first fruits

Where there was once a horse arena here at the farm, we have planted fruit trees. One day we will be enjoying homegrown peaches, pears, oranges, grapefruit, limes . . . and even avocados (though they are in large pots on the back porch instead).

The peaches and pears are already loaded with fruit — much more than the baby-sized roots can handle. So yesterday Kristen prune out some of the fruit to allow the others a chance to grow.

Then she brought some in for me to “doodle”.

So I did.


“In the same way, my brothers, through the Messiah’s body you also died as far as the Law is concerned, so that you may belong to another person — the One who was raised from the dead — and may bear fruit for God.”
Romans 7:4

a normal cup of tea

In these strange days of COVID-19, social distancing, and staying at home, it’s nice to have a very normal thing to do. Each morning either Bill or I brew him a pot of coffee and me a cup of tea.

This is my favorite mug and my favorite loose-leaf tea, Black Forest from the English Tea Store. Loose-leaf tea is extremely hard to find in this area unless I drive to the center of Houston — there’s a British import shop near Rice University. At least there used to be; we haven’t made the drive in years. Long before home deliveries became the norm, I have been buying my tea online.

I have sketched this particular mug many times over the years but never the back of the mug. There are abstract portraits around the sides, each depicting a mother and child. Bill’s coffee mug is more of a deep blue-green and his has portraits of a man and wife. They are hand-thrown pottery, purchased from The Spice Merchant in Wichita, Kansas.

That was one of my favorite shops when we lived in Kansas, an old historic building with the lovely aroma of whatever coffee they were roasting at the moment. I don’t like the taste of coffee but I love how it smells! Once the manufacturing plant for Mentholatum, the building was also where silent film actress Louise Brooks once tried to run a dance studio. It’s a very cool old structure!

 

school day, COVID-19 style

Mikala spent one day last week out at the farm — working hard at homework, as usual. Her class load is particularly heavy in this, her junior year. While here, she “attended” what sounded like a chemistry class on her laptop. That backpack of hers is clear, a requirement of her Houston school. She goes through two of them per year because they are not made very durable. And she says once she stuffs a hoody inside, no one can see what is in it so what’s the point?

Oh — and I finally remembered to add that bit of dark red stripe on the front piece of dark chocolate from my previous sketch!

for Carrie

Happy Birthday, Carrie!

Just a bit of etegami for our daughter-in-law, Carrie, whose birthday is today. An easy answer to not being able to go somewhere to buy a card. I tried a bit of metallic silver Gansai watercolor to try to capture the sparkly sugar of the Peeps; it actually worked in person but doesn’t show up in the photo.

Carrie and Jason are currently home-schooling their own 3 kids (hence the five peeps) as well as teaching their school classrooms online.

chocolate is always good

Before driving out to the farm one day last week, our daughter called to ask if we needed anything from the store. I replied “chocolate is always good!” — so she brought a large bag of these.

I thought I’d try out some metallic watercolors that came in my gansai set, to pant the shiny wrappers. Not really much shine or sparkle, and even less in a photograph of the sketch. But it’s fun to play.

Having just finished reading the Hamish Macbeth mystery series (as ebooks checked out online from a Houston library), this quote of Hamish’s as he interviewed a wee child seemed fitting.

(After posting this here, Facebook and Instagram, I realized that I forgot to paint the red stripe on the piece in front. Oops!)

our temporary living space

While we are all staying close to home and avoiding people-contact, there are many online sketchers who are generously posting free tutorials and online classes. I’ve been following the YouTube videos that Belgium architect and artist Barbara Luel has been posting daily — she calls these her Corona Sketchbooks (Find links on her blog HERE.) and she begins each one with a beautiful watercolor of the virus itself!

I decided to try a couple of her tools and draw a portion of the living area of our daughter’s farmhouse where we are temporarily living. (My cat, Bardie MacRuadh, sat on the couch watching me.) I laid aside my pencil and fountain pens, and drew this directly with a Mark’s Inc.ballpoint pen. Then I  used a white Dermatograph oil-based pencil to save whites and a Rosemary sable travel brush like hers. Mine is a dagger brush; I’m not sure which style hers is.

I’m not very fond of using masking fluid — I really do like using the white pencil to save whites instead. It didn’t work so good on a portion of the area rug’s grid but the sketch still captures the idea, and I can’t add the shadows of the window frames later. But overall, I think this is a tool I will continue to use.

I do like the thin, refillable ballpoint pens from Mark’s. They fit my hand well and write very smoothly with waterproof ink. Adding watercolor makes the ink lines recede into the background, which is useful if I want the watercolor to take center stage. And they are so thin, they are easy to fit in whatever I am carrying. Not as noticeable as fountain pen lines if I’m drawing something without a lot of confidence! These pens are hard to find though; I found this one at Jetpens.com and they only offered the one color.

what I _really_ carry

Yesterday’s sketch showed the sketching tools I would carry for some serious sketching away from home. Not very likely to happen in this “stay home, stay safe” time we are living in.

Today’s sketch is more of a “true story” — this is the minimal tool set I carry everyday in my bag. A very small bag at the moment, a turquoise leather bag Bill gave me a few years ago. A larger bag would have room to hold my sketchbook but sometimes I just feel like traveling light.

first pages

As with all of my sketchbook journals, the first sketch is of my current art tools. This would be what I would carry for some serious sketching — not likely to happen in the near future with social distancing due to the COVID-19 virus. I’m more likely to go much lighter . . . perhaps I’ll sketch the lighter version I carry in my bag later today.

I usually match the color of ink to my fountain pens. The black Namiki Falcon holds black ink, the turquoise Metropolitan Retro holds turquoise ink, and the taupe Metropolitan with dark brown “lizard” band holds a sepia ink I made by adding a bit of black to brown ink. All inks are De Atramentis Document and, oddly, all three pens are from Pilot. I also use Lamy Safari and Kaweco Liliput fountain pens; these just happen to be what was nearby.

I also try to start each journal with an encouraging quote or verse. The quote written in the upper right corner came from a recent newsletter from a favorite writer and podcaster, Wayne Jacobsen. His Lifestream website can be found HERE and his podcasts can be found HERE. I met Wayne years ago as he held some meetings in my friend Penny Dugan’s barn just north of Wichita, KS.

A longer excerpt from the newsletter:

“Faith is this: our whole life is in His hands — every breath — and He can enfold any circumstance into His purpose in the world. He promised each of us grace enough for each day and told us to look to the birds as encouragement because they live anxiety-free in the Father’s care. . . . . My life is not wrapped up in the stock market curve or in my knowledge of the future. My joy is to wake up on this day, listen for His nudges, and follow His footprints. . . . .
Live one day at a time and see where grace makes itself known to you. Spend less time trying to get Him to change your circumstances and more time leaning into His love so that trust overwhelms fear.”

ending and beginning

The above left page is my final sketch in this current journal; the hidden page on the right is my list  to send a change of address to when we sold our cabin and moved to the farm for good. Actually, there are still a couple of agencies on the list we need to take care of — a severe cat bite, hospitalization, and home quarantine interrupted the process.

Last summer while taking a load of recycles in to Brenham, I spied some old books with interesting covers thrown in the random paper bin. So our granddaughter Jayna did a “dumpster dive” for me, her being much taller than me. She pulled out 3 books I particularly liked, to be gutted and filled with sketching paper. This one is a science book published in 1872.

Just before packing to move, I tore all my full sized papers down to fit these covers, knowing they’d be easier to move that way. This one will have Fabriano Artistico watercolor paper — I think it is soft-press. The other 2 old book covers are thinner and will have Nideggen paper.

With the journal just finished, I was experimenting with sewing a book block together but inserting it into a temporary leather cover while using it. The cover is a refillable Traveler’s Notebook, found HERE. Now I will need to build a permanent cover for it as well — haven’t decided what it will look like yet. Maybe something dealing with moving, like a map?

Knowing the outer book block pages would be covered by end papers in the binding process, I used them to test pens and make temporary notes. The pencil clip covers my personal contact info in case the journal was lost while carrying it.

new kind of normal workday

The current COVID-19 pandemic has many people staying close to home. This week our son-in-law Michael attended a conference meeting via his laptop computer . . . while sitting beside his swimming pool at the farm. Until it began raining.

Of course, the pool needed a good cleaning (the pool guy showed up the following day) and we saw this nasty intruder in the bottom of the small spa pool.