Carousel Horses Arrived!


I sketched these in October and kept thinking I would use watercolor
on the first images of the carousel horses.
Now I am letting them be what they are, the beginning of the coloring book.

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Mom’s Vase

Ink painting.
Robert Oster’s beautiful blue-grey ink!

Pretty cool pen, the Jinhao Dragon, fitted with a Goulet 1.1 stub nib.

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Mount Kailash


Mount Kailash.
That lone figure is a spiritual friend of mine… same teachers.
She did what I will never do (broken body here) which is to trek to this amazing space.
I’ve had this image on my wall for many years; something just moved me when I saw it.

Still dealing with depression.
Glad I’ve been down this road before and know what to do…
and because I am open about it I also know how many people suffer from it,
all the time, or from time to time.
I share it because I KNOW there are so many of you dealing with this —
It is a depressing time for anyone in our  country who has a conscience.

You are not alone.  I am not alone.


Inspiration is a photo by Donna Ferris.
Now if my dyslexic mind can manage to spell Kailash!

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Cat Squares, 5

Mousies are one of their three favorite toys.
It is the tail.

7. LEOPARD MOUSE

Leopard is silent.  Leopard is stealthy.
Leopard can be flipped in the air by his tail.
HE FLIES!
When Leopard flies he does somersaults.
This is his one great attribute.  Circus mouse. 
Yaman carries him around by his tail.  Meorw.

Leopard is losing his tail.

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Nostalige Journal 11-2018

I forgot to publish my entire journal from the end of last year…
What a period!  Lotta writing…
Less watercolor (no time) but more ink painting.

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SoCS: Critical

I  journal and do morning stream of consciousness exercises, and
I’m again participating in Linda Hill’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday. 
I write to a timer, 15-20 minutes, no editing except spelling, and of course I add my art!
You can do it too!
Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “critic(al).” Write about the first thing that comes to mind when you think of the word “critic(al).”


When I first saw the word I thought maybe Linda had been looking over
my shoulder for the last six weeks as we wrote the various types of damages on
the Jantzen Beach Horses.  The Critical and Catastrophic
what is the word I am looking for the word that describes what these are?
Crap… levels of damages.
It  is important to describe them for people especially funding types
who know little about woodworking and paint and
epoxy (I spit here) and Gorilla Glue (spitting again)
because they are going to faint when they see a $$$ number
if they don’t understand the nature of the damages.
Chemical stripping (spitting again) does as much damage as that
plastic wrap that moving stores sell (spitting again because that stupid stuff damages traditional finishes) or bad moving companies (damn you all).
It opens grains and drops glues from joins and veneers
and seeps into older solid wood and destroys it.
There are other ways, and they take a bit longer, yes,
but in the end they do not make objects rickety
or cause more repair work down the road.
Chemical strips, even if not dipped (oh holy hell the person who thought of that one)
have caused much damage to these horses which have survived kids who pile on,
grab tails and manes, run at them to jump them, and all other kinds of kid stuff.
The horses could take that.  They could not take the chemical strip done to them
that caused checking all the way down join lines and made
knees and shoulders and thighs and jaws loose and rickety.
Kinda like me, but I haven’t had a chemical strip.
Critical failures are one category, but they can still be be treated
with dovetail locks and splines and so forth.
Catastrophic failures are breaks that are imminent,
and often involve prior repairs  of epoxy squitted in place
of even a novice woodworking repair — as long as no Gorilla glue.
Don’t get me wrong, I am sure there is a place in this world for these types of glues,
but let them stay the hell away from antiques.  Period.

Celebrating finishing the first drafts of all the horse reports today.
lots more to do and a bit of polishing but the Critical and Catastrophic issues
have been hammered out for the public to understand.

Here are the rules, as posted on Linda’s blog;  feel free to join the fun!

1. Your post must be stream of consciousness writing, meaning no editing (typos can be fixed), and minimal planning on what you’re going to write.

2. Your post can be as long or as short as you want it to be. One sentence – one thousand words. Fact, fiction, poetry – it doesn’t matter. Just let the words carry you along until you’re ready to stop.

3. I will post the prompt here on my blog every Friday, along with a reminder for you to join in. The prompt will be one random thing, but it will not be a subject. For instance, I will not say “Write about dogs”; the prompt will be more like, “Make your first sentence a question,” “Begin with the word ‘The,’” or will simply be a single word to get you started.

