It's kind of amazing how trying something new can take you in a direction you never anticipated going. It has been true with singing, as I've written about before here, and now I'm finding it true about sketching too.
See this sketch? I did it last October, and I did it because I was sitting at a place where this was the view. But I became instantly absorbed with painting the details on the buildings ... it made me look closely and I really enjoyed trying to draw all of that detail.
Here's
another sketch I did a while back, just because it was what was in front
of me. Who knew that doing that plain old bank building would be so
fun to draw?
To to my surprise, I have discovered that I really like drawing buildings. They give me the chance to figure out perspective and usually mess about with foliage shapes and colors. I like adding the trim and the texture or decorative bits. In fact, I am loving it. The other day I sat in my driveway and painted the house across the street.
Yesterday I
was out and about running errands and I drew a bit of the town center in
the next town over. So far I'd avoided drawing cars (those pesky cars so often parked in front of charming buildings, annoyingly
getting in the way) but when a big white limo pulled in in front of the
gelato shop, I had to include it. And I kind of like how they add to the scene.
Now, as I'm
out and about doing things, I find myself looking at the shops and
houses I drive past all of the time, thinking "Hmm, that'd be fun to
sketch!" Here's a house in my sister's neighborhood that looked so cozy and tucked away behind a lush garden. In fact, my sister and I were together and both of us sketched it -- it was really fun to see how differently we did the same thing.
This afternoon I have to take the dog to the vet's, and it has
already occurred to me that that might be a fun spot to draw, too. Oh
dear. I will have to add 45 minutes to every errand for drawing time.
Maybe one day I'll work my way up to adding people. Who knows where this adventure with pen and paint will take me next...
This past weekend, Miss C participated in a vaulting demonstration at the barn where she rides. I'm amazed at what she can do on a walking, trotting, or cantering horse -- some of these things I can't even do on the ground!
(By the way, if you get a sound error message box before the video comes up, just click the X in the upper right hand corner and you can see the slideshow without sound.)
I haven't been spending that much time in the sewing room since I finished "Serenity," but I did make another quilt recently, about two weeks ago. I wrote last time about the community chorus I'm in and our party to celebrate the chorus's 25th anniversary and the director's retirement. As a thank you from the chorus, I made this quilt for her. The green fabric in the border and the block backgrounds has pale music staffs and notes -- very soft and pretty. On the back are a photo of the full chorus and everyone's signatures. Making this was truly a labor of love. I was happy to see her delight at receiving it, too.
Meanwhile, though, I've been spending more time drawing and painting. It is remarkably reassuring to me to know that this is all learnable, and to be seeing progress. At my April ranch retreat recently, I too time to do a bit of outdoor sketching, which was very enjoyable.
I even attended an urban sketcher's "sketch crawl, hosted by local artist Richard Sheppard, right here in my own town. I had such a good time meeting fellow sketchers, getting tips and new ideas, and being out and about sketching with others. I sat myself on a benchand did a page spread featuring our local corner candy store.
And just to keep myself going, I've been participating in a challenge called "Every Day in May" where the task is to draw or paint something (duh) every day in May to a daily topic. It's been very fun and I've surprised myself a few times.
I was pretty happy with both of these. But mainly I'm just having fun doing them. Tomorrow's theme is "Something Creepy" which had me stumped for a bit as all I could think of was spiders and I didn't want to paint one of those. Here's what I'll post in the group tomorrow:
Yeah, I hate clowns.
Now I'm torn... when I have time, do I sew? Do I sketch with pen and ink? Do I paint? Such problems.
I've always loved musicals. I know some people are put off by the idea of people suddenly (and seemingly randomly) bursting into song, but that's one of the things I love about them. It's the sudden bursting into song that seems like how life should be, you know?
Back when I was in high school, I had a friend, Paula, whose family had an annual Christmas party that would culminate with everyone standing around a piano singing holiday songs. I'd never seen anything like that outside of the movies, and I thought it was wonderful fun. It wasn't that the group sounded particularly great, but what struck me was the pure joy of singing with friends. It felt fun and uplifting and festive. I remember thinking that some day, when I had my own home, I'd have parties where we'd sing Christmas songs, too.
Some years later, when I was a just-out-of-law-school lawyer and brand new in my New England community, I was invited to a Christmas caroling party. There was snow on the ground, a crisp chill in the air, and hot cider and cookies before and after singing. It was my idea of holiday bliss.
Flash forward some years to when Miss C was little and we'd moved into our own home. I persuaded my husband to host a Christmas caroling-and-cookie party. I got song lyrics printed up, and I strung clusters of jingle bells on pipe cleaners for the little kids to jingle along, and I invited a bunch of families. We had a good old time, and I will never forget the parents of my friend Jenny, visiting from England, who seemed sort of dazed by the whole experience ("Is this a common American holiday event?" they asked) but were good sports about coming along and singing right out.
