Dispatch From LA

james earl jones spoke to me

combinations of red & white are like heroin to me.  immediate high.  narcotic bliss.  all that.

i found myself charged with excitement yesterday and today while i built my new visual journal.

i was so feverish and swoony that i missed a couple of stitches on the spine.  whoops and who kayres?!

also someone hid my yellow waxed linen, i ran out of the orange, and i had to switch from red to orange sometime in the 3rd inning.  this is one big mother.

i might not have been thinking straight when i started cutting out letters and gluing them on the front.  maybe.  i'm not sure yet.  haven't decided if it's a mistake, a tragedy, or staggering genius.  

the back is my favorite part.  i was going inside the closet to get a roll of paper when the pinwheel i had taped to the closet spoke to me.  

"glue me on the back" it said in a james earl jones sort of voice.  so i did.

i'm thinking i'll incorporate this technique into the travel journal that i make for TICKET TO... class in the fall.  it's going to work perfect for the type of binding i have in mind.  something different.  know what i mean jellybean?

in the unlikely even that you were wondering, the binding on this journal is one i teach in TICKET TO VENICE.  

hope you're having a fabulous saturday.  doing something that makes you feel bright eyed and bushy tailed.  i know i am!

 

 

one flew over the cookoo's nest

pam my crafty gangster friend came over yesterday to play our favorite game:  one flew over the cuckoo's nest visual journal edition.

she brought her watercolors to tempt me with.

i don't think i've been surrounded by so many pretty palettes before!  naturally i wanted to try them all.  so i did!

i always insist upon gifts at our playdates.  in fact if pam doesn't bring stuff for me, i make her drive all the way home and get something.  who wants to do that in LA traffic?  no one that's who.  so she planned ahead and brought lots of good stuff, starting with these rose chintz and currier & ives plates.

"how can i possibly accept these generous thoughtful gifts?" i said as i shoved them into my cabinet and stood in front of it with my arms crossed to indicate that a change of mind on her part would not be an option. 

pam also brought me some gorgeous fabric scraps which i added to my fabric drawer in my art storage cabinet.  sweet ingrid from sweden sent me some beautiful scandinavian-looking scraps in march.  and now my drawer, which was very anemic looking, is full to the gills of bright graphic prints and pretty trims.   i sort of feel like i won the lottery.  i locked the drawer and hid the key after the fabric was safely inside.  one can't be too careful with one's lottery winnings!  

i always love going through pam's giant journals, running my hands over the pages, and staring at all the intricate patterns.  i casually remarked that i should make a BIG journal for a change.  but i rarely work in 2 visual journals at the same time.  pam leaped out of her chair, charged over to my bookcases, and grabbed this huge old postcard scrapbook i got at a flea market in paris a few years ago (for 10 euros!)

"MAKE ONE NOW!!  this can be the cover!"  she screamed at me in her best one-flew-over-the-cookoo's-nest voice.

"but i don't have a back cover," i whined.

then she rummaged around somemore and pulled out a gigantic piece of chipboard i had forgotten about.  "YOU'LL USE THIS!!!"

"but you know i can't start a new journal until i finish the old one," i whined some more.

"SHADDUP AND DO IT!!!!!!!!!!!"

i do not understand how such a little person can have such a big loud bossy-pants voice.  in fact i was just about to say, 'you are not the boss of me!' when i realized it was a good idea.  so i shaddup.

and today i went to work making my enormous journal.

i didn't have enough paper the right size so i just copied what pam did in her journal and sewed together enough strips to make the pages long enough.

now i'm getting ready to stitch the whole thing together.

and that's a true story.  um except i left the part out about the contour drawings we did of each other.  insert laughter track.

more on the GIANT journal tomorrow!