4. Ping back! It’s important, so that I and other people can come and read your post! For example, in your post you can write “This post is part of SoCS:” and then copy and paste the URL found in your address bar at the top of this post into yours. Your link will show up in my comments for everyone to see. The most recent pingbacks will be found at the top. NOTE: Pingbacks only work from WordPress sites. If you’re self-hosted or are participating from another host, such as Blogger, please leave a link to your post in the comments below.

5. Read at least one other person’s blog who has linked back their post. Even better, read all of them! If you’re the first person to link back, you can check back later or go to the previous week by following my category, “Stream of Consciousness Saturday,” which you’ll find below the “Like” button on my post.

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Thimbles


On the night when the full moon was supposed to be
invoking the ancestors (this is astrologically),
I found myself drawing all my grandmother’s thimbles
going back four generations.
My mother gifted them to me,
so though she doesn’t have her own,
she too is represented on those pages.
To Whom will I gift them?
They are so beautiful.

Clockwise: My grandma, Lyle Genevieve Smith Swartout (Mimi),
Great-Grandmother Smith, Great-Grandmother Hoyt,
Great-Grandmother Swartout, and Great-Great-Grandmother Smith-Sheridan.


The ink is one color (other than the writing at the end in Robert Oster Grey Seas),
and that is the surprising Birmingham Slag Grey, quickly becoming an everyday favorite.
All those other colors came out of that one ink!

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USk: Valentine’s At HEM23

Following on the discussion I was having about how other creatives shape our art,
recently an urban sketcher was reiterating
how it is not right to ink at the location and add colors later…
the colors are not true from pictures…
As if mixing on site is always accurate from six colors.
Gotta tell you, I really hate rules.
And as a creative, rules are meant to be broken.
It is what we do when we think outside the box and so I say,
ignore the utter nonsense that artists spew about rules.
Do as you please.  Make your marks your way!

Let this be the last rule you listen to:
Rules are meant to be broken!


Anyhow, we went to Hem23, a Vietnamese place after
acupuncture on Valentine’s Day for a quick bite.  I love their interiors, very simple materials, but really put together so well, and the food is heavenly.

Whenever I have
freshwater shrimps
grilled with their heads on
(you crunch through
the whole head)
I think of Kliban’s
“Love to eat those Mousies…” RIP… I was going to post a
video of someone singing but
they don’t do the song like it is in my head so I just couldn’t!

And I cheated by all the rules of the urban sketcher’s guidebook…
I inked and penciled on site then added color in the studio.  I am a very bad gurl.

Kilban’s image used without permission.
But I take no credit.  I love Kilban!

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Valentine’s Day

Okay so I had my Diplomat Aero red magical
i-think-it-can-fly and it-looks-like-a-dirigible pen
the day before Valentine’s Day — So I could record everything in advance!
Mitchell had to listen to me the 13th gushing about my pen,
kvetching about having to work on the puter instead of writing with my pen,
etc…
etc…

We took the day after the 14th off…
*note my entry was done in my red pen*
A lovely day of dinking and ditzing and doing nothing,
eating good cooking no matter who did it and unplugging the phone lines.

Mitchell put up every heart-shaped light we own…
And we like lights so the glow was RED!
*as is my aero pen*
Heaven are my days off with Mitchell!

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TWSBI Eco


A story about how other creatives shape you… push you… remind you!

I’ve fallen in love with TWSBI’s and draw them a lot.
They are architectural, like little buildings,
and you can see all the ways they work which is very cool.

I drew these in my last Nostaglie Sketchbook but resisted adding paint.
I wanted to, then loved the clean line (I’ve been doing more drawing lately)
and so let it go.  Close that book and put it on my shelf.

Then Tonya from @scratchjournal wrote about a piece that nagged at her and
I realized this was STILL nagging at me even after I closed the book.

Good grief.


I retrieved the sketchbook and added colors,
mostly inks that match the colors of the pens,
though I didn’t buy Monteverde Valentine Red to fill the red one.

Turn out MGraham’s Cobalt Turquoise matches my turquoise pen…
the only watercolor… I wanted something that conveyed
a loss of light through the pens for the turquoise TWSBI as it is solid plastic.
the others are demonstrators and jeweled translucent colors.

TWSBI Eco 1.1 with Robert Oster Australian Sky Blue,
TWSBI Eco 1.1 with Robert Oster Emerald,
TWSBI Eco 1.1 with with Nemosine Aeolis Palus Red ink,
TWSBI Eco 1.1 with Robert Oster MIX!

Now the book is safely tucked away and I breathe easier!

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Cat Squares, 4

I am thinking these may be a little book…
with funny stories attached…  What do you think?


