Sticks, Stones, and Paper Stew Blog

Cooling the dogs

Moby has been sacked out all day after a warm morning walk. A friend suggested giving him his own pool to play in. Duh! Why hadn’t my brain clicked into this great cooling technique??? I pulled out something close to a pool, a largish bin used for some of my projects. It did the trick. He spent the next 10 minutes trying to paw out all of the water going in! This was his chance to cool off his dogs after the warm walk. Plus he received a big hose down as well. Happy dog for the rest of the day! The sketch was created while he dozed on his favorite purple chair. I think I prefer dog eyes to feet. Feet are tough!

I’ve been spending most of my days down in Eugene. It ends up being a 100 mile/day journey, but today I took a break from dismantling the house. Good thing too since it maxed out at 97 (36 for the rest of the world). The temp on my back deck made it to 100. Fans are set up and moving air, but not helping that much. Hopefully a little wind will pick up and cool things down tonight.

The above photo is of my cooling off drink creation: basil lemonade. Muddle basil with sugar, add squeezed lemon juice, cold water and ice. Yummy! Of course, I know some of my friends/family find basil in drinks revolting. All I can say is if you like lavender lemonade, you might give basil a try! Mint might be good too….

More Eugene tomorrow and the weather report says it will be cooler. I hope they are right!

🙂

Filling in the page

Last night I was too tired and hot to even consider picking up a pencil. My day had been filled with more time in Eugene working on the house. Dinner didn’t even come together until after 9pm, but those pesto turkey burgers were yummy! Moby’s next image came this morning as I worked on my cup of coffee. Not a bunch of time to draw, but enough to capture another angle. Below is an image of the open sketchbook. Still have some areas to keep working more drawings into.

🙂

Dog sketch

Slowly I’ve started to incorporate more of the dogs head into the sketch, trying to figure out how the snout works in relation to the eyes and then moving into the ear zone. It still has a way to go, but that’s fine. More practice to come. Maybe next week I’ll branch out into dog noses or something. 😉

Wednesday night we went to a kick ass show in Eugene. David Byrne and St. Vincent rocked the Cuthbert Amphitheater! So glad to have had ear plugs. Being right in front of the speaker bank was a chest pounding experience! The music was great and I was mesmerized by just watching the 9 brass players move all over the stage. And yes, he did play a few classic numbers from The Talking Heads. Ahh, it brought back memories…

Another Eye

Another Moby dog eye sketch from last night. I spent the day cleaning and disassembling my dad’s work room and made some serious progress. His studio space and my sister’s old room are empty! (For those who don’t know me, I’m in the process of clearing out my parents house after their deaths) Last night I felt drained and my body & feet ached, but I forced myself to sit down and create something. This might be my new form of art therapy, making myself do a small drawing a day.

The weather has finally cooled down and we had threats of thunderstorms yesterday. All I experienced was rain, nice clouds and higher humidity.Today, I’m looking forward to meeting up with an old friend for coffee and spending the day coordinating more house stuff from 50 miles away. Oh, and trying to figure out what happened to my old computer…. it’s seriously not working right! Argh! It’s always something….

Oh, if you want to see images of Moby, just check the Furballs & Feathers page. I have images of my current critter load there.

🙂

Moby’s Eye

Moby's Eye

I’m probably going to bore you guys to tears with the dog eye images. Eyes have always been of interest to me and it seems like doing sketches will help with something down the line. Since Mr Moby is always available, he will be my main subject. For this image, I was waiting around for Zaffa’s mom to come retrieve her old friend and thought “I’ve got to do another drawing!” Mechanical pencil and sketch book were available. Pretty simple stuff, but seriously challenging for my brain to wrap around all the surface changes around the eye & eyelid. Part of me really wants to sculpt it but maybe these will end up as drypoint studies… Time will tell!

🙂

Rivers III

Today I finally feel like my body has recovered from last weeks endevors. So, I spent the morning cutting chunks of dried branches for the twigs project…

And then proceeded to finish burning and waxing of Rivers III, the commissioned piece. Always dicey during the waxing process but I think it looks pretty good. Now I need to get it in for a professional picture and off to it’s new home.

