Happy, a Medieval Dog Portrait

Here is a portrait of Happy.

Happy was Cathy's dog, he passed on a few years ago.

I'm going to see Cathy today, and her brand new house that has been in the works for YEARS.

This painting is a housewarming gift for her.

9x12 pastel on pastelmat

Lots of Panpastels, Mungyo semi-hards, pastel pencils, and Senneliers.

Inspired by The Hours of Mary of Burgundy, c 1477.

The copper Panpastel and iridescent Sennelier is hard to work over...actually you can't layer over it at all except with Senneliers, which are very soft.

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Here are some progress shots:

Oregon Trail

Daya has been playing the very retro game Oregon Trail in school. (from 1990!)

Last night she was telling me about it, and she showed me the site they were using at school.

So obviously I had to play immediately.

Daya was telling me how hard it is, etc etc etc, then she went off to dance and I went off to Oregon.

AND NOT ONLY DID I NOT DIE, NO ONE IN MY PARTY DIED, AND I MADE TOP TEN on my first try!

Here is the link, if you want to play.

Area of Bruise

Daya has a bad bruise on her forehead due to a series of unfortunate events resulting in hitting the same place three times over a couple of days.

It is a large round bruise and it hurts.

So she did what anyone would do... she calculated its area.

(Which is 2 inches. With a diameter of 1.5 inches...)

Fabulous Pencils

I got a swag bag a while back from Jerry's for their plein air contest.

Since I have been back to figure drawing, my focus on drawing has gotten a nice reboot.

Anyhow, in the swag bag there was a Jerry's Jumbo Jet charcoal pencil, a black one.

I pulled it out the other day and remembered how nice it was.

THEN Jerry's posted a sale on these pencils on Instagram, so I went and got the Sepia, Sanguine, and White.  That's the full range.  They are probably around an HB in hardness, which is good for those of us who go too dark too quickly.

Jerry's is doing another plein air event in July, not a contest this year, but there will be swag bags and I must get one! :)

100

My grandmother was born 100 years ago today!

Figure Drawing

Some figure drawings from today.

I worked 11x14, charcoal, didn't feel like carrying my large papers around.

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Why My Eyes are Stupid

I'm not even sure why or how I got to this article, you know how reading one article on the internet leads to another...but it is a seriously good explanation of why my eyes might be so bad without a genetic history of vision problems.  And why Daya's eyes are fine.

And also why my eyes are much worse than my sister's eyes, which are also not great but not nearly as bad as mine.

I know my mother smoked a lot when I was little, and it wasn't a new habit. It it is also likely she smoked more during her second pregnancy (me) than her first.

*****Looking up the link between smoking during pregnancy and the effects on vision returns a TON of research directly linking my specific eye issues (and others) with cigarettes. Being born cross-eyed (strabismus), high refraction index (bad nearsightedness), abnormal blood vessels (yes) retinal issues (thank goodness not currently but my left one detached when I was a kid), I have ocular hypertension too from all of it because pretty much my eyes didn't develop properly due to the cigarettes and everything is wonky.

I always wondered why, always suspected some factor about my mother's pregnancies, and there it is.

Though I don't come from tall people I am a good 2" shorter than the next shortest person and that's almost certainly from the cigarettes too.

Being short I don't mind..... but my eyes.... it really has been and continues to be a big struggle and has massively affected my life in many ways.

Oh, I know it could be worse... AIDS, crack, heroin, fetal alcohol syndrome..... but it still really stinks.  Especially because it's bad enough that I can't drive.

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I think my mother knew, and maybe the cigarettes were something she hid from everyone. While I was growing up she was constantly bringing up how she did everything right and perfect when she was pregnant. In hindsight, and knowing her inability to accept responsibility for anyhing, of course she would want to constantly proclaim her innocence and make sure someone else got “blamed”. She always tried to say it was my father’s fault because his mother had glaucoma in old age.  He rejected that. 

Maz, a Medieval Cat Portrait

9x12 pastel on pastelmat.

Maz was Ginny's cat, she is another mom at the dance studio.

I got to use my gold Senneliers and my gold panpastels.

Inspired by the Hours of Mary of Burgundy, a book of hours c 1477.

Some progress shots:

Drawing

Pan pastel underpainting

                                              


Background done, pans senns, unisons.
I used a lot of mungyo semi- hards for the cat too.

 

Ballet Cures Intestinal Parasites

Last night I collected Daya from class.  She was in good spirits and told me her legs were much better after ballet. 