 

 

spoleto travel journal sketchbook

this is it!  the very end of the end of my spoleto travel journal.  i loved documenting my trip this way.  Nothing but fun once I got a little momentum behind me.  this sketching business is pure bliss.  lucky for me i have sort of a blind devotion to almost everything i create.  which.  speaks more to my elephantine ego than the actual quality of my work, but whaddoo i care?  keeping a sketchbook is such a nice way to really sink into the day.  and of course if you're lucky enough to have a funny sketch partner like my sister, all the better!

i'm super excited to keep practicing my sketching at the MAMSOS.  i hear they hired some new instructors that aren't drunks.  we'll just see about that, and well, of course i'll keep you posted.  thanks for staying tuned to my creative adventures.

i wanted to share a few of your creative adventures too so here goes:

DIANE with her nature sketches from montana & maine.  lovely.

TINA went fleamarketing in sweden!

ERIKA has a handsome guest blogger...

JACQUELINE is living the good life in france!

MICHELLE is getting busy with wood blocks!

dear ERIN the friendly cambria librarian got some super cool stamps...

CHRISSY's french garden is bursting into bloom

LISA is inspiring me with her beautiful paintings of ordinary objects!

lots of nice peeps doing cool things.  isn't blogging fun?

a long drive through umbria

i'll let the words in my travel journal do the talking today...

the orchardist

finally finally after 5 or 6 jerky starts i found a good book to read.  i went through half a dozen samples on my kindle before deciding i just wasn't that into them.  oy.  dontcha hate it when that happens?

i am captivated with the orchardist and the young author who wrote it.  the story is based on her quiet, gentle grandfather.

nightwoods was somewhat good, but not riveting or especially memorable.  ditto for the last few books i've read.  haven't picked up a really good one since harold fry.  how goes it with your reading lately?  have anything irresistable you want to tell me about?

*****************

THIS lettering video is highly inspiring, soothing, and lovely.  you who love ink and letterforms.  go watch.

GINA  has a brand new website with dvds she's offering over there that go along with a book she has coming out this year.  a friend of mine took her no excuses class last year and her journal was so cool!  I have yet to sample any of her wares, but her sketching dvd looks tempting!

and finally...my cute friend PAM...has a free download on her blog you might be interested in!

spoleto travel journal sketchbook

sometime in the coming weeks i'll make a short page-flipping journal video so you can see the journal the way i see it.  how the pages interact.  that sort of thing.

i have 9 pages remaining to show you.  

i'm not going to be teaching a sketching class anytime soon, but i have solidified plans for another travel + journal class a la TTV that i'm terribly excited about.  i've been busy working on a fun, easy, and attractive new binding to teach in that class.  more on that as it develops and unfolds.  

for now i will just say that my passage has been booked and my accomodations have been happily secured to this mysterious picturesque city.   when summer draws to a close and the new school year begins this autumn, instead of reporting for duty, i'll be sailing off into the sunset.   a brand spanking new travel journal sketchbook tucked under one arm, an old map in my pocket,  and maybe you stowed away in my suitcase!

umbria sketchbook

happy tuesday everyone!

umbria sketchbook

a few pages in my travel journal have photos & postcards like some of these.  the euphemia church watercolor up above was drawn from a brown & white plaque on the outside of the entrance to the church.  i added all the bright colors myself!  then i decided to add some cheap blue & pale green acrylic craft paint.

carol had her ipad with her every day so sometimes i took pics with it and then emailed them to my ipad.  that was the case with the plaque.

more tomorrow!

umbria travel journal

i love sketching with colored pens.  i also notice that i seem to prefer a thicker tip.  the blue ink above is from the pigma micron 08.

i brought a pencil, but it annoyed me to do a full sketch in pencil then go over it in pen, so i stopped using the pencil after awhile and just took my chances.  this accounts for some of the wonky shapes.  i need to learn to use the pencil to lightly lay in a few lines WITHOUT detailing the entire scene.  

i tried very hard not to paint red stitches on everything.  um.  but it was hard.  the pen above was the water soluble elegant writer. i like how the ink turns blue and pinkish, but i didn't like the calligraphy tip. i learned about that pen and also how to do these faded stenciled letters below from the jacqueline newbold dvd i mentioned in posts before i left for italy.  i learn so much from just watching other people model their process. 

