After grocery shopping, sat in the cafe for a while, talking and watching the people and cars go by. I had an iced coffee; my daughter had a butter croissant. We drew and painted, and then we walked home.
April 2006 Archives
Late Friday night, and the house is quiet. Hoping to draw outside tomorrow, as looking back on recent drawings, you'd scarcely know that it's spring...
I normally look right past this lamp, noticing only the abstract painting which hangs behind it, but today the base of the lamp had aligned itself to the edge of the painting, and I found myself wanting to study the shapes.
When my hands are really dry, as they are today, the bottle of hand lotion takes on a celestial glow - the aura of a distant desert mirage - an apparition of impossible delight, promising to quench - um... no, no, no. it's just that typing on a laptop and moisturizer don't mix well, so I can't put on any more until I'm done making up this entry.
Maybe it was the sudden chill and wetness in today's weather that drew me back to these apples. I think of them as an autumn fruit, yet here they are, full of yellow and red and lightness.
You don't know how much you rely on your email and web server until they go down, come back up again briefly, and then go down again... but whatever the issue, my provider is up and running again, and so is woolgathering. Sorry for the interruptions!
I spent some time looking at this apple while I was offline.
Three tulips, all from my garden.
The doll has fallen over since last night. I am sitting in a different chair. Why such a dark image on a lovely day? I don't know.
Doll, left to sit on the hearth, long after everyone else has gone upstairs. She's looking toward me, and I can't tell whether she's puzzled or sympathetic.
Lilacs began to bloom today.
Imagine my surprise when I went to brush my teeth tonight and found the sink full of water balloons. A hot day. Someone was prepared... and then interrupted.
I llike the way the stem of this blossom has become a wild crooked neck, a petal-driven stunt plane, banking and swooping toward me.
Orange sock with dark pink stripes (not mine).
Stretching out after a busy three-day weekend - I looked over at my foot on the coffee table and saw how elongated and twisted it seemed from my angle in the corner of the sofa, and began to draw. Ink and then very wet gouache dashed on and blotted and dashed again until the layers of color felt right.
A child's drawing of a tree? an arrow? your cursor? is preserved for the moment on a bookshelf in the living room.
After a dinner of takeout food with friends the stoneware French mustard jar is still on the table. The mustard is a memory; now the jar holds our motley collection of chopsticks.
A serious house fire in the next block has me thinking about fragility tonight. I gather that no one was hurt, thankfully, but the house may be difficult to salvage.
Narcissus 'Thalia' opened today. One of my favorite flowers. Searching for the spelling of the name, I find that they opened a few days earlier last year.
This turned up in the back of my desk, containing one very tarnished Sacajawea dollar and twelve cents.
Outside the window of my office is a nest - long abandoned, and probably only a squirrel's nest, or so we thought, my office mate and I. Lately it has been visited by a robin, who was poking around and arranging things today. The tree is bursting into bloom and leaf, the days are warming. Through the branches you can still see the houses on the other side of the parking lot, but not for much longer.
Drawing with the subject of the drawing while making the drawing. Yes, I'm left-handed.
Bought today, but not yet cooked... another sign of spring.
Sitting in the sun with my youngest child at a cafe today: "Do I have time to draw?" "Yes," she said. "I have a lot of ice cream." And then various friends stopped to talk and the sun went in and out behind the clouds and the ice cream was gone. Time to run the rest of our errands on the way home. Saturday afternoon. (Fountain pen and gouache.)
Looking down on my bag - did I forget... (A rehearsal of objects before I leave the house.)
On April Fools' Day, with a nod toward poisson d'avril, I put plastic goldfish in the "fish" soup. (The soup was actually roasted red pepper and fennel, from the new Joy of Cooking
Pair of boots on the corner of the rug. These are extremely comfortable - and I found them at my favorite Goodwill, virtually unworn, for less than five dollars.
Playing with fountain pen and then washes of gouache. Suddenly the pillow seemed very important and I needed to make it another color.
Petals fallen from the flowers I drew last week. Just brushed out from behind the library books on the table. I pause to draw them. Not faces in the Metro, but each with its own character, nonetheless.
No ink or pencil. Decided to try looking at this tulip from the negative space in the center on out, and began painting it that way. Gouache.
Orange tulips, late at night.
