our bird-watching kitten

One of Luna’s favorite spots is sitting on top of the cats’ scratching post (behind the chair) watching birds at the feeders in front. This is looking towards the front of our converted barn house; two windows and the French doors are where the barn door used to be. Bill made me the Morris chair and footstool years ago.

Inspiration for this drawing came from a wonderful new book I’m slowly reading through, “Pen Drawing, An Artist’s Guide to Drawing With Ink” by John Harrison. The second photo is from the e-book, part of a demonstration where John draws a chair in a similar position, though his background is a shelf full of lovely books. I decided to leave the line drawing in ink lines only, adding colored pencil to suggest the outside view. Luna is in watercolor.

Drawn with a Sailor Fude de Mannen bent nib fountain pen and Rohrer & Klingner Sketch Ink (color Jule).

yeasty smells

Every week or two, our place takes on such a lovely aroma! And sometimes I just have to sketch it. Keeps me from slicing the sourdough loaf before it’s cooled.

Next, I made a new batch of granola from the discard.

early morning walk

Our temperatures are still mostly in the 70s but mornings have been foggy. This is the view during a recent morning walk.

I need practice trying to write with a tiny paintbrush. Very wonky!

next to the last page

Today I finished the next to the last page of this journal (after posting the last page yesterday). It didn’t turn out quite like what I had in mind — seems a bit stiff and not enough contrast in values. But I’m calling it done and moving on.

What drew me to sketch the scene were the lavender-shadowed clouds. But they seemed to fade away in the sketch. This is the view from the front of our small converted barn house looking towards our daughter’s farmhouse. I added those shrubs in the lower right corner where our barn-red house corner would be.

not sleeping

The past couple of years I have gone through a weird change in sleep habits. Most of my life I was a night owl, up late and sleeping in whenever I could. But my days and nights seem topsy-turvy now. Early to bed, reading only a chapter or two before conking out, then 2:00 or 3:00 a.m. finds me wide awake.

Butters the corgi wonders why I’m not in bed, asleep. She is NOT a morning person!

Unfortunately, I’m so tired during the days that I have not begun those two workshops that I recently won . . .

The background was sketched with the Lamy Safari and J. Herbin “Lie de The” ink. The double recliner was sketched with a Pentel Pocketbrush pen with brown ink.

early morning view

Recently I was sitting in the Morris chair early in the morning, looking out one half of our French doors. The striped patterns of the front pasture’s half-dormant grasses caught my eye, along with part of the Arizona cypress, so I snapped a photo (my iPhone was handy but my sketchbook was not) and later sketched what I saw.

I wanted to ink this in with the “sepia” ink I once mixed using brown and black De Atramentis Document inks — I filled two different fountain pens but neither would write. I usually fill ink converters while attached to the pens, dipping them directly into the ink bottle. But apparently the ink level was lower than I thought, and a bit sludgy. The lid must have been loose and some evaporation thickened what ink was left. I cleaned my pens thoroughly, threw away the ink dregs, and filled this Pilot Kakuno demonstrator pen with the “dark red / burnt sienna” mix instead.

rain or shine

Texas has had a very wet spring this year. My corgi, Butters, and I like taking early morning walks down the lane and I keep walking shoes on this knit mat, ready to slip on. And a pair of rubber boots for rainy weather when our grassy pastures become a soggy swampland. 

The absorbent cotton yarn of this mat has some history to it. Years ago, I knit a small bathmat for a second bathroom but no longer needed it when we downsized to a small cabin. So when I adopted a new kitten, I unraveled the rug and crocheted a round cat cave for him. He loved playing and sleeping in it but eventually outgrew it. So when I needed a small mat to place wet shoes between the cupboard and back door, the cat cave was unraveled so I could knit this small mat. Mighty sturdy yarn!

I used one of my favorite pocket palettes for this sketch, a Drawn to High Places limited edition palette purchased empty several years ago from Art Toolkit. It holds my favorite granulating watercolors. Their earthiness seems to go well with the scene on the front.

some cacti

These are some of the cacti growing in front of our barn home among some large rocks. It’s funny how sometimes the greens are yellowish and sometimes a cool blueish green. The Peruvian apple cactus is actually much smaller than it appears on the sketchbook page, as it is very young. But it will eventually tower over everything, including us!

a sketching pause while cleaning

Yesterday I cleaned up my art space in the back room. Or rather, I cleaned up this portion of the space: an oak taboret on wheels that Bill built for me years ago that sits next to my old desk. So of course I had to draw it in my journal. 😂

Yes, that is a ceramic pet dish acting as a water container! With the addition of my corgi, we needed a larger water dish for pets so the old one joined my art supplies. I just need to remember to empty it so the cats don’t drink dirty paint water!

Several old wooden boxes hold various supplies — the oldest one on an underneath shelf is filled with ink bottles and cartridges. It came from my grandfather’s printing shop and once held metal typeset letters.

This back room in our wee barn-house is a combination studio, library, office, laundry room, and cats’ room (where they can eat without a corgi interfering with them!). I have lots more cleaning to do, especially the wall of built-in bookshelves.

After posting this, I went back to the Dorothy L. Sayers novel I am currently reading. This conversation between Lord Peter Wimsey and his friend Charles Parker of Scotland Yard caught my eye. It’s been years since 9th grade Latin class — I had to look that bit up!

In the context of Wimsey’s character, it made me laugh so I jotted it down.

By the way, that desk of mine has some family history as well. It was once covered with red paint and stood in my grandfather’s barber shop with a great antique cash register on top of it. I had it stripped back to wood and have used it ever since as a desk . . . or a table to hold my sewing machine.

baby apple tree

Last year about this time, the baby apple tree in the pasture in front of our barn-house was loaded with blossoms, followed by a bumper-crop of apples. But just before time to pick them, our local raccoon family stole all of the apples!