i do do do love this bright blue ink!

it was difficult for me to understand how to draw a landscape with a zillion plants and not draw the zillions of accompanying leaves.  i studied some sketchbooks on flickr before i left and tried to see how different artists approached this.  as with everything else involving a new skill, easier seen than done!

i sat at the window and drew this scene.  very engrossing.  meditative.

 i drew from life half the time and the other half drew from ipad pics i took specifically with the intent to sketch.

this firewood gave me a run for my money!  i sketched it first with a faber castell pitt artist pen.  i've had 2 of these pens, 1 brown, 1 sienna for at least 6 or 7 years and haven't used them so i brought them with me.  i like them more than the pigma microns and when those run out of ink i'll replace them with the pitt pens.

the postcard above is one of only a handful i bought.  usually i buy tons of postcards!  in fact i bought very little on this trip other than a couple of ceramic pieces made in spoleto.  i had some leftover euros from venice and took those to umbria and they lasted me the entire trip and i only used my atm card once to make a purchase!  that's never happened before.  and chances are good that it will never happen again!

italian air kisses to all of you for the comments on my last post.  i had fun reading them and smiling.  and especially thanks to liv for your email from sweden.  she is advising me on possible locations to visit.  frankly, that makes my heart go boom boom boom and my tail go thump thump.

happy mother's day cute peeps!

xo

the good the bad and the ugly

i did my best.  i tried my hardest.  here they are!  the good the bad and the ugly.  since we're all in this together i'll assume you know what i mean when i say "ugly" and you won't rush to comfort me or give me a pep talk.  totally unneccessary.  i love 'em all!  
and in 20 or 30 years when i page through this journal i will know that when i went to spoleto italy in the spring of 2013 i got a real good look at everything around me.

i'm starting at the beginning and just sharing the entire journal.

just one thing before we begin...

your seat can be used as a flotation device.

my umbria sketchbook travel journal

hi everyone!  i'm all excited to begin to show you my umbria sketchbook (travel journal).  as i show the pages i want to "talk" about how this process was different than my usual way of travel journaling.  if you're a long-time reader you know that i usually have a collage-style approach so this was a big departure for me.  i have to tell you i was nervous about my total immersion approach. wow.  you look at other people's sketchbooks on flickr and think 'oh i can do that not a problem'  once i was at the airport trying to draw people i changed my tune! but of course sometimes the simplest things are the most difficult, especially if you don't have the corresponding skill set.  

doing an occasional sketch here and there like i was doing this past year, is quite different than filling a book within a couple of weeks.  and oh i did cram sketching into every single day in umbria.  as many as i could.  and what a high it was!  it seemed like my brain hummed so quietly and i became so still, so utterly absorbed by the process. some sketches were done on location in alleys or cafes. others i started on location and finished the watercoloring part back at the terrace or kitchen table with a fire going. i found my ipad a very useful tool because the screen is so large.  i would take an ipad picture and then later at night i would prop the ipad up on the table and draw into my sketchbook.

my sister also did much more sketching than usual.  i will let you imagine the rollicking commentary that came when we finished each sketch.  kind of along the lines of "you is kind, you is good, you is important" only wildly outrageous.  more like, "you is a unparalled genius, you is a master, you has an exceptional grasp of form and shape."

i grew more confident as the days passed.  i loved watching my travel journal fill up with sketches!

i almost always hated whatever i had sketched immediatly afterwards, but 12 hours later i loved it.  in fact some of the sketches i thought were the worst have turned out to be some of my favorites.  mind you, it's really important that there be a certain level of delusional thinking in order for this to work.

as for supplies, i only brought a few pens, a pencil, eraser, sketchbook, one water brush, a page of reference fonts, and i used my sister's watercolors.  light & easy.  simple.

i sewed my loose signatures into the covers a few days ago.

