NaPoWriMo 2023 Day 3

So windy out today – there will be nothing of March or winter for that matter left to see. Cleaned out desk drawer, drew the cat.

Already monday
and i’ve cleaned without coffee
now we’re in brunch mode

cleaning out drawers
the usual dried out pens
paperclips and dust

truth about cleaning
tidiness doesn’t last
without intent

toss junk no mercy
return small memories
to be found again

NaPoWriMo 2023 Day 3

for the quote box

Tip o’ the hat to James Gurney and his fine painting vlog:

The grandest and simplest things contain worlds within worlds… seeing them is a metter of the right point of view, and your painter’s eye is the special portal to such sights. — Richard Schmid

On a different note, (August) Poetry Postcard Fest is nigh upon us and the other night my brain went on the fritz and instead of sleeping it decided that I better remember how to write at least haiku… I finally gave up and turned on the light until we’d gotten some written down. Seriously brain, you come up with some weird stuff sometimes.

Anyway I have my cards ready to go for two groups and a general plan. On September 1 there’s a suggestion that we write an epic day-long poem, and I’m hoping that the brain lets me sleep some before that. Otherwise, I’ll be the one napping that day!

for the quote box

NaPoWriMo – April Thirtieth Already

Lots of wind, my first growler (go ahead, you can laugh, I live to entertain), and other things. What an April it has been and now onto May. You may continue to see some poems here for awhile until the pandemic winds change things around again. I’ve blended this year’s NaPoWriMo into some early cards for August PoPo so more to come.

Or until the DSL lines come crashing down altogether.

The end of April. Long month of grey days
with golden double lines – stay where you are
it warns as it dips and winds around town.
Wind is pummeling the house. Isn’t that
more like March with its half-remembered kites?
And yet, here we are, blown around like
teenagers with an abundance of so
much everything but no experience
to hang it all on, flailing, some flying
lightly, scooping the sky, slurping up
the tough cord, stringing it as clothesline
doing a windy tango of its own
How’s the weather up there, the cord-paying
hand telegraphs, hoping for a tugged reply.

NaPoWriMo – April Thirtieth Already

World Watercolor Month Day #7, Out and Around

SO BRIGHT and shiny this morning! Stopped to see this in New Lebanon, NY. Perhaps they fixed it up for the recent anniversary year – the water is running and the sign looks new.

Sat and drew this (and not the George Rickey kinetic sculpture in the yard!) while sipping coffee.

Then over to do value sketches the Church of Our Savior, Episcopal. (Note to self: leave ample room between two small areas just in case you have to go outside the lines. Yes, I did a little digital doctoring on the last view.)

Too hot now to be outside – will go for an evening paint hopefully.

Inspiration is a byproduct of discipline… simply getting up everyday and planning, plotting, sketching, setting up or actually applying paint to a painting.— Beverly Claridge

World Watercolor Month Day #7, Out and Around

NaPoWriMo 2019 – Day Twenty-Three

After a day – and I mean a full working kind of day – drawing people at the mall:

Today I drew page after page
of people, many many people
walking, sitting, talking
leaning, holding hands people.
I drew them to find out
what do they look like
when they move and stand?
how do their parts fit together?
what makes them interesting
and different and yet the same?
I want to show my world
and while it’s often views
of hills and trees
It must have people in it,
And I’m in it too.

To see all of the pages:

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NaPoWriMo 2019 – Day Twenty-Three

Still hot, no paint today

I did stop at the local lake/reservoir and did a very fast sketch because folks 11:15 am on a day that it is 90F and there’s no real shade… let’s just say it was hot. Later at work I did an iPad cloud study.

Here’s the whole view, with clouds

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Tuesday This and That and the Other and Words

Today was my day off and I’m sure I could have found a lot of useful things to do, but oh well. I got some coffee and then I found a place to sit and sat and wrote for a long time. I piled up a lot of words. I was pooped at the end but I got a lot of story told.

Then I came home, and having gotten a new postcard, I sat down to add it to my little pile of postcards and to put a tick by the senders name. I’m not all weepy about getting or not getting cards but it’s always nice to get one and being that I check off my own cards as I send them out I just do the same for the incoming cards. Anyway here are the cards in the pile at the moment:

Monday at work, while waiting for someone to show up for a class, my coworker handed me an iPad Pro and said here, draw something. So I did.

This was the sky I saw tonight.

And finally (see what happens when you spend too much time stringing words together?) awhile ago I bought two of these fine Palamino Blackwing pencil sharpeners. They’re designed to put a looooong point on the working bit of the pencil. The bit that’s known as “the lead”. The second one I bought the nice young woman at the art supply store told me, very excitedly, about how the inside held two more blades. Now I don’t really know where I’d easily get more blades but I’ll worry about that when the time comes and I have to start replacing blades.

However, when emptying the trimmings of my fine pencils (I sharpened all my drawing pencils from HB to 6B the other night) tonight I noticed this message inside. I don’t think it wants me to stop sharpening my pencils… but now I might have to do a little more research.

My Day with Art

I went to The Clark today, having asked for a day off so I could go to the lecture opening the new exhibit there – Drawn from Greatness. There were drawings from the 15th century and up to current times (Pollack, Picasso, Kelly etc). Big selection of the impressionists – two pages of Van Gogh letters (with drawings) and a drawing. Sketchbooks which had belonged to Cezanne and Degas. Lots of ink and wash, watercolor, gouache, chalk, graphite, different papers, techniques. Part of the exhibit was in a different part of the building, So I wandered over.

First couple very interesting. The one behind me, lovely. Next one… hmmm quite interesting. Strangely familiar, a little cartoonish but very skilled and unique style… freaking William Blake. Around the corner from that was a, as the curator noted, “showstopper” by Victor Hugo. Yes THAT Victor Hugo.

I saved getting the catalogue for another visit and perusal. It’s about big enough to be made into a coffee table but it does look very complete. I did come home with this, thinking it would be a good read and good company for my copy of The Hours of Catherine of Cleves…

Remember that this time of year The Clark is closed on Mondays! If you end up there by mistake you can wander over to the Williams College Museum of Art and see other interesting things. (Ask me how I know that!)

NaPoWriMo, Day Twenty-nine

There was a lot of this “No one could have known…” floating around yesterday as a meme, but mine took a different path.

No one could have known that a childhood and
all could have landed past middle-age in
a red-hot moment and without any fuss.
No one could have known that after romance
and the pain and the trying to make it work
that love can end and life goes on anyway
No one could have known that regret is real
regret is real and forgiveness so hard
to forgive the past harder, to let go
No one could have known that forgiveness
is sometimes just accepting the facts
and cutting loose the pain, being free
No one could have known that all lessons done
leave plenty of room for more lessons to come.

What I Did Today

Got to work too early so I sat in my car and admired the really big gulls up on the mall roof for a little bit and when that had gone on too long I did this:

Not sure why the gnome looks so crazy-eyed. Looks like he’s coming home with a bag of stuff after a wild night out.