Actually, what she said was that ballet is the cure for intestinal parasites.

I understand this needs explanation.

Daya and I have been playing The Long Dark, one of my all-time favorite games- and in her game she contracted intestinal parasites.

So that means that everything wrong with her, every single complaint, is due to intestinal parasites, including the muscle shock she sustained on Monday from parkour.  This will be the case until she fixes it in her game.

This morning her legs still hurt- they are gradually getting better but I guess the intestinal parasites multiplied overnight again.

16 - 8 = 12

Daya says May is a bad month.  She has been saying this since May 2.
In April she was saying how May was going to be a GREAT month.... well, I guess it has time to turn around for her.

Her school is offering parkour after school Mondays from this week to June 11, and of course Daya wanted to sign up.  She went on Monday and had a blast...and by the time she got home she couldn't walk.

Which is kind of a problem.

Something had to be wrong, it isn't like Daya to be out of commission after physical activity.  But apparently she was landing jumps improperly from heights and the shock went all up her legs and she is in significant pain.  She knows what she did wrong and how to avoid it in the future, but in the meantime she has a lot of muscle shock.

This is a problem because she still has to dance and recital is in a few weeks.
I gave her 4 advil before class last night and told her she just has to get through it somehow.

When I picked her up after class she was distraught.  Crying.  Also in a lot of pain. Apparently Ms Shauna reduced a part of the dance- for Daya- from 16 turns to 8.  Daya decided it was a personal failure on her part.

The truth is that her series of 16 turns wasn't quite "there" last week either.  Even though Daya really has been practicing a lot, and she was excited about it.  But it is better to do 8 clean turns than 16 sloppy turns.

Still, Daya was distraught about it. She is taking it hard, but the truth is that she can't be doing that.

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Ms Shauna was nice enough to talk to Daya for a minute after class, and I'm glad I was there too.
This is where I had to remind Daya that she is only 12 years old- and dancing in a class with girls who are 14, 15, 16 years old.  At this age, that's a HUGE difference in development.  She can't really expect to be at the same developmental level as a 15 year old, even if they are in the same class.  So what if she can't pull off 16 clean turns- YET- she still gets to do 8.  This is very difficult stuff!! The fact that she's even IN the class- for the second year, too- is a major accomplishment in itself.

She is judging herself against girls who are older and have been dancing longer. She thinks she should be there too but the fact is that she's simply just too young to be there yet. 

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Just because a child is advanced in some areas doesn't mean they are advanced in all areas.  In general, kids who are advanced are also behind in other areas.  I'm not worried about it because it's just part of growing up, and again, she's only 12 years old-- no 12 year old is emotionally mature- but she'll be fine.  It's just a matter of time and age.

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The truth is that if Daya wants to pursue dance seriously, she has to toughen up emotionally.  So that's how I approach this stuff.  In that world, no one cares how you feel.  Seriously, no one cares.  People get moved all the time.  They get roles, they don't get roles, they get rejected, they have a role then lose it... that's what she is signing up for as a dancer.  You don't get to have an "off" day when performing. You don't get the luxury of emotion affecting performance.  Add a good amount of physical pain into that, and that's what being a dancer is about.

The irony is that if she was in Ms Shauna's place she would be exactly like Ms Shauna.

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There is a lot of cool stuff happening this month, so I hope Daya's legs stop hurting (she has to get through class tonight as well) and her mind flips around to better thoughts.

Number Four

Well, Daya killed another pair of pointe shoes, and she needed a fitting. So we went over to Bloch because she wanted to switch brands.

It's a nice store and they spent a lot of time with her.  Dancers know their shoes and I just stay out of it because it isn't my thing- and I'm clueless about it.  I understand it though, because I'm like that with paint.

Figure Drawing

I went back to figure drawing, finally.

Starting up again has always been a goal of mine through all of Daya's too-young years. And then it has been a matter of money, as it is $20 to go and that can add up fast. But anyhow I'm making it work out and it was good to draw again.

 I love the versatility of simple tools... Charcoal. Graphite. Conte. Getting back to life drawing is something I just really need to do. I wish I hadn't had to take such a long break but there's nothing I can do about it.

I was a little late so missed the warm-up poses, and I am so rusty...really out of practice. But my last 2 drawings are ok enough I guess. I need a lot of practice. Next time I go I'm taking my Derwent XL Charcoal blocks!!