Shouldn't it be blueear? Maybe that doesn't work as well because of the double "e's." Or could it be that we're just wearing them wrong? I'll have to think on that a bit.

I did this little piece today in ink, with a little watercolor. You can read more about the how on otto's art supply review blog. *

Illustration Friday: Captain

O CAPTAIN! my Captain! our fearful trip is done; The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won... W. Whitman

Poetry is a hard thing to teach. See, I homeschool my children, and sometimes they view my interests with more than a little suspicion. Suspicion is good, especially when it comes to politics, but a little more trying when it comes to poetry. Whitman's poem immediately came to mind when I saw today's word, so I set about constructing a thinking cap for the occasion.

"What's that supposed to be?" my son asked warily.

"A thinking cap. It makes you love things I love... like poetry and lima beans."

"But Mom, you hate poetry and lima beans." He was now backing out of the room. No matter. Before the morning was up, everyone in the family had been pressed into a pose in the aforementioned cap. This one happens to be my daughter. You can see how happy she was to comply. *

You can purchase this piece by following the eBay link, where it is on auction. [Already? it's barely dry!] You can also read about how it was done in my new blog, ottoblotto's art supply review.

Stuff dries really quickly here in the desert. Even watching paint dry is no fun. *

Illustration Friday: Emergency

I had all sorts of thoughts about exploiting my family members for this week's Illustration Friday, but I didn't. I decided to draw a recently smashed up guy from one of my picture files. I found this old book on drinking and alcoholism, and the two just went together like a peanut butter and mayonnaise sandwich.

Personally, I've never had a peanut butter and mayonnaise sandwich, but a dear friend used to swear by them. Odd. Anyway, this piece will go on auction on eBay starting at 5:15 Arizona time today, which is the same as Pacific time until such time as the rest of the nation falls back, which is in October, I think. Then, we will be on Mountain time again until everyone springs forward once more, which perhaps accounts for the fact that everyone here is late for everything. Go figure. *

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=270155703337

Illustration Friday: Missing

There are many things missing from my life right now, not the least of which is, perhaps, a life. I wrote "GET A LIFE" on the top of my to do list a few months ago. I am still working on it.

I do not seem to be able to assimilate well here in the desert otherwise known as Phoenix. Apparently everyone who possibly can flees for higher ground once the heat settles in. I think I will be glad to see the snowbirds return in their Bermuda shorts and dark socks, peering warily over their steering wheels. Right now, no one goes out, and I am curious as to what they do indoors all day.

To help with the loneliness, I acquired a good second hand cockatiel. His name is Tweety, which kind of messes everything up because all my other pets have names that are palindromes. He can say "Pretty Boy Tweety," over and over and over. The vet warned me not to play silly music for him when I'm gone because he might learn some tune that I won't love, like the theme to Barney or the opening to the Andy Griffith show. It had never occurred to me that he'd want to hear music in the first place, so I thought carefully before inserting a CD on my way to the grocery store. I chose Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young. Now when I walk into the room, all he says is "Four dead in Ohio, four dead in Ohio, four dead in Ohio..."

Where is Barney when you need him? *