Rapidograph Rant.

So, being the child, step-child and grandchild of professional writer stock, I'll call that my excuse to love pens. I do, I love pens. One of my earliest memories of drawing anything involves these cheap, black metal ballpoint pens with some sort of government inscription on the side that my Dad always seemed to have laying around the house (in my vague, couldn't-read-yet, three-year-old's perspective, I want to say they just said "U.S. Government" on the side, but since I couldn't actually read yet, they could have said "Uncle Barney's Government Surplus and Podiatric Supplies," yet, I can hardly see how that would have fit on the side of the pen). Those black ballpoint pens were so sleak, simple, fun to chew on and made a nice, even, smooth line on whatever paper I could find (or the radiator in the dining room). Since that time, I've gone through many different styles of pens: Ballpoints, which eventually grew thin on my patience with their inconsistent skipping and oily, uneven marks, erasable pens, which, until I learned to write sideways, simply amplified the left-handed curse of "black pinkie knuckle," rollerballs, which, though beautiful, smeared way too easily, no matter how long I left myself in suspended animation with my hand poised above the page, thinking, certainly, it was dry by now.

With this love of permanent writing impliments, coupled with my artistic inclination, it was only a matter of time before I went down that slippery slope to my affection for drafting pens. For whatever reason, my fascination with their permanent, archival nature was only peaked when I found out that you could buy them with tips so fine you could perform a trachiotomy on a housefly with one. Not cheap these little buggers were, either. And it seemed, the finer the point, the more expensive they were, and the more difficult to care for. It seemed also that the tiniest of points on these pens were also insanely fragile. Couple that with the fact that the diameter of the tip now approached the molecular diameter of the ink particles, and you've got a rather expensive, no-one-told-me-this-was-a-one-use-only pen. As a teen, I managed to save up my nickels until I could afford to buy one of my own, only to get completely burned by my own lack of experience and care, getting the thing utterly clogged with ink and the tip bent irreparably at the same time. I have no idea what happened to that pen. I hope it is burning in pen hell.

That being said, I completely forgot this lesson a couple years ago (or perhaps I thought I was mature enough, as those of us over forty sometimes think, to own something complicated and expensive without effing it up) and bought myself a set of four Rapidograph pens from Koh-i-noor. Old school, just like the one I toasted in high school, only now there's four of them. I had completely forgotten the labor involved in keeping them functional, and today is a lesson in patience, wherein I am presently waiting for the nib of one of them (pictured above) to dry after cleaning the clots of old India ink out of them. I really just wanted to draw something real quick and be done with it.

But hey, my loss is your, well, also loss, since this is probably the most rambling-on-about-nothing blog posting I've ever written. I think the nib is dry now, but now someone needs to be driven somewhere, so I guess it'll be especially dry by the time I get back.

New Year, Resolutions, and a New Project!

In honor of the New Year, I decided to create a new project for myself to keep me productive throughout the year. I had considered joining one of the groups on Flickr or Facebook along the lines of "52 Weeks of ..." but I couldn't find a project that I really wanted to do. So I started my own group! I sent out invitations to all of the artist friends I have, and now there's a group of about 45 of us. The idea is that each of us commits to ourselves to start and finish one piece along our chosen theme each week. The theme and medium is up to each participant, as we have photographers, painters, jewelers, a bit of everything, and we all seem to be inspired by different ideas. I couldn't decide, so I chose two, 52 Weeks of Creatures and 52 Weeks of Vocabulary Words. We also have 52 Weeks of: Squares, insects, monsters, journaling, spirituality and "undeclared" (I think there's a bunch of those--don't judge! It's enough for most artists just to commit to this kind of schedule in the first place!).

You can find the group here: 52 Weeks of Creations!

Here are my entries for this week. The first one is for 52 Weeks of Vocabulary Words, and this week's word is "Miasmata":

miasmata. n. plural of miasma.

1. noxious exhalations from putrescent organic matter; poisonous effluvia or germs polluting the atmosphere.

2. a dangerous, foreboding, or deathlike influence or atmosphere.

While the singular, "miasma", is pretty cool, I thought the plural of this word was even better. In the olden days (before the germ theory of disease transmission) it was thought that illness and disease were emitted from dead and decaying materials and that they carried through the air like a spirit.

Entry #1 for the 52 Weeks of Creatures is my "Devil Child Waiting for the Bus":

She requires far less explanation. She is simply a little girl waiting for her bus. She just happens to have horns and a tail, for which her Mommy has lovingly crafted her a matching set of hat and, umm, tail-mitten?

She reminds me of the two adorable girls (twins) who lived behind us. They were the cutest little blue-eyed blonde girls, who would spend their spare time verbally torturing our dogs over the wall and trying to knock birds' nests out of trees with sticks. I used to call them the Evil Twins.

Just because something's cute doesn't mean it won't try to eat your face off.

Neither piece is listed for sale in my shop just yet, still trying to decide if I should do so. Stay tuned.

A Two-Day Trip to the Attic

So, apparently, this story started last Christmas, when our artificial Christmas tree broke. We have always had an artificial tree, because we do not believe in chopping down a beautiful piece of nature just to display it in our house for a couple of weeks, slathered in unnatural stuff, while it dies. We also do not have enough yard to plant an entact tree each year. Plus, our artificial one already has the lights attached. Sweet.

So last year, at some point in the Christmas season, our original little 5' tree went astray (or asunder, or a-something). One of the strings of lights refused to light and several of the supports for the branches broke, leaving it with a handful of floppy, unlit branches. After the season was over, I, at some point, decided that this tree was to hit the curb and we would buy a new one next year. This story is all based on a vague recollection and numerous assumptions because, well, I don't remember doing any of it.