I stopped trying to do a caroling party after a few years. Looking back, I can see that my husband and I had different goals around those sorts of things, and what felt fun and spontaneous and relaxed to me felt disorganized and unpolished and uncomfortable for him. It just felt less and less fun, and not worth the frustration.
Flash forward some more, and I found myself singing with the Healsburg Chorus, a community chorus in my area. (I've written about it here and here.) It's been wonderrful fun, and I've learned a lot, and I've made some delightful new friends.
This past Sunday, I hosted a pot-luck dinner to celebrate the end of our spring season and, more momentously, to mark the 25th anniversary of the chorus. We'd just learned that our director Betty, who has led the chorus since its inception, had decided to retire. So we gathered to enjoy each other and celebrate the chorus's long life and to honor Betty and the others who've been along for the whole 25 years. The weather was gorgeous, so a lot of people spilled out into the backyard and there was much chatter and laughter.
At one point, we presented gifts to Betty, the 4 25-year members, and Susan, the amazing pianist who as accompanied the chorus for all of that time (and, thank god, will continue.) Our gift to Susan was a music box shaped like a grand piano that played "I Will Always Love You," which was one of the songs in our spring repertoire this year. (You know the one ... Whitney Houston? Dolly Parton? That one.) Susan, and others, got teary eyed.
And all of a sudden, someone spontaneously started singing "I Will Always Love You" to Betty. And the whole chorus joined in, singing along, a bit raggedly perhaps without accompaniment to follow or keep us on tune, but with such love and joy and four layers of harmoney, eyen. It was, I tell you, just like in the movies. There were big smiles, and some tears, but it was lovely. And me, I was feeling an extra delight at seeing 50+ people crammed into my family room and kitchen, singing away for the joy of it. Just like life should be.
The arrangement we were singing was the one that the Denver Gay Men's Chorus is singing above. We sounded sorta like that, only, well, we're not gay, or all men, and we were standing around a kitchen table. But still. It was PERFECT.
I am delighted to report that my newest art quilt, "Serenity," was accepted into the exhibition "An Exquisite Moment" by the Dinner at Eight Artists. Here is how they described the exhibit theme:
"Consider
the following: The unfurling of a flower. A hummingbird in flight. A
magical moment shared with a lover or friend. The birth of a child. A
personal milestone. The realization of a dream. A treasured memory.
The sacred moments of the ordinary. These are the Exquisite Moments
that make us who we are."
I seem to have lost my blogging rhythm. Where did it go? Well, I will settle back in at some point. Perhaps I need to set myself a schedule. Or not. See? I can't even commit to the idea of a schedule. I figure that this period of my life is about finding New Normal, so you'll just have to bear with me.
So far, New Normal has involved reconnecting with some friends, which has been lovely. I've picked up my ink pen and paintbrush and I'm getting reacquainted with how it feels to look and see and draw and paint. Online classes with Jane LaFazio and Val Webb have provided great inspiration and instruction -- not to mention some deadlines to push me forward.
New Normal meant getting back into my sewing room to make a new art quilt too. Yee haw! That felt good! I'm afraid I can't show it to you, as it is for an exhibit which prevents publication before a certain point, but here's one of the several inspiration photos that led to the piece I made.
I've been reading a lot, too -- we've had some gray rainy days that required just curling up on the couch with the novel du jour. Some of the better books I've read are:
If the Magic Easter Tree is blooming, it must be Easter! This is a dogwood tree in my friend Beth's backyard (in Sacramento, California -- sorry to all of you who are still walking on frozen ground!), and it somehow manages to bloom just in time for Easter every year, no matter whether Easter is in March or April. It's magic, clearly, hence our name for it.
The little baby blossoms are exquisite, dainty little cups that seem to open a bit more every minute. I can't seem to stop taking pictures of them.
There are other flowers blooming the yard too -- here's a gorgeous camellia that makes me think of strawberry swirl ice cream.
I'm here to help Beth for a few days as she recovers from foot surgery. So she is sitting with her foot propped up high, and I'm fetching things and plumping pillows and bringing medications on schedule. Today we got her set up on the back porch so we could enjoy the lovely day while we chatted and poked around on our screened devices. This is the sort of nursing I like.
How lovely to be able to just sit and soak up Spring!
Do you ever have times where you just feel droopy all day? I've been in one of those phases. And I've tried chalking it up to a bunch of different things: the aftermath of the burst of painting and decorating energy I've had, that Daylight Savings' lost hour, the emotional fallout from doing some heavy emotional work via Al-anon ... Or maybe it's just that, since the whole downstairs was in disarray for 10 days, Gemma has come to sleep in my bedroom, and every time I turn over during the night she considers it appropriate to come over to the bed and poke her face at me in delight that I'm there.