i don't plan to abandon my other method of keeping a travel journal, but this one was such a fresh change.  obviously, it would be fairly simple to combine both types of journaling in one book,  and there's no reason to choose one way over the other.  it's kind of like learning to speak a new language though. i knew i would not be able to keep a sketchbook while traveling unless i forced myself to do it.  total immersion.  jump in, cuss up a storm, and problem solve the whole way through.

dumb luck

the farmhouse we stayed at in spoleto was the former home of american artist sol lewitt, one of the founders of minimalist & conceptual art.  of course i didn't know this when i booked it.  you can read more about him HERE and HERE.  he died some years back but his wife still owns the property and luckily for us, rents it as a vacation rental. the history of the house isn't mentioned anywhere in the description.  the book and art collection plus the beautiful bones of this house made it one of our very favorites ever.  all of the various cubes and the star in the photos above are by sol lewitt.

if you came with me to venice via TTV then you might know about my encounter with another artist's studio space.  much to my surprise i discovered that i was actually staying at a former studio in venice. i made this discovery on christmas eve when i found an unlocked closet filled with letters, correspondence, blueprints, sales receipts, and wrapped paintings belonging to virgilio lilli, a venetian artist and writer.  originally i made a video about my discovery for the class blog, but later removed it, deciding it was prudent to contact the owners of the apartment (which i've done) before i started yacking about the unlocked closet filled with treasure.  so there you have it TTV members - the "christmas surprise" mystery revealed!  

dumb luck.  i'm surrounded by it.  and i'm not complaining one single bit!

 

 

roaming through umbria

that storm of the last few days that draped her curtain of rain over los angeles has passed.  my garden is grateful and i guess i am too, but i wish she would have stuck around longer.  bah.

we hired franco the caretaker to take us to a couple of umbrian villages - montefalco & bevagna.  when i post my journal pages you'll be able to read about that extremely excellent utterly awesome trip.  i could write an entire chapter just on that one drive over hill and dale.  umbria blossoming like a flower as we drove down her lanes and through her plush fields.

last night i sewed my signatures into the covers of my travel journal which i made before departure.  now i'm adding a few photos and adding some more sketches on the half-dozen or so blank pages i brought home.

i've awoken from my long winter's nap and ideas have begun to take shape in my big ponderous head.  and one giant idea in particular is rattling around.  demanding attention.  i'll keep you posted, gentle reader.  yes i will.

sifting & sorting

cool sunday in los angeles.  rain is coming.  sitting here at dusk sorting through digital stacks of photos.  moving from computer to sketchbook.  did i mention i applied for another 6 month leave of absence?  in january 2014 i'll be heading back to life as a schoolteacher.  but for now that seems like a world away.  as it should.

umbria is moving further away from me.  haven't even been back a week and it's already slipping away.  travels have a way of doing that.  but they're all in here somewhere - constellations rising and setting.  glimmering in the dark.  fueling my dreams.  

this is spoleto

green woods.  filled with chestnut trees and elms and many more trees with names unknown to me.  what i do know is that i am a big fan of all those green canopies we walked beneath to get to our tall white house on the hillside.  as seen here from behind a mysterious locked gate.

maybe you will come to spoleto one day.  maybe in the spring.  and every vine you can imagine will be trying its hardest to capture your attention with their lush and furry climbing arms.  spreading everywhere.  hugging the houses.

falling from balconies and rooftops.

it's very likely that you will see a madonna with a tin foil stole.  maybe a primrose.  little altars everywhere.  you can count on that!

and on hypnotic views where you can watch the sun touch the fields and rooftops.

this was our favorite window.  on our favorite bridge which i mentioned before in the last post.  the ponte delle torri.  we walked past it and paused each time.  the view different according to the weather.  with no umbrellas to our names the hoods of our rainjackets got used to going up and down.  one day we took refuge under a stone overhang while we watched hail pinging down on the path.  but like all the clouds, even the ones holding the hail were fast moving. 

