Knitting little red sweaters

Part of catching up after being gone for most of the last 3 weeks is listening to the cool knitting podcast that Brenda Dayne does each week (www.cast-on.com).

She mentioned the Red Sweaters art installation that Nina Rosenberg is doing in San Francisco, Red Sweaters, to encourage discussion about war and raise awareness of the Iraq war losses (espousing no particular political view). Read the "about" link.

I've knit 4 of them to send so far--for me, this teeny sweater takes an hour to make. It's fun to make the stitch patterns different for each one. I invite you to see what this is about. I'm sorry I didn't know about this when we were in San Francisco. I'd love to have seen Nina's tree!

Home for awhile

Travel is over for now, I hope, given the huge delays in flights because of storms. All I did on my recent Kansas trip was pack and move boxes for days, helping my stepmother move from her house to an apartment. No time or emotional energy for drawing.

Color and line will return here soon!

Back again

Been traveling, went to San Francisco for a week, drew very little, had a great time. Just got home tonight. Leaving again in 4 days for Wichita.

No (drawn) images, just photographic ones and great memories.

Bluegreen leopard skin

I'm posting mostly so I don't get out of the habit. In my bits of unscheduled time I've been outside working in the yard or walking instead of drawing.

But in the piles of paintings past, I found this. A possible background for an ink drawing, but I haven't gone further yet.

Would make a nice summer skirt fabric, too. W/c on 140# Canson.

Yarn inspired

Rather random, otherwise. Tech pen and w/c on Aquabee Superdeluxe.

Painting suits my spontaneous, extemporaneous needs, compared to the slow pace of knitting construction.

After the circus

I think this is a performer from Cirque de Soleil, exhausted after the second long performance of the day. He showed up to tell me he wants some time off.

W/c on Aquabee Superdeluxe.

Sweeping out five things

The broom on the inside of my front door. Only used for decoration, not sweeping.

Copic marker (a bit too big for this) in a blank paper, not sketchbook, Moleskine.

And Bonny tagged me for this little traveling quiz:

1. Five things in my fridge:
(At least) five kinds of salad dressing
Rosemount Shiraz wine
kefir quietly fermenting in a jar
2% milk (food for the kefir)
a half-full tin of Fancy Feast for the cat's next meal

2. Five things (categories, really) in my (overstuffed) closet:
shoes: boots, sandals, slippers, flats, sneakers
scarves: all kinds--fabric and knit--in bins and on hooks
lots of black tops on hangers
totes and travel bags (not suitcases)
boxes of finished journals

3. Five things in my purse:
3 Pentel waterbrushes
many pens: fountain, gel, tech drawing
gridded small Moleskine
money and a thick batch of cards: ID, discount, credit, debit, too many!
a bottle of water

4. Five things in my car:
a windbreaker jacket that belonged to my mother
box of tissues
umbrella
notepad
garage door opener

5. People I will tag:
Rather than pick, I offer an open invitation to any reader who'd like to do this! Please leave a link in comments if you want to carry this ball on.
--and Crystal takes the ball!

Realistic doodle

Catching the small mundane items while they perch is my drawing balance to doing abstracts. I love watching the gel pen dissolve as I randomly wet it. Had to add a bit of red for no particular reason.

On Aquabee Super Deluxe, which is my favorite w/c sketching paper.

Simple streaks

Playing with Dr. Martins' hydrus on 140# Arches. No interpretation, no symbolism . . . that I know of . . .

My art therapist friend knows differently, of course!

Entering the wormhole (sci fi type)

Or else it's a marble, or an Alice in Wonderland spin.

Playing with w/c on bristol board

Blue Bears

The assignment I gave myself was to paint a blue bear with no pre-drawing. And this idea works for Illustration Friday's theme of "fat."

I experimented with Dr. Martin's liquid w/c on 140# Arches, trying to create the shapes without leaving an obvious contour line, before the first strokes dried too much, yet finishing the image without going back after paint had dried. A super-fast all-in-one creative act (doomed to failure).

Painting eyes in this one-step attempt was a major problem. I had minimal success on some body parts--the righthand bear was second and a bit better--but when I saw their expressions this morning, I laughed out loud.

Don't they look trapped and apprehensive?

Complements

Combining Dr. Martin's hydrus w/c, India ink with a dip pen, and 140# Arches paper. I had a vague initial idea of using only opposites: plaid w/c strokes and curving black ink on top of complementary colors.

That's my story and I"m sticking to it.

Phone doodle

I started making random shapes when the phone rang. As the caller talked on and on, this image emerged. Afterward, I felt the black and white forms represented her intolerance of others, her rigid core beliefs, the many tangled leaves of blame that core feeds.

So I only put color around the forms, the softer abundant world the caller doesn't see.

Tech pen and w/c on Aquabee SuperDeluxe.

Caricature

I watched a fabulous little video on British caricaturists and political cartoonists. One artist said that you know you've captured the person when you see him looking back at you (from the drawing).

This drawing is of one of the cartoonists. Soluble (Pilot) pen with water on Aquabee Super Deluxe.