drawing what’s on hand

Sometimes I want to draw something but have zero inspiration — so I draw whatever is close by. Yesterday it happened to be my yogurt and water glass.

My taste is regularly changing as I journey through this cancer battle. I used to not like bananas much; now I eat one every day because it just tastes good. Other foods that I’ve always loved are repulsive to me now. One food I love currently is a mix of plain Greek yogurt, fruit, and a bit of stevia. No matter how lacking I am in appetite, I can always eat this.

another random drawing

This is yet another random drawing as I try to regain control of my Pentel Pocketbrush pen in spite of my sometime shaky right hand. My iPhone was handy, so why not attempt it? I even tried a bit of writing with the brush tip but that is harder. (Other text was done with a regular Lamy fountain pen.)

another Wimsey book

Still reading the Lord Peter Wimsey mystery series written by Dorothy Sayers in the 1920-1930s . . . I sketched this while reading the 11th book, probably Sayer’s best mystery though critics of the day debated the implausibility of the murder “weapon”. Now I’m nearly halfway through book #12 — fun, witty stories!

wee bits of Christmas

We had a very low-key type of Christmas, as Bill is under orders from his cardiologist to take it easy and not over-do. He’s been experiencing questionable symptoms; a new heart catheter showed the bypass grafts to be working great so it’s just a matter of finding the right combination of medications at this point. A work in progress . . .

Earlier, most of our kids and grandkids got together and had this crazy kind of gift exchange. Everyone took part, including all the grandkids. The gift theme was “big, fat, or hard to wrap” and each person may choose an unwrapped gift or steal one that’s already been opened by someone else. Hilarious fun! I ended up with this big bag of assorted gourmet popcorns and a stack of chocolates, a gift given by our youngest grandson.

The right side of this journal spread shows a few of my other toys. Our youngest son recommended the new computer mouse that Bill gave me — much easier with the tendinitis in my wrists. Technically the new iPhone is not a gift — my old one iPhone 7 needed a battery replaced and AT&T had a bunch of these iPhone 12 Minis that they wanted to get rid of . . . 

With gift money from my mother, I bought a replacement squirrel mop brush (my old one had the quill & wire wrapped ferrule and bristles were shedding) and the new “Drawn to High Places” Pocket Palette from Art Toolkit. I just got the case without the paints, to put a set of earthy granulating paints in it. Now it’s easy to see at a glance whether it’s my regular set or the earthy one.

switching out phone cards

 

Since I switched from a limited “winter” palette to one with lots of bright colors, I suppose it’s time to change the color card on the back of my phone as well. I purposely get clear cases that allow me to slip whatever I wish to in the back — always easily recognizable as mine when laying next to others’ phones. (I seem to be building quite a collection of these cards!) 

yet another iPhone card

With my recent post about switching my studio palette from “rainbow order” to a grouping of 4 different “primaries + green + neutral”, I guess it’s inevitable that the card in the back of my phone case reflect the change as well.

I actually started a sketch outside, sitting next to the pool enjoying the sunshiny day — that was 2 days ago! I was distracted by other things that needed doing and places we needed to go and appointments to be kept.

Isn’t that how it normally goes? Perhaps I’ll get back to that poolside sketch tomorrow. After a trip to check out a tile store in Houston and a meet-up with our daughter and a wee bit of gift shopping . . .

updated iPhone case

With the changing seasons, I usually switch from bright colors of watercolor to more muted ones.

This year that means either granulating pigments or this Demi Palette limited palette. My phone had a bright palette card over the summer; I have a granulated color card but it was either packed away or left at the cabin (we’re in the process of moving and trying to sell our log cabin), so I thought I’d make a card of this limited palette for my phone case.

But with only 7 colors, why not make it more useful and paint a wee color mixing chart? What makes this so easy is that my iPhone case is a rubbery clear one, easy to slip in anything I wish.

a new-ish iPhone case

When I upgraded to my current phone, I saw lots of cases for them online. Everyone seems to have a black phone and I wanted my black phone to stand out. But I couldn’t decide between a case with watercolor paints or one with a cool scripture. And I didn’t want to spend the higher price.

So I chose a plain clear case.

Yesterday, I decided to change that. On a scrap of watercolor paper, I painted a palette and added a scripture — and I love the results!

I wasn’t sure if the watercolor paper would be too thick, so I also made one from my granulating pigments on a thinner scrap of paper from India. Haven’t picked a scripture for it yet . . .

new-to-me toys

I use Apple products (iPod, iPad, and iPhone) but have been backing them up to an iTunes app on my Acer Aspire mini notebook computer. I learned on a PC and that's what I'm comfortable using.

Recently I opened iTunes to sinc my iPod and add more music from CDs. A notification popped up saying there is a new version of iTunes, do I wish to update? This is a common occurrence every few months, so I clicked yes. After a long download and installation process, it said that iTunes was not installed correctly, I need to uninstall and reinstall.

After trying this several times, following instructions from the Apple web site, I still did not have iTunes on my PC. I know that Apple and PC do not play well together but this is ridiculous! I was only following iTunes' instructions and now I could not sinc any of my devices to the computer or add any CDs to my iPod.

Enter my hero, Jason (also known as our eldest son). He had an older MacBook Pro he was not using, so he set it up in my name and gave it to me. Because I had forgotten to de-register previous computers, I had trouble registering this one to my account. I did not know this --- I took it back to Jason to figure out and he did. The Mac's disc drive is not working, so he threw in an external disc drive -- the one I use with my Acer is not Apple-compatible.

He backed up my iPod to the Mac, then asked for my phone to back it up. Afterwards, he said I may have to reload my books --- I told him I don't have any books on my phone because there was no room (only about 5 gig to work with). Next thing I knew, he was removing my phone card and putting it in his old unused iPhone. So instead of an iPhone 5 with only 5 gigs to work with, I now have an iPhone 6 with an extra 59 gigs. I do think I will buy a different case for it though. Not fond of this one's colors.

I've been fighting some kind of sinus thing with headaches that keep me from sleeping, so I sketched all this in the middle of the night as it lay on an overstuffed ottoman (which is a faded, muted red, NOT pink). Sort of a messy 2-page spread, but it distracted me from the headache.

we give up

We switched to using cell phones when Bill retired, when he returned his other cell phone to the company. At the time we did not know we would be moving and the service was fine.

Then four months later we found ourselves living in central Texas in an area that that particular provider does not have good coverage. Calls are dropped on a regular basis, or they go directly to voicemail without ringing. To make calls, we have to go outside, walking around the yard to find a signal. Yet the provider says their computer shows we have available coverage so we are stuck in our contract.

Part of the problem is probably having cheap flip-phones, but we are tired of fighting it. So we took our son Jason up on his offer --- he gave us an iPhone under his contract and we just pay him a (much lower) fee each month. 

Not a very interesting sketch, but drawing it in my journal will help me remember when we got it.

no longer cell phone free

 

I relished the fact that I was not in fact joined at the hip with a cellular phone. I do not like talking on the phone and do not like them interrupting my thoughts or whatever I am spending my time doing. But now, through no fault of my own, I am now the not-so-proud owner of my very own cell phone.

Bill's cell phone belonged to his company and has been turned in now that he is retired. We do like having one at hand when traveling, for emergency, so we went to buy a simple one for him. And found out that it is much cheaper to have two cell phones than to have one cell phone and one home phone line. So we got a two-phone package deal.

Of course, that means the end of my high-speed internet, which was through the home phone line. Now I have this wee device that provides internet wherever we are through the cell phone towers. Good for traveling but a lot slower. Maybe I'll spend less time on-line . . .