one day my sister walked into town by herself and brought back blood oranges!  and apples!  and ham!  and bread!  and pesto!  and hazlenut cream sandwich cookies!  we ate lunch when she got back home.  it was good.

i had to stay on the terrace and sketch, stare into space, make videos, read, and write.  engage with the personality of the house and the surrounding olive groves.  study the wisteria.

of course it was nice to go across the bridge for 5 course lunches too.

pasta with truffle sauce.

cheesy truffly saucy pastry.

bread soaked in olive oil and rubbed with garlic.  then toasted!

sorry.  i didn't get photos of the rest of the courses, but there was a dessert involving chocolate and pumpkin and panna cotta.  and a main course starring pigeon.  will you believe me if i tell you it tasted like chicken?

we stopped at this park at the top of the hill in town each day to admire the cats.

slow days.  filled with small adventures.  walking, good food.  naps.  sketching.  and one day a long and lovely drive through the countryside with franco the caretaker of the farmhouse!

we chatted with him daily through the kitchen windows.

 he brought us a gift of fresh eggs and wild asparagus.

i have so much to tell you.  i'm getting to that country drive.  and my sketchbook. and plenty of others notes and observations.  bit by bit.

while i was in umbria, one of the class members from TICKET TO VENICE and also someone i featured before on DFLA, took her own trip to venice.  i had such fun following her on instagram while i was gone.  anyway she's blogging about her own time in venice.  i for one am staying tuned!

i get a lot of emails from blog readers about trips they're taking.  if YOU are headed somewhere and are planning to blog about it either while you're there or when you get home please let me know in the comments.  i try and remember to go back and check out everyone's trip reports but i need reminders!

home

i've returned from umbria.  sort of.  got in yesterday.

our internet was spotty and i was completely unplugged for the last few days.  kept my ipad in airplane mode so the borrowed book on my kindle wouldn't be zapped away by the library.  

so begins my lengthy travel log of our spoleto adventure.  we arrived in the late evening.  catching the train from rome was easy and the only mishap along the way was when i collided with a handsome carabinieri with a big gun at the rome airport.  ran smack into him.  mesmerized i suppose by his big gun.  or the long flight.  

um i also nearly fell off the train at the tiburtina station and crash landed into 3 nice italian ladies who were not carrying guns.  that's what happens when you're sitting in an elevated seat and step into the aisle and miss the actual step.  oops.  but the nice ladies righted me and i was good to go.  no further problems developed until the next day when i locked myself inside of a cafe bathroom.  but please, let's not dwell on anymore bull-in-the-chinashop scenarios.  

the next day we woke to picture-perfect weather.  temperatures hovered around 58 degrees.  we began what would be a daily stroll into town.  the farmhouse sits high above spoleto on a wooded hillside.  to reach the ponte delle torri foot bridge into town we first walked down a wooded trail.

this was our first glimpse at the bridge which is built on the remains of an ancient roman aqueduct.  we paused here in the woods to admire the view.  unfortunately we were so busy admiring our surroundings that we didn't take note of which trail we were on.

 later on our way back home we got lost and ended up hiking uphill on a rocky rugged path about an hour north of where we should have turned to get home.  it was an exhausting mistake that we only made once!

as soon as we descended into spoleto i could see that we'd chosen our umbrian hideaway wisely.  it is not a tourist hub.  the tourists that we did see were mostly italian, although we did overhear a few from the UK.   and heard american english spoken once.  i personally love it when i'm not surrounded by other english speakers when i travel.  

it would have been helpful if we had spoken more italian, but as usual we got by with a good italian/english dictionary and lots of gesturing.  the shopkeepers were friendly and eager to assist us in our translations.

there are views in every direction that you look.

   and narrow lanes twisting this way and that.

flowers and vines grew out of walls and tumbled over window boxes.

thick twisted wisteria vines rambled up walls and climbed up balconies and pergolas.

the farmhouse we rented was right out of the pages of a storybook.  the hottub didn't work which was a disappointment, but we quickly got over it.  the views were splendid and the house was really special.