6. PURPLE MOUSE’S MAJESTY

Savitri loves purple.
All her favorite toys are purple, but Purple Mouses Majesty
is a perfect combination of color, long dangling tail, and rattling beans inside.

Purple Mouses Majesty has visited Mouse Hospital many times
for a new tail or belly surgery.

She does not share him.

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SoCS: Yawn

I  journal and do morning stream of consciousness exercises, and
I’m again participating in Linda Hill’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday. 
I write to a timer, 15-20 minutes, no editing except spelling, and of course I add my art!
You can do it too!
Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “yawn.”

yawn.
sitting at the acupuncturists waiting for mitchell because he ca fall asleep
with needles in him and i did for the first time that day but not for long…
some part of me always says, “needles!” and i wake.
i’ve never slept so much nor been so tired since my mom died.
i am an insomniac but have been sleeping 5-7 hours easily
and if it is not a work day can do a few more after moving about to
shake the pain out of my body…
so tired all the time, yawning in front of the puter when i am writing.
crazy tired.  hoping that there is still recovery in this and i’ve not slipped some
sleep switch where i need 10 hours because that is never going to happen.
i’ve done 4-6 hours most of my life and now my body says moooore sleeep!

that’s all i got.
yawn didn’t take me anywhere.
not yet anyway but the timer’s not gone off so maybe cats sleeping long hours
and they can sleep on the most uncomfortable surfaces.
we have a small washing machine at the studio for textiles towels and
the like and the top of it slopes and usually has the trappings of the hoses and cords that get plugged in when in use tied to one side of it and they sleep on that thing for hours.
SLANTED.  BUMPY.

that all i got.

Here are the rules, as posted on Linda’s blog;  feel free to join the fun!

1. Your post must be stream of consciousness writing, meaning no editing (typos can be fixed), and minimal planning on what you’re going to write.

2. Your post can be as long or as short as you want it to be. One sentence – one thousand words. Fact, fiction, poetry – it doesn’t matter. Just let the words carry you along until you’re ready to stop.

3. I will post the prompt here on my blog every Friday, along with a reminder for you to join in. The prompt will be one random thing, but it will not be a subject. For instance, I will not say “Write about dogs”; the prompt will be more like, “Make your first sentence a question,” “Begin with the word ‘The,’” or will simply be a single word to get you started.

4. Ping back! It’s important, so that I and other people can come and read your post! For example, in your post you can write “This post is part of SoCS:” and then copy and paste the URL found in your address bar at the top of this post into yours. Your link will show up in my comments for everyone to see. The most recent pingbacks will be found at the top. NOTE: Pingbacks only work from WordPress sites. If you’re self-hosted or are participating from another host, such as Blogger, please leave a link to your post in the comments below.

5. Read at least one other person’s blog who has linked back their post. Even better, read all of them! If you’re the first person to link back, you can check back later or go to the previous week by following my category, “Stream of Consciousness Saturday,” which you’ll find below the “Like” button on my post.

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Hari-Gibbs-Fred Meets the Horses!


We set up the studio so the cats have a little more run time when they are in the studio.
*okay, truth be told they get under our feet sometimes
and this gives them a whole lotta space*
They can “explore the floor”
*that is what we call it when we tell them they can go “out”*
run around and chase each other in one door and out the other…
the hallway is their bowling alley.

But Hari-Gibbs-Fred went a little further…
He scurried between my legs into the  “stable” here the carousel horses live.

OOPS!  Caught in the Act!


“What is this room?”

Up onto one of the treatment tables next to Terri, the American Beauty Rose horse.
He was amazed and delighted with the carousel horses!
His eyes lit up, his tail perked and waggled…
He spent the next half-hour walking around making bread into the floor!

Now our biggest problem is they want back into the room…
They sit at the door and wail to go in!
We’ve created monsters!

*but we think everyone should have cats at work*

 

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Nataraj


Nataraj and a whole lotta crazy journaling.

My mojo went missing.
Nataraj danced it back into my fingers!

Killing winter with orange!


“In order to be brave we must trust
that underneath it all there is
sanity and openness.”  Sakyong Mipham

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zenkatwrites: Family

I cry all the time watching Blue Bloods…
I cry at the Reagan Family.
I want a little of what they’ve got.