When I come downstairs in the morning, I make my mug of coffee and go sit in the living room to enjoy the morning sunshine and the new rug and read email, and I've had a few days where I could have just sat there all day reading and napping and waiting for my mom and dad to take their turns in Words with Friends. Computer games are perfect for moods like that.
But then things need to be done, and I get moving, and I'm happily immersed in planning ahead in the school curriculum and painting the dining room hutch (yes, STILL. But I'm on the doors which is the last part) and making progress on a new art quilt, and folding laundry. Well, except for the folding laundry -- that's not something that thrills me but heck, it gets done.
And by late afternoon, there is time to sit outside in the sunshine while Gemma roams on the lawn. Those primroses I bought two weeks ago still haven't gotten themselves planted, but heck, I"m enjoying them in their little cartons anyway.
There's always tomorrow.
Do you have moods like this? And how do you jostle yourself out of them?
So, the new floors are in and a (relative) peace has settled in the house. No more workers and saws and buzzing noises and dust! Well, I should qualify... there is lots of dust around here! But at least the creation of daily sawdust has ceased. Phew. You can see that Gemma is inspecting the floor carefully.
I shopped forEVER for an area rug to lighten up the (now) dark floor and brown couches and brown furniture ... and I finally found one, which arrived last weekend. And I love it. (It's from Garnet Hill, btw. This is my second rug from them and I have been delighted with the look and quality of both of them.)
I'm not liking the yellow sofa pillows much but this was the first look with the rug down. I now need to reaccessorize and haul the stuff that I stored upstairs during the floor work BACK downstairs, and get things moved back in. I also found the perfect fabric to make curtains and soften up the room some. So it was a good news/bad news thing. Yay! I found the right fabric! Oh no, now I have to make them! Eventually. But that rug makes me very happy.
And, as long as the floor guys had moved the dining room furniture out to the garage during the work, I decided to take the opportunity to paint a piece of furniture that has been bugging me since we got it. The dining room is relatively small, with a wall that has two windows and a narrow space between them. When we found a china cabinet that would fit in that space (at a consignment store for a great price) we grabbed it. It fits well and it functions beautifully -- but it was very dark, stained wood and I ended up feeling that it loomed over the room in an unpleasant way. When the floor guys took it out of the room, I felt instantly relieved.
So, inspired by the furniture painting lessons and encouragement on Pinterest and DIY blogs, I decided to paint the thing.
One of my favorite home improvement/decorating bloggers, Kate at Centsational Girl, provided great detailed instructions for painting furniture which gave me just what I needed to know.
So I've been spending time sanding, filling, priming and as of
yesterday, painting. Here it is with the first primer coat. (That front piece, which has glass-fronted doors, stacks on the rear piece.)
Upon reflection, it probably wasn't the smartest
idea to start with a huge piece with drawers and doors and two big
sections ... This is clearly going to take some time. But heck... I figure that once I do this, any project after
will seem easier. I should add that on this piece, the shelves are nailed in place so painting those bottom shelves equired lying on my back and painting to get the undersides, which are visible when the piece is assembled and glass doors are on (While swiping away from that not very comfortable position, I pondered Michelangelo. There is not a Sistine Chapel in my future.)
See that round table up there in the living room picture? I plan to paint that a creamy white. I should have started with that, I'm thinking now. Oh well. Live and learn. And paint.
The mustard is in full bloom around here, so I am feeling very springy. Isn't that gorgeous? When I took Miss C to her horseback riding lesson last week, I couldn't help wandering off to take some pictures of the field next to the ring.
I've got various projects going, not the least of which is heavy cleaning after installing new floors throughout the downstairs in the house kicked up a TON of dust. But the result is wonderful and I'm delighted it's in and finished.
I've taken a break from cleaning to finish a project (yahoo!) and start some new things. First, I finally put the binding on the red flying geese quilt I started some months ago, which I call "Every Which Way." I also realized that I have a bunch of big quilts I've never photographed in full because I don't have a big wall on which to hang them for that purpose. But I rearranged the bedroom recently and that freed up a wall which will work for that purpose. So there's a quilt photo-shoot day in my future and I'll be able to show a full picture of this and some other quilts.)
I was so charmed by seeing a lovely scrappy Trip Around the World quilt that I couldn't resist cutting up a bunch of scraps to make one for myself. All you need is a whole bunch of 2 1/2 inch strips at 16 inches long. The easy method for making these blocks is here
and yes, it really IS easy and yes, it is rather addictive, seeing how every block comes out differently. I've got a stack made, because you know -- when things are busy and you have a ton of things to do, that's always a good time to start a new quilt! I am looking forward to finding time to sew them together.