Zaffa’s Eye

It’s not that often we are asked by friends to take on one of their dogs as a house guest. Most often it’s Ms Maggie, the border collie, who comes to visit. This week it’s a senior dog named Zaffa. She had never been to our place or met any of our household critter population. Her senior ways remind us of our departed George. Unfortunately, she and Mr Moby had a bit of a kerfuffle Saturday morning. Moby loves to play tug-o-war with Maggie. Zaffa, definitely not a Maggie, had other opinions on the game. Needless to say, she ended up with a scratch over her eye and an irritated inner eyelid. I was glad her vet was open so things could be checked (eye stain and the works). No scratch to the cornea but just the bit that was poked by a clump of wayward hair. She is now on eye ointment for a week. I think her eyelid already had a slight tendency to turn out, but not to this extent. At least today it’s pink again and less swollen. Not the best thing to have happen while her mom is away selling art.

Created in my red Vang sketchbook with Prismacolor pencils. 3″x4″

Tea Break & DMV

I’ve not been doing a speck of art for well over a week. Instead, I’ve been swamped with trying to get serious about clearing out the old homestead. Yuck! Yesterday, I was in melt down mode after some painful emails with family and spending a wasted 1.5 hrs in line at DMV (department of motor vehicle). Over a month ago I received one story of how to deal with the paperwork. Wednesday, I received a “sorry, you can’t turn that in without all the other inheritance affidavits and vehicle transfer paperwork”. What a pain! I should have brought a sketch book, but ended up using my file folder to doodle on.

Obviously, I didn’t get very far with the sketches, but it did help pass some of the time. Eventually I was off to Eugene. After driving to the next office visit (much shorter than DMV!), I could finally go work at the house.

I’m horrible at taking breaks when working. On Tuesday, my friend Rosie reminded me to take tea breaks during the day. She also recommended cake to accompany tea. I could handle that! So, around 3 I pulled up a chair and took a load off my tired dogs and enjoyed my break. I also pulled up a scrap of paper to sketch the moment. Mug of tea and a square of chocolate (gluten free) cake on a plastic lid. Aerosmith happened to be playing on the radio and it just reminded me of her! Thanks!

Today, I’m hanging at MY house and dog sitting for a friend. Our senior addition will be with us thru the weekend while her mom sells art at the Oregon Country Fair. Zaffa and Moby are having arguments over the bones in the house. There are only about 10 bones strewn around the upstairs…

🙂

Ball point pens were used for both sketches . Second sketch was on the back of crumpled computer paper.

Fireworks & Burning

Last night, while others were out enjoying fireworks and merriment of our country’s independence, I spent it holding my dogs “paw” while he struggled through over two hours of explosions. In hindsight, I should have requested drugs from the vet well before that night. Not everyone in our surrounding area shoots off fireworks. You never know how many illegal fireworks have purchased in other states for this occasion. Will the new renters next door be wild and crazy? Will the gun fanatics across the street from them be firing off other things? Not much I could do except hang tight with the boy. So what did I do? To overcome some of the smaller noises I popped in a good movie with dramatic music (The Mummy Returns), cranked the stereo and sat on the floor of the bedroom, the fan on high and Moby shut in with me. He discovered comfort by curling up in the bottom of Dave’s closet. When we had to venture out of the bedroom around 11pm, he went and hid in the shower. Pretty amazing since he totally hates the shower! But we made it. Hopefully folks have gotten it out of their system until New Years.

80# of frightened dog. Oh Moby, you still surprise me daily!

On the 5th of July, birthday of my uncle Hal (happy 81 to you!), I spent it burning sections of paper. Things have been moving slowly forward again with the commission. This part takes time and patience to avoid hand cramps.

Heat Shift & Moths

For some reason, I felt our weather would remain rainy and drab all summer. Passing over Solstice, we seemed to shift into what the rest of the country has been experiencing. Hot! Ok, so Oregon doesn’t get really hot like Arizona, Texas, and other points south, but hitting over 90 (34C at the house) for multiple days is notable. Coping with hot weather when one feels cruddy isn’t easy. Fortunately, the downstairs studio space is lusciously cool! Ahhh, just as long as I don’t have to wander around much.

The moth/butterfly photos are from last week. It was resting in a shady place while I ran to find the camera. I’ve not seen this variety before and have been trying to go through the id key systems online with no luck. It’s certainly distinctive with the orange head and striped abdomen. Anyone know what type it is? It’s probably something very common that I’ve overlooked for years.