Tonight when it ended I thought about how my family was so very “fuck-ed-up-ed”
*channeling my baby brother with that one*

Sometimes I wonder if I’d have more family if I hadn’t done
what it took to make myself feel better about me…
I was unhappy with my person.
When I put my foot on the path, it was a Buddhist path
because the words in some of the books spoke to me about a sanity I didn’t have,
and at the time I didn’t even have to deal with G-O-D…
*bad catholic experience, finally got over it, another story*
There was this wonderful place, a temple called the Bodhi Tree on Melrose…
There was an honesty in the books, and that honesty was lacking in my family.
*okay, maybe not totally but damn, you could not begin to make sense of
what was true and what wasn’t so do not even get me started.
My belly laugh came when I realized that maybe NOTHING
I’d been told by anyone was true —
so I had only my eyes and ears and the present moment to rely upon*

So it started with Buddhism and letting go of G-O-D
*i came back to that later another story, i promise*
for a present truth that was what I could handle.

Then I got sober.
*wow that put a crimp in family dinners*
When I wasn’t being offered another drink I was being told that this
silliness was another fad.  And so it is, 30 years later.

But AA and Buddhism did NOT tell me one thing that was true,
which was that I was going to be on a lonely path with not a lot of friends along the way.
They didn’t tell me that how to deal with the peeps
who didn’t want to glimpse their own problems, and that even if
you didn’t talk to them about their problems or even give a crap about their problems
they projected that you had an opinion about their problems and walked away!

*i could buy  a whole lotta paints if i had a dollar for everyone
who projected my disdain or my thoughts about their issues when in fact
i had no thoughts at all about them*

So, I miss having family… and I include family you choose and your birth family.
I give thanks for Mitchell and the cats.
I give thanks for Mitchell and the cats.
I give thanks for Mitchell and the cats.

I long for the Reagan family… the dinners, yes,
but more that people care about each other,
and when they fight they work through it.
They come back, they make amends, they know that love is a verb.

Wishing lots of love for everyone today and always!

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Painting George


We have a lot of creatives in my family.
My mom wanted to be an actress and took acting classes.
*i can hear my baby brother laughing because she did a good job acting all her life*
My baby brother was a frustrated songwriter and piano-man.
My grandmother did every type of needlework, as did her mom,
and they went beyond the craft into the expressive forms.

But nobody “made” it….
Hence we’ve always thought there was a family curse.


I have tried selling my art for 20 years.
I finally had to admit, yuppers, family curse…

But then yesterday Mitchell pointed out that my art is going to hang on the wall
of the grand Reception Room of the Washington State Legislative Building.
I am doing the replacement flag of the historic first flag!

Maybe the family curse is broken!

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zenkatwrites: Why Sketch?

There are a few artists I follow because I love their work or their passion.
A few because I love them, or love what they say about art.
One because I can’t quite figure out why she has a huge following.

The latter I keep my eye on but rarely visit.
She draws the same thing every day.
She doesn’t do it because that is her passion —
as in, “I want to explore 100 hearts… I want to know about heart-ness.”
It is an exercise for her, like going to the gym.
*i hate the gym.  i’d rather dance.*
She talks about it keeping her in shape, like she is flexing a muscle.
I guess that is true, though I would say that if I was to do that
I’d still want to draw interesting things around me,
and throw in things I hadn’t drawn before
because if I know how to draw that-unnamed-object
*you would know who if i named it*
then I know how to draw that-unnamed-object and it is not really a stretch.

Because of the juxtaposition of Alicia Golden of Making Handmade Books asking:
“When Is It Craft? When Is It Art? Exhibits at SFMOMA”
and another week of the artist who draws the same thing daily,
I have to ask myself, why?
Why make sketches of familiar things you are not that interested in for the exercise of it?
*i heard no answer from the great art-universe so i took a look at myself*
What makes me want to sketch in a journal?

My story…
I tell our stories, of the cats and where we live and what we experienced,
of my creative urges and thoughts,
of surviving my family, and living to love them which is hard to do — loving cacti.
I don’t care so much about drawing the city I live in on sketch at a time —
unless it happens to be part of my story — though I understand that joy.
I want to tell the story of our lives, to delve in and see
what makes us happy and sad and crazy and
it helps me to reflect on what is real.

“Memory is more indelible than ink.”
Anita Loos, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.
“I think not….”
Me… why I journal!

I’m not a sketcher-person but a journal person who sketches.

I also look at my favorite blogging friends, and why I love reading them…
they are telling their stories.  Because I followed their stories I became friends
with some of them, though I didn’t set out to do so.
Modern day pen pals of a sort…

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Sorting out this blog transfer!

Note about merging my blogs…

My art followers might not want to read my writing…
My art followers might not want to read my recipes…
In an effort to give a head’s up I am going to start my posts with certain headlines:

zenkatwrites:
katwritesfood:
SoCS:

and then you can choose…

I admit I like having it all in one place!
Simplify!

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