That is probably why this year, when I ventured up into the attic of doom (don't ask, but suffice to say, the attic hates me) I took most of the boxes down, crawled around on my knees, hit my head, my knees, and my funnybone at least one time apiece, and found no Christmas tree where, to the best of my pathetic ability to remember, it should reasonably be. After the first day's searching was unsuccessful in producing a tree (but did elucidate an entact coffee maker, two steam irons, and a bunch of clothes that no one in this family has fit into in at least 7 years) I started to piece together what must have been my reasoning from last year. I did manage to find this tiny, 3-foot tree that I had used back when I was a single gal with an apartment, so, for the day, we decorated it with a few ornaments and garlands and sat it on the fireplace stoop. Plus, I found the magic Christmas shoe.

(Okay, the magic Christmas shoe is this spectacularly tacky ladies shoe I found on the side of the road in Winston-Salem, NC, and thought that, truly, the degree of tackiness deserved better than to be hauled around in a shopping cart by the homeless lady who collects the doll heads. It has wandered from home to home with me in storage boxes ever since.)

As proud as I was of having found all of this stuff to give to Goodwill, I realized that I had not found all of the Christmas ornaments. So, with considerably less enthusiasm than the first day, but with more resolve, I ventured up there again to head off into whatever corners I had not yet conquered. I should have brought the camera. I found all sorts of stuff that I had forgotten I owned, and some that I never knew anyone in the family had ever owned.

Amongst the boxes of stuff tat was clearly mine, I found a sheet of drawing paper that had been measured out and divided, in pencil, into 4" squares. Two of the squares had drawings on them! Here's one, completed, done in ink:

The other one was about 99% done, in colored pencil. I managed to discern what color was layered on top of what, and finished it. As such, I messily signed it '2009'.

Clicking on either picture will take you to their listing in my Etsy shop.

So those mysteries being resolved, I found the remainder of the Christmas ornaments, took a shower, and headed out to find us a new Christmas tree. After marveling at the $100-$200 trees in several stores, I went to Walmart (God bless 'em) and found a 6.5' pre-lit tree for $35. A few hours of decorating and shoving a bunch more boxes back up into the attic later, and we have a Christmas tree! Merry Christmas everyone!

Follow up on Streetnoodle's Blog Contest!

Okay, so I didn't win the Grand Prize, but she did send each of us (who made at least five qualifying entries) a free gift! I received mine today! It is her pretty, silky, beaded scarf!

This long, skinny scarf is made of a super soft, silky-looking yarn and has pretty little stone beads sewn onto each end. I had my husband take some pictures of the scarf on me, but it really isn't my color, so I gave up on that. It is, however, one of my stepdaughter's favorite colors, so I'm thinking I've got one more gift for her!

If you would like to check out any of her remaining crochet work, or some of her lovely jewelry, go check out her shop!

Check Out This Cool Giveaway Just in Time For Christmas!

I just discovered a fabulous giveaway on streetnoodle's blog, where she is giving away some beautiful jewelry, and perhaps some other items from her shop. Her jewelry has a bit of Japanese inspiration, a bit of Victorian influence, and overall is very creative and beautiful!

Here's her Grand Prize:

And, according to her blog announcement, if you make multiple entries, you can win even more cool things from her shop! Here's the link: Streetnoodle's Blog!

New Print -- Corset of Arms

A few months ago, I wrote about a drawing called Corset of Arms. The original pencil drawing took a lot of time and I didn't feel like I was ready to put it up for sale yet, so today I decided to create a digital print of it. I took the original and gave it a touch of a sepia tint, in order to make it look old, and I think it came out pretty well!

So if you are looking for some fine art for gift giving this holiday, here's another print of my original artwork that you can get for under $20 with shipping! These prints are sold unframed, but I have tried to make them in common sizes so that they will be easy to frame. This one measures 3" x 5" with a small border around it for framing.

New Christmas Card and Cleaning My Desk...

Not sure what the one thing has to do with the other, but they were the two subjects I took pictures of today. For years now I've thought that my electron micrograph (that's a photograph of something taken under an electron microscope) of crystallized stain reminds me of branches and the little globs in some places looked like berries, so I finally turned it into a Christmas card! Here's the original image: The original photograph was created on real film, creating this odd sized negative (something like 4" x 5") which wandered around the country with me for years and years before I finally got around to and found a place that could scan it and produce it in digital form. From the digital image, I was able to use The Gimp to colorize it a nice Christmas-y green, then I picked out some of the little clumps of dark areas and turned them into red berries. After printing it onto high quality photo paper, I mounted the photo onto a 5" x 7" card:

I have listed this item for sale in my Etsy Shop.

I have also been working on several other things today, even though it has been a relatively quiet day. I took a snapshot of my desk, because it was looking decidedly picturesque:

The picture shows the bunch of fall leaves that my friend sent me from Ohio, my Day Planner from an Artful Agenda, my buttercream scented, handmade soy candle in a hand-thrown pot from Mad Hatter Pottery, the return address labels I just got from Animal Humane of New Mexico (They spelled my last name right! I think I'll send them money!), my yummy, warm cup of coffee with sugar-free hazelnut creamer in it, and the drawing I've been working on, entitled "Miasmata." (For anyone too lazy to go to dictionary.com to look it up, miasmata is the plural of miasma, meaning the noxious exhalations from putrescent organic material, or a dangerous, foreboding or deathlike atmosphere.) I thought this photo made a nice little snapshot of my day, plus, I cleaned my studio the other day, so you can actually see the surface of my desk in places, which impressed the hell out of me, if no one else.

Oh yes, I took pictures of one more thing today, the adorable pile of mammals on the bed this morning--Mimi, Cassie and Sean: