The Beat of a Different Drum

I wish I knew what goes on in Gimpy's mind. When the dogs start from anywhere in the house to go outside, they have to pass between the dining area and the kitchen, go into the den, then turn left to go out the door onto the patio. Three of the four do it just that way. Gimpy, however, skips that first left turn, runs straight ahead to pass between the futon and the cedar chest, steps up twelve inches onto the hearth, then turns left, steps down, passes by the large dog crate and turns right, ready to burst out the door. He  doesn't choose this crazy path always, but he does the majority of the time.

Here, I drew this floor plan of my (overcrowded) den for those of you who prefer pictures to words: 

He also has his own convoluted route to get back inside from the backyard: 

I"m pretty sure I know the reasoning behind his chosen path in this instance: anole lizards hang out on the patio furniture. They're only there in warm weather, but Gimpy does it this way in winter, too, just in case. (Sometimes he shortcuts under the table.)

(Speaking of convoluted, those little squares placed in odd positions near the round patio table in the second drawing represent chairs positioned just where we like 'em. I like to sit in one chair and prop my feet in another one, symmetry be hanged! We don't arrange them nicely unless company is coming.)

Gimpy's eating habits are peculiar, too. We separate the four dogs at feeding time because Lucy is greedy, doesn't take time to chew, and doesn't mind eating out of someone else's bowl. She and her bowl get locked in the hall behind a gate until Levi and Oliver are finished. Gimpy eats in the crate with the door closed. The gist of the long story behind that is that before we got him, he shared a home with his Golden Retriever father, who intimidated him and wouldn't let him eat. He was getting skinny. Here, closed in the crate, he can feel safe that no one will interfere with him during his dinner. That worked fine for a long time, but he's been taking things a step further recently. Now, when I put him and his bowl in the crate, he faces away from the bowl, lies down and waits. Only when the three other dogs have all cleaned their bowls and have gathered around his crate does he stand up and begin to eat. He does it very slowly, as if he's relishing every bite, and he glances up now and then to make sure the other dogs are still watching him. I'm pretty sure that if he could talk, he'd be saying, "NA-NA-na-NA-na-na."

I love Gimpy. He's funny, the most clownish of the four dogs, and the cuddliest, most affectionate, too. He gives far more chin licks and tail wags than the others do. He also happens to be the most jealous: if one of the other dogs is getting hugs or skritches, it's only a matter of seconds before Gimpy shows up and squirms into the middle of the action. It's sweet and funny when it happens, but we all know jealousy isn't a particularly good trait. He's sneaky, too. If I tell Levi to stop licking or scratching, Levi stops it. If I tell Gimpy the same thing, he gives me a dirty look, then gets up and goes around the corner where I can't see him.

I love him even more for his weirdness.

To Quote John Lennon: "Imagine..."

Stopped at a traffic light on the way to Life Writing class yesterday, I glanced up at the birds on the utility lines overhead and saw two doves, side by side, with a red-tail hawk perched just below and a foot or two to the right of them. All three of them were watching the cars pass by, showing neither fear of nor interest in each other.

I wanted to share with you the promise I perceived in that avian symbol of world peace, but there I was, without my camera. Obviously, I'm not the star student in the Drawing 101 class, but I have now recorded that tranquil scene for posterity:

Just imagine.

School Days Again

Earlier this year I enrolled in two courses: a third series of the Life Writing classes I've enjoyed so much and Drawing 101, taught by the talented instructor of the Acrylics Exploration class I took last year. Those two, two-hour courses started last week, and they, along with their homework assignments, are eating into my blogging time in a big way. But I love them. God, I love school. Always have.

The first two Life Writing lessons have focused on research skills, which we certainly need to know, but I hope we'll soon get back to writing exercises. I'm always fascinated by the diversity of stories generated by different individuals' interpretations of an assigned topic. If my life had been more interesting, perhaps I'd consider writing a book about it, in which case the research skills would come in handy. Unfortunately, my life is best described in a series of anecdotes that skip over all the boring parts.

I decided to take the Drawing 101 class to gain a better understanding of how to use light and shadow, perspective, and other techniques that will help with painting. I haven't painted a single time since the end of last year's classes, but I intend to take it up again soon. (I even ordered an easel yesterday, mostly to make my order large enough to get free shipping, but I do think an easel will help me keep my sleeves out of the paint.) Anyway, we've only had one drawing lesson, and I've already decided I like painting better, mostly because paint covers the surface a lot quicker than pencil marks do. I do have to give our instructor credit and say I'm impressed by how much she taught us in just one class. About half an hour into it, she handed out realistic plastic oranges and asked us to sketch them. Here's my rough attempt:

I realize this is too long for an orange, but that's what it is:

an orange with lights shining on it from several directions.

For the next half hour she talked to us about lights and shadows, how to give a drawn object dimension, and what kind of pencils and other tools to use for different drawing tasks. Then we tried drawing the oranges again:

Still not a great-looking orange, but

definitely better than the first try.

After further explanations and demonstrations, she assigned us homework: "Go home and get a fruit or a vegetable--something your brain is already familiar with--and draw it." Here's the vegetable drawing I did this morning:

I'm kind of pleased with this bell pepper. It's a long way,

from perfect, but I think it shows a lot of improvement,

especially after only two hours of classroom instruction. 

Do you see why I like school? Learning something new is so much fun, no matter how old you are.

Reset

Aaaaand...the clock has started ticking down a brand new year. Whoopee!

I've written here before that the fallacious do-over concept makes New Year's Day my favorite holiday. This year will be better, I declare every year, and usually I feel that way the whole day long on January 1st.

This year I didn't. I had the familiar, warm, fuzzy sense of anticipation on New Year's Eve, but I woke up the next morning feeling distinctly...well...pissy. The weather was cold, and the sky was dull gray and drizzly (pissy, too) just like it's been for most of the last week. I wanted sunshine and sparkly blue skies with fluffy, optimistic clouds scooting across them. I wanted bluebirds singing and got only the raucous cawing of a couple of old crows.

My younger daughter and her husband had invited us over for a traditional New Year's Day meal, so we went, even though I didn't feel fit for company and was afraid I'd cast a pall over the whole event. Instead, the great company lifted my bad mood higher and higher as the day went on. The good food didn't hurt anything, either (the diet didn't start again until today).

There wasn't a big crowd like there was at Christmas, just four adults for the meal, plus two granddaughters and a great-grandson, Owen, who came later. When my daughter greeted Owen with a hug and asked him how he was doing, he announced somberly, "Bob died." Bob (named for Bob the Builder) is an iPad. The battery ran down.

At three-and-a-half, Owen can't read, but he's proficient with the iPad, and his scheming skills are highly developed for his age. His mother told us he brought the iPad to her the other night, pointed at the screen, and said, "See, Mama, it says right here it's okay to mix the Play-Doh colors." Heh-heh. Good try, little buddy.

He's beginning to like jokes, especially practical jokes, but he can't quite pull them off. The newest one he's learned is supposed to begin with the promise of a kiss on the cheek, but Owen botches it every time by saying, "Here, I'm gonna kiss you on your raspberry." Even though we know what's coming, the joke ends the way it's supposed to, with a big laugh that a small boy finds very gratifying.

Anyway, as I said, the bad mood lifted. Hope and optimism finally arrived this morning, albeit exhausted from the trip and missing some luggage. Tired as they are, they'll help me meet goals (not resolutions!) and challenges in 2014.

Right off the bat, the no-sugar lifestyle is back in effect (Kim threw out cookies this morning--be still my heart!), and after I finish writing this, I'll begin working my way through Mark Kistler's You Can Draw in 30 Days book. I know from experience that the sugar ban will help with everