Traffic Patterns

I decided I needed to finish up this small acrylic painting I had started many moons ago and had put aside. I didn't think to take a picture of the starting point, but I snapped a few along the way. I must say I liked the original idea of roads making a Celtic knot pattern, but for the life of me I can't remember how I planned to do the water crossings. It's obviously quite easy for the road to go over the water, but not so much the other way. Hannah said I needed the cows, even though they are smaller than ants.  You can click to zoom in, or install that fabulous app called Hoverzoom.

Traffic Patterns 8" x 10", acrylic on canvas board

detail

Getting closer

Two days into the renewed effort, with much detail still to go.

That was kind of fun. What's next?

Coyote Pups

We discovered three coyote pups this morning during our walk. I came by later this evening with a real camera and was delighted to find them back home, although only two came out to see us. No sign of the parents on either visit.  I hope they manage to survive without being driven off. The culvert leads to a densely sagebrushed area where they no doubt have their den.

Psychedelica

New digital painting to share with you today. I started out really hating this one, but vowed to keep doing things to it until it came out interesting, even if that included adding a new opaque layer that covered everything I had done so far.  I'm still at the very beginning end of the digital learning curve. It wasn't until the final tweaks that I began to like it. Hope you do too.

Psychedelica - a digital mandala painting

I'm realizing that I need to update my art website - I have been very sporadic in where new work gets posted. Sometimes Tumblr, sometimes Facebook, sometimes here, almost never on my site.

Chicklet Migrates North for the Summer

Whitman commencement ceremonies were held this afternoon.  Hannah just finished her freshman year, so of course was not graduating, but stuck around so she could see the ceremony which featured guest speaker Eric Idle (of Monty Python fame.)  He closed out the event singing Always Look on the Bright Side.

Afterwards we said goodbye to Whitman's Prentiss Hall.

Last night Hannah sent me this photo, and asked if I thought it would all fit in the car. And, "Oh by the way, this doesn't include my clothes or bedding."

All clean and ready for the next kid next fall.

Extremely full Subaru arrived back home safely.

I don't even know how it is possible for time to be passing so quickly.

We'll be tossing the pod on the car and loading her up again to go back in the fall before we know it.

Mandala Pair

Two digital paintings I made this week.

Lazy Chai

With the internet being down from 5am to noon today, you'd have thought I would have gotten some "real" work done. Not so. I did manage to waste over an hour making tea...

I love the chai masala tea that I make, but I don't always feel like going through that whole process of getting the pan dirty and making the whole 8 cup recipe I use. You can see below the Trikona brand masala and tea on the left that I use for the big recipe.  I bought some really expensive black tea with chai spices, and was not totally surprised to see inside the tin that it was (wait for it) black tea with chai spices. I could literally see recognizable bits of cardamom, cinnamon, and clove. And the tea looked remarkably like the Brooke Bond Red Label/Mamri that I use for the base of my recipe.

So, vowing never to pay $12 for 2 ounces of that tea again, I set off with my mini processor to replicate it. I used the spice ingredient list from the masala mix I had bought and was lucky to have all of the spices on hand (I make a lot of curries.)  Ginger was the only problem in that I had it ground or in root form - nothing that could be chopped up to make a dry mix. So I used powdered, and yes, it does settle out a bit.

I adjusted ratios a bit as I tasted it in the only way possible, adding more stuff to the bowl, which resulted in a near double batch to overcome my initial black peppering.  Estimated cost for the batch for the near pound of tea mix is about $3.

Although I used only half the 2lb. Red Label box, you can see that I'm set now for quite a while. And the epitome of laziness for brewing this tea - I use a pyrex measuring cup instead of a teapot.    My Belgian friend Gigi cringes when I tell her this, but I do at least put boiling water in it for 30 seconds and dump it before I put in the tea and the water I'll drink. So, cheers to laziness and to cheapness if the end results get you where you need to be.

Some days having a good cup of tea in hand sets the mood for the entire day.

Celtic Snake Mandala

I've been trying to carve out a few hours each day to work on the drawing tablet.

Octopus Retrospective

Someone suggested I should make a big tentacled Celtic thing for cross stitch. I couldn't agree more.  I've always had a thing for tentacles.  Looking back, I realize I've inked a number of octopi and but have only one small cross stitch with that theme (yet!).  Bring on the cephalopods!

My most recent octo drawing. 

This little painting got printed into cards available on Etsy.

Quick sketch - important to get that caffeine.

From the Celtic Beasties - Halloween of Knot chart

Mostly Off Topic: So, has anyone else seen the #6 Dungeon expansion pack for the Munchkin card game? There is one called the Dungeon of Manga Wrangling, where monsters with tentacles get an extra +5 against females. We do get extra treasure, though, when we kick their butts. :-)

Edited to add: Totally forgot about my very first Ink Circles pattern - Sea Stars.  Big ol' octopus front and center...

And it wasn't much later that I made "Octopus's Garden"...

Apparently I have more of an octopus thing going on than I had originally realized! ;-)

Equal Opportunity

My last post was about some awesome black-ish pens I scored at Staples. I do not wish to imply that I find any one color superior over others, so this post gives a proper shout-out for some wonderful white ink.  Not to be confused with White-Out (correction fluid,) white ink is meant for drawing on colored paper, or adding  back in highlights on black (waterproof) ink.

Mandala drawn with white ink

After finding those BLX pens, I did a little research and found that they came in multiple point sizes, and of course then needed to order some.  Jet Pens had happened to mention them in their current email newsletter, so that was my first stop. From that point, it was only a question of what ELSE to add to my cart to hit the magic "free shipping" threshold. I found this bottle of Kaimei Manga white ink would be perfect. Thank you Jet Pens for the speedy service. Your package arrived just prior to our power going out for a few hours this afternoon. Perfect timing, as I had needed the break from the computer that a bit of painting would provide.

As the reviews indicated, the ink has a bit of a foaming issue, but that can be dealt with. I used a brush and the ink straight out of the bottle to draw this mandala.  The most interesting thing about applying the ink on colored paper was the ink's initial look being watery and not covering well.  It turns out though, as it dried it whitened up to a pleasant level.  The drying time was quick enough that I didn't have any smudging problems as I worked my way around painting each round of petals.  Overall - loved it, and will need to be doing more of this sort of thing.

BLX

And the best new toy in the office today...Uni-ball BLX pens. I found these at Staples yesterday. They are the coolest colors, as advertised they are colors "infused" into black ink. They remind me of the custom colors I blend up for my fountain pens.

You might think that the brand new computer I just bought would be the cool new thing, but it is currently the symbol of all pain.  My laptop died a hard death, having celebrated only its second birthday. It's eventually going to be getting a new motherboard, but I decided I didn't want to be out of commission for as long as it would take to get that turned around. Seems we always need a backup laptop anyway.

Let's just say I'm not in a very good mood right now. Windows 8 is the suckiest interface I've ever seen. I can only hope that it grows on me. I've had the lovely task of attempting to install all of my various software programs and recover data. I'm far from being fully functional, but at least I can write down notes about which drivers failed and such using the coolest new ink colors.