here's one of many views from the property high above spoleto.

i studied the movement of the sunbeams and cloud shadows on the land.  this is the view from the living room windows.

green fields and groves as far as the eye could see.  green green green.

rain clouds gathered then retreated.  over and over.

i hung out the window eager to see what would happen next.

which way the sunlit clouds would blow.

and also there was wine.

and food.

in this case a small mound of strangozzi alla spoletina.  it's a simple rustic dish and if you want to recreate it at home HERE is a recipe i found in food & wine magazine.

a delectable plate of black pork - tender pork in an onion, red wine sauce.

more to come tomorrow!

hello from spoleto!

hello cute people! this is my one and only post from umbria till I get home. sister has been posting daily though so go check her out for more goodies - her link is in my about section. Anyway these photos all taken from my ipad.
a path through the monteluca woods takes us to this bridge which we cross to get to town.

it's gorgeous here with panoramic vistas from our farmhouse, but v. spotty Internet so hopefully this will go through this evening. The walk to town is longer and more difficult than expected, but I'm managing it and its awfully scenic. I hate the last flight of stairs before we get home. Takes every last bit of strength and fortitude to power up the last hill.

we love being in the country. The wisteria and lilacs are in full bloom and fill the grounds with perfume. heady scents. dreamy views.

building fires at night. love to look out over the valley and town below from the living room windows.

I'm instagramming many times a day because its fast and easy. you can click on my IG link in the nav bar if you want to follow our umbrian adventure that way.

hoping for an impressive thunderstorm tonight. we'll just be here sketching, cooking, and staring out the windows.

bye till may 1st!!!

Sent from my iPad

talk amongst yourselves!

i'll be mostly unplugged until may 1st, but i will have my ipad with me with my stack of library books uploaded (!)

so that means i might do a wee bit of instagramming and email checking.  stopping in kansas to visit mama moss then carol & i are flying over to italy together.  10 days of umbrian bliss.  we're planning to soak it all up from our hilltop vista above spoleto.  

hold the fort down for me!   but wait!  there are 952 things i have to tell you before i go.  okay?

i am having a thirty-eight buckeroo sale on all of my classes.  picture this in your mind when and if you purchase.  you'll need a split screen for this.  on the left side there is you head thrown back and laughing like a hyena.  utterly pleased with yourself for getting this football stadium-sized class for a taco-sized price.  on the right side there is me inside an italian paper store buying 3 sheets of drop-dead gorgeous paper.  this 38-special sale ends when my trip ends - 5/1

my sister sent me THIS link to the fabulous brain pickings sunday edition which i hadn't seen yet.

it's about this book:

do take note of all the peachy keen extra groovy hand-illustrated diagrams & cats.  i especially loved the article because it reminded me of when buck moss went missing for 5 and a half weeks, but ended up being in my neighbor's chimney the whole time.  damn i loved that cat.  still do.  always will.  

sons of guns!  lookit my peaches!  i've got jillions of them lining the branches of my baby fruit cocktail tree.

i've reached a tentative agreement with the squirrel union.  they are going to lay off the peaches this summer in exchange for a squirrel convention i'm allowing to be held in the oak trees in september.  hope this doesn't turn out to be a big mistake.

just a few weeks ago the epi buds were just beginning to get big.

then BAM!  they all opened at once.

so pretty.  so pink.

sigh.  if you made it this far you've ALMOST reached the end of this long-winded post...  it's not over yet i have to tell you about a couple of sketchy things first.

thing #1 - this book!

so thorougly delicious.  the writing is funny.  the little illustrations are divine.

yum

okay and the actual very last single solitary thing before i go.

thing #2 my crazy news people.  whoever invented the pause button must have been a sketcher.

meet you back here on may 1st!  talk amongst yourselves until i get back.

xo

sketchy business

okay on to my latest sketches in my new 9 by 9 sketchbook.

practice practice practice.  my mantra.

cannot get enough of the water soluble pens.

and finally the first page of my travel journal ...  i'll add writing later.

more go-to inspirational sketch masters!

cute judy told me about MARINA and she might just be my new favorite.  her style is wonderfully appealing to my roughshod aesthetic.

THESE pages by joseph are also captivating!

my friend suzanne told me about JENNIFER.  another style i think is the shiz.

after i mentioned jacqueline's dvd in the last post, someone mentioned her free webinar in the comments.  it's 45 minutes long and super helpful for someone wanting to incorporate lots of sketching in their travel journal.   

 

my umbrian sketchbook takes form!

i finished preparing my signatures for travel. 

had lots of leftover vintage italian envelopes from TICKET TO VENICE.  so i used all the little pieces here and there on the pages.  swiped some gesso over the top and i will write & sketch over the page in umbria with my ambitious landscape, piazza, duomo sketches.  i've probably gotten in way over my head but what the hell.  may as well do something artistically that frightens me every now and then.

i know that you, my loyal verizon team cheerleaders, will be kind even if i come home with a big soupy second grade mess.

i included quite a few fold-out flap pages that i sewed on by machine.  

and i added some light watercolor washes...on top of which i will compose sweeping vistas of olive groves.  or maybe just cartoony scenes of my sister in the hot tub.

it's hard to say what i will come home with in my suitcase.

everyday i will pop a signature in my bag and head out for a day of sketching adventure. 

i've been looking at a lot of sketch blogs.  i love THIS one because tina started sketching not too long ago and i find it inspiring.    i also like jana's style HERE and virginia's flicker stream HERE.    so many juicy examples to admire.  in addition to all of those, last week i ordered jacqueline newbold's dvd - art journals on the go.  i find it really useful for a beginner who wants to keep a travel journal/sketchbook.  i've watched it twice so far!  

i'm looking into some local classes and in the meantime i ordered a watercolor course on dvd.  and...it just arrived in the mail today so you know what i'll be doing tonight!  i'll be forthcoming with the title if i like it.

borrowing kindle books

i laughed my way through leif enger's latest offering.  the language is old-fashioned and beautiful.  the way he strings together words is clever.  completely & unexpectedly enjoyable.  witty.

i bought the used hardback $1 version on amazon because i am sick to death of paying the ridiculously high kindle prices.  which is why i decided for once and for all to figure out how to borrow books for my kindle.  i marched straight to my public library (virtually, you understand) and searched for my next book.  then i clicked on ebook as my choice of format whereupon i was sent to amazon to complete my library lending experience.  all i had to do at amazon was direct the download to my ipad.  

the only part of borrowing ebooks that i don't understand is why there is a due date.   in 3 weeks time nightwoods is set to disappear from my ipad.  of course i can always check it out again so no big deal.   

some libraries don't offer ebooks for kindles, but many do so it's worth checking.

i also checked out a non-fiction ebook:

francis took refuge in the woods where our rented umbrian farmhouse is located so i'm interested in reading about his travels, especially in umbria.  i thought the premise of the book looked interesting:

On the Road with Francis of Assisi offers a unique and lively travelogue of parallel journeys: that of Francis of Assisi on his way to sainthood in the thirteenth century, and that of author Linda Bird Francke, who followed his path through the beauty of central and coastal Italy

week no. 12

i just love sketching with the water soluble pens!

i went to GOULET PENS to get my first ever Lamy Safari with a broad black nib.  i got about 10 samples of different colors of ink, a DIY hypodermic refill contraption, and a cartridge converter.  I highly recommend the hypodermic needle if you've ever fantasized about telling someone to drop their drawers and bend over to get their medicine.  extracting the ink from the little tubes and inserting it into the cartridges is an extremely excellent way to spend time on a sunday morning.  

in venice i picked up the pelikan pen and some extra cartridges for super cheap.  today i popped out the cartridge and easily refilled it with terra di sienna ink.  the ink samples are very generous and will easily fill up 2 cartridges.  a great inexpensive way to try out lots of ink before paying the big bucks for a bottle.  i have plenty of luscious jewel-toned inks i can't wait to sketch with!

the varsity pens are disposable but when they run out of ink i plan to figure out how to refill them too.

hope you are putting a fine polish on your sunday in your part of the world.  i'll just be here.  playing doctor with my pens.

WOW

i did my best.  that's all i can say.  sketching in a crowd of people is difficult.  sketching in a crowd of people with other people looking over your shoulder is more difficult.  and doing all of that while your sister is taking a billion photos of you is the absolute worst.  but i persevered.  

oh.  um.  wa WOW na.  total accident.

sketching the swinging bridge was much more enjoyable.  i sat alone on a bench under a grove of trees.  a few people smiled at me, but no one approached.  i am totally out of my element in the watercolor sketching landscape cityscape department.  but i don't let my lack of skill dampen my enthusiasm.  don't ask about the bonfire that's not a bonfire or the person with no feet.

skill schmill.

i feel much more capable drawing individual parts or objects.  but i want more than parts in my umbria travel journal.  i want some wholes too.  know what i mean, jellybean?

i've been resisting the urge to buy some daniel smith watercolors.  i'm just going to keep using my little sakura koi travel set.  i've had it a year and it's getting a little ragged, but produces some rich colors especially when i mix my own shades.

i've had the tombow markers for a long time and only just realized i could put a wet brush over them and get some nice watercolory effects.  i'll be taking a few of those to italy along with some other watersoluble pencils and pens i got recently.  when i pack up my supplies i'll show you every single solitary thing i'm taking with me.  i'll also show you the signatures when i finish prepping them.  not exactly sure  what i'll do, but i know when sit down with the pages in front of me the mental circuit board in my head will start lighting up.  or blow a fuse. either one.

robin just posted THIS article (in the comments) by our beloved Roger Ebert on why we can all draw.  oh it is a GOOD read!  an excerpt below...

"I found this was a benefit that rendered the quality of my drawings irrelevant. Whether they were good or bad had nothing to do with their most valuable asset: They were a means of experiencing a place or a moment more deeply. The practice had another merit. It dropped me out of time. I would begin a sketch or watercolor and fall into a waking reverie. Words left my mind. A zone of concentration formed. I didn't think a tree or a window. I didn't think deliberately at all. My eyes saw and my fingers moved and the drawing happened. "

wilderness temple

we have returned from the forest cathedral called yosemite.  it was glorious!  i have not been in the spring and so had not seen the yosemite and bridalveil falls roaring with water.  walking up the path and feeling the wind and the mist and hearing the thunder of those waterfalls.  pretty spectacular.  oh yes!

my sister dottie took all of these photos because i didn't take a single one.  but i did take in everything with my eyes which was so nice for a change.  so so nice.  

i did a few sketches and enjoyed the quiet study of the landscape.  we walked and picnicked and sat on beds of pine needles next to the wide merced river filled with snowmelt -  clear swells of fast moving water gold, green, with cobalt shadows on the surface that reflected sky.

and now i am home.  settling in for the next 10 days or so until i'm off on my next adventure.  i am so grateful that i can return from a lovely trip and not have to start thinking about how many days i have before i have to return to work.  life feels like a juicy peach right now and i'm savoring every second.

Benediction

I finished reading about the good people of Holt, the fictionalized western Kansas town, that is the setting of Benediction.  A quiet story that was mostly very good.  But some of the characters felt wooden.  The preacher in particular was pure caricature.  Annoyingly so.  I felt like I was being schooled at times.  Not complex enough for me to be head-over-heels I'm afraid, but still worthy of a read.   

I like to feel overcome by a story.  For certain lines to feel so urgent, so alive, I have to stop and write them down.  And keep close.   I didn't feel that way even once during Benediction, even though there were some outstanding scenes.  Your mileage may vary.

Now I'm starting either Nightwoods or So Brave, So Young, and So Handsome.  

Sink your teeth into anything good lately?