It’s beginning to look like another good year for apples. I wonder if we’ll actually be able to eat some of them this year?

my caretakers

“IT’S SO EXHAUSTING BEING US!”

Bill caught Butters and Scottie Dubh taking a break from watching over me. Just before this shot, both had all four paws straight up in the air!

But we all know that it’s really Bardie Mac who is in charge. He usually has night duty, sleeping at my feet. 

Even our daughter and son-in-law’s Great Pyrenees mix, Bradley, rushed over to check me out after I got home from the hospital — and he hasn’t quite forgiven me for bringing Butters to live here yet! Bradley takes his job very seriously, trying to keep all of us humans home where we belong.

At first he liked Butters. But he must have thought that she’d be temporary like the pups our granddaughter trains for Patriot Paws. When he realized she was staying, he became jealous. But I think he will eventually get over it.

our southern view

The main living area in our home was once the “alleyway” of a pole barn. We wanted lots of light and ventilation; on the south are these French doors with windows on either side. The view of pasture, tall pines and oaks is usually full of birds — and maybe a feral cat stalking gophers. I sketched this during the heat of the day when all creatures sought some cool shade.

another view

I’ve often sketched our living room while sitting in the antique red upholstered chair. This time, I decided to draw what I see from the reclining loveseat where I spend a lot of time lately. Minus some large windows on the far left.

a touch of Covid and some ink

Apparently Covid-19 finally found me, probably at a standing-room-only memorial service for our Pastor last week. After all, I never go anywhere! 

So I’ve slept off and on since Wednesday, drinking lots of fluids and aspirin as needed. Not a very bad case; only two real fevers with chills.

Today I finally felt like pulling out my sketchbook but only with a couple of fountain pens. I drew the old Swedish rocker directly in ink but became bored with it near the end. And just now I realized the far supporting bars were left out. Oops!

Pastor Gary Faulkner

3 years ago

The view from Bill’s woodshop looking into our living room — as it looked on this day in 2020 . . . . . It’s changed a bit.

from where I sit

A year or so ago I drew this same view from the same overstuffed chair across the room, but at that time we had a full-sized couch instead. We have since replaced the couch with this double recliner loveseat -- and love it! Great to be able to put our feet up when we want to, and it fits the small space much better.

And yes, that electric socket on the far wall is higher than normal -- Bill decided when he deigned the barn conversion that it would be done with "getting old" in mind. Higher receptacles mean not needing to lean down to plug something in. He also installed a wheelchair-friendly shower but I'm not expecting to ever need it as such. 

I love that he took a rough diagonal slice of a cedar tree to form the floating wall shelf that holds our TV. But the TV's speakers are in back; instead of bouncing sound back into the room, the foam insulation in that wall absorbs sound. So we needed to add a sound bar under the cedar shelf.

That folded afghan on the back of the loveseat was a gift from daughter-in-law Misty years ago and has a huge Scottish Terrier on the center. When I use it, I think of Fiona, my first Scottie adopted in 1992.

I began this sketch with the Pentel Pocketbrush pen but I kept getting chunky lines where I did not want them (stupid tendinitis!) so I finished with a Kaweco Liliput fountain pen.

not exercising

My adorable reason to not exercise, Scottie. After all, I had already chased him from another chair earlier. And yes, he is so black that sunlight hits him as blue! (For the record, he later left this chair and I was able to exercise — while listening to a BBC radio mystery on my iPhone.)

My doctor recommended I use this “desk cycle” to strengthen my knee which had a partial dislocation several months ago. Thanks to Covid, our daughter now works from home (when not at job sites) so she gave us this one that used to sit beneath her office desk.

everything . . . including the kitchen sink

When we converted this barn into a home, Bill filled the north (kitchen) wall with windows to let in lots of light. This wall and the south doors and windows once formed the central alley of the old pole barn. I had planned on filling this window ledge with tiny succulents. 

But the roof over the back patio blocked too much light from the plants, so they were moved to an outside container. And in their place? Some pinch pots our kids made when they were in school! One turned pot holds some rocks painted by three of our grandkids, and there are also two rocks our daughter brought me from Scotland. Over to the left side are Bill’s grandmother’s child-sized cast iron skillet and sad iron. The largest pot holds scrubbing tools.

I first painted the kitchen sink with the burnt sienna and raw sienna in my granulating palette. But it looked too dull, so I added a wash of transparent red oxide with a touch of Daniel Smith’s original quinacridone gold that’s no longer made. These two colors made a huge difference!

view from home

We have had an unbelievably long stretch of 100°-plus temperatures in our part of Texas. Only a scant bit of rain on two separate days, enough to slightly green up the pastures but leaving the dirt dry. Enough wind on one afternoon to damage our back patio and shop roof, but still hot and dry.

Obviously, too hot to sketch outdoors — this is the view looking out the front doors of our wee barndominium from the comfort of a double recliner.

what’s in front of me

This is what I see sitting in Bill’s Grandma’s old overstuffed chair in our wee barn-house. A bit messy (and I didn’t even include the tracked-in grass and pet hair on the floor!) but such a comfortable space to live.

Sometimes Bill’s chronic nerve pain keeps him up at night, though it has improved in recent months with an adjustment in medication. He’ll come out here to watch TV, using those earphones on the table to avoid waking me (he hasn’t learned that just his being gone from the bedroom wakes me up). The quilt folded on the back of the couch and pillows end up all over the place.

Inside the hinged cover of that table is a pair of binoculars to go with the bird field guide laying on top. We enjoy watching and identifying the birds outside the French doors and windows. Even in the midst of winter we have quite a variety, including the brightest bluebirds I’ve ever seen.