Mystery Trip

February 9, 2008

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What do you pack when you go on a trip? This week the Illustration Friday theme is “Choose” so it seems appropriate that I’m trying to choose what to take. Whenever I go on a trip, I take waaayyy too much, and then when I get there, nothing matches, it’s the wrong season, or I spend most my time wishing I’d brought something else or shopping for something I’ve forgotten.

And what if you didn’t know where you were going? Tomorrow I leave on a mystery trip. I have no idea where to. I’d check the weather, but I don’t know were it is. The funny thing is, it’s kind of fun not knowing! Guess I should stop drawing and start packing.

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Illustration Friday: Blanket

February 4, 2008

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I feel right at home with this week’s Illustration Friday theme: Blanket, because I spent all weekend under one, still trying to sleep off this nasty cold-flu.

Here’s an interesting link called “How to be an Early Riser” if you don’t want to be like me. My advice is just the opposite for “how to be a full-time sleepyhead” — read lots of technical books like The Visual Quickstart Guide to WordPress and stuff with a lot of chemical formulas, like Color by Design: Paint and Print with Dye. Actually they are both good books, but yawn…I just can’t keep my eyes open.

One more word on blankets. I had to change hair stylists last fall because the guy keep asking me if I was still making blankets. I make art quilts, not blankets, and after a few months it stopped being funny. Actually it never was funny. Let’s just say, don’t call them blankets, that is if you want to cut my hair!

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Illustration Friday: Stitch

January 17, 2008

60min_stitch1.jpg I drew this guy while watching 60 Minutes. It doesn’t work very well to draw people on tv who are in sit-coms, because they all seem to look alike, but news shows have more interesting faces.

Thanks to Jane for getting me motivated to try turning a drawing into a stitched piece. How could I have been about to pass up this week’s Illustration Friday theme?

I almost got the fabric cut and stitched in an hour (sixty minutes — ha ha, get it?) The back is almost as interesting as the front…

Read more

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Illustration Friday: Little Things

December 13, 2007

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After getting a flu shot, I was finally inspired to draw something for Illustration Friday — because I suddenly realized I had been injected with little things — tiny dead influenza viruses. Happy thought, isn’t it?

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Illustration Friday: Zoo School for Big Cats

November 28, 2007

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The Illustration Friday theme this week is Zoo, but I kept thinking about the new Leopard operating system on my Mac. Then I remembered that all the previous Mac OS X operating systems were named for big cats, and I thought the big cats might have to go to school to learn the difference between a mouse and mouse. So this is my Zoo School for Big Cats. (click on it for a bigger version).The big cats in class from left to right are: Leopard, Cheetah, Tiger, Puma, and Jaguar. Now it probably makes sense why I was drawing big cats in my last post.

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Illustration Friday: Superstition

November 21, 2007

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Because it’s almost Thanksgiving….but the one with really bad luck is the turkey.

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Illustration Friday: Sacrifice

July 19, 2006

This week’s theme for Illustration Friday is “sacrifice.” I thought it would be a good time to practice drawing cannibals since we’re going on a trip next week, and I think there might be some at our hotel. When I googled “cannibals” to get some ideas, this photo came up first. It’s from some joke site and pretty corny, but that kid in the cook pot cracked me up.

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Illustration Friday: Portrait — Pounds for Sculpture

June 3, 2006

I know know why I had artist’s block last week. The idea for this self-portrait was blocking everything else out, so I finally bowed to my compulsion to illustrate Russ’s installation at Grounds for Sculpture last month. As he worked his gizmo magic on his neon-aluminum sculptures, my job was to remain on stand-by as my great talent for holding things in mid-air while he decides what to do is only rarely called upon. (Although I did actually install some screws.)

So in the meantime, I ate. Hence I have dubbed the place Pounds for Sculpture. The first day we were there, the curators fed us donut holes for breakfast. What is it about New Jersey? People there seem to love their Dunkin’ Donuts. That same afternoon, the assistant for Lin Emery came to install a beautiful sculpture — the stainless steel modules twisted and turned in the slightest breeze. It was mesmerizing to watch, like watching waves on the ocean. Except I still can’t help making some silly joke about contemporary sculpture and donuts.

There was a cafe downstairs… wonderful roasted eggplant sandwiches, pastries, cappuccino, meringues, and quiche made with brie — can you get any richer than that? There was also my daily run to Starbucks for Green Tea Frappuccinos, my latest craving. And of course, Blow Pops, but I’ll save that story for another day. Looking through the window of the gallery is a peacock– there were several on the grounds — curious, pompous and watching with all their eyes.

So the drawing is of me, sitting on a little wooden box pulled up to a big green bench. When I wasn’t eating, I was working on my laptop. We were there five long days, and the GFS curators laughingly began to call it my “office.” But you can see it was really my dining room table!

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Illustration Friday: CAKE

May 29, 2006

Happy coincidence! The theme for Illustration Friday this week is “Cake” — I’ve already used this drawing for another theme - “Song”, but now I’m working on the quilt so this one is in fabric! It’s based on a summer job I had once delivering singing telegrams. I actually jumped out of a cardboard cake wearing a red, white, and blue costume and singing lyrics to Yankee Doodle Dandy:

Oh, he’s a Yankee Doodle Dandy,
A Yankee Doodle do or die.
A real live nephew of my Uncle Sam,
Born on the Fourth of July!

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Illustration Friday: Insect

March 9, 2006

I still haven’t caught up on everything since the tv taping. But I couldn’t resist doing this drawing for Illustration Friday called “Those Pesky Men”. You can click on it for a bigger version.

In case you’re wondering, it’s not inspired by any kind of emotional stress, and I’m not a man-hater. This just popped in my head once when I saw an old advertisement from Real Kill Bug Spray. I went to an auction once and hit the jackpot. I bought two big boxes of mystery papers for around $15 and when I got them home, found what looked to the old files of a Home Economics teacher. It looked like she had retired in in the 50’s or early 60’s, boxed everything up and never looked at it again.

There were all kinds of posters, brochures and booklets that companies had sent her about things like chocolate, four-square meals, polishing silverware, how to properly freeze food, and how to kill bugs in your house. They are really fun to read and have lots of awesome graphics, so good I’m almost afraid to post a scan of the bug spray lady because it’s better than my drawing — but I figure you’ll enjoy it, so here it is.

In my drawing, I used names of old boyfriends and one old enemy just for fun. Roger cracks me up because you usually hear about spider-women, not men. What kind of insects would the men (or women) in your life be?

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Illustration Friday: Song

February 23, 2006

Here’s my drawing for Illustration Friday and Yankee Doodle Dandy — that’s the song. You may remember I started this drawing for a quilt long ago, around the fourth of July, but I never got around to explaining it.

One summer during college I got a job delivering singing telegrams. I usually wore a tuxedo jacket, shorts and tights and delivered a balloon bouquet as I sang birthday, anniversary and happy secretary’s day lyrics that my boss wrote for each occasion. Sometimes I even got to go into the state legislature when someone wanted to embarrass some elected officials. But never anything risque - just silly.

The craziest assignment I ever had was to sing “Oh, he’s a yankee doodle dandy…” to an Iranian man in a red-neck bar called Club Brassy Toe in Brazito, Missouri, population 68. He had just gotten his U.S. citizenship and his friends hired me to jump out of a red-white-and-blue cardboard cake dressed like Uncle Sam, waving a flag. I can barely remember what the bar looked like though, I guess because I spent most of my time in the cake.

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Illustration Friday: Cell Cats

January 22, 2006

Illustration Friday’s theme this week is “Cats” so I had to post this drawing from last year. I used it to make this quilt.

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Illustration Friday: Blue

December 7, 2005

On Monday we were installing Russ’s newest sculpture at the Washington University School of Medicine, so I haven’t had much time to post this week. But I wanted to get my Illustration Friday drawing done for Blue.

It was a little inspired by the below freezing weather we’ve had lately, but also a bit of Elvis’s song Blue Christmas….

I’ll have a Blue Christmas without you
I’ll be so blue just thinking about you
Decorations of red on a green Christmas tree
Won’t be the same dear, if you’re not here with me

And when those blue snowflakes start falling
That’s when those blue memories start calling
You’ll be doin’ all right, with your Christmas of white
But I’ll have a blue, blue blue blue Christmas

I was also thinking about calling the drawing “No Two Flakes are Alike.”

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Finally!

December 1, 2005

Actually the Husqvarna machine that I won arrived at the dealer’s shop last week just before Thanksgiving. After a short demo, I found it was very nice and had a few buttons that I would love on my current machine. But it also duplicated many things that I don’t ever use, so I asked to trade it for the Viking Mega Quilter — bigger, faster, but straight stitch only.

I had to wait yet another week, but the mega quilter finally arrived yesterday, and I put it to work immediately to quilt the background on my current project. It’s a monster compared to what I’m used to — huge, heavy, and sews like crazy. I was estimating that the green background would take about four hours, but the mega quilter did it in little over an hour. Can’t wait to try some more! And for the quilting frame to come in — maybe not until January :(

In the meantime, this is a new record. I started this drawing for Illustration Friday on Friday night and finished the entire quilt before the next Friday theme was posted! I’ll put it on my website when I get better photos (does anyone else have trouble photographing lime greens?)

This is just a photo of the background with all the little stuff out of the way. If I had been thinking better, I wouldn’t have fused the long arm down before I started quilting the table.

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Illustration Friday: Small

November 25, 2005

I love all the little vintage-looking purses that I see in shops nowdays, but can’t seem to fit everything inside because they are TOO SMALL!

It’s been a while since I’ve done an Illustration Friday, but this theme gave me an idea for another drawing for a quilt that I’ve been trying to work on all week. Why is it drawing is like excercise? The more I do, the better I feel. But when I get out of the habit, it’s hard to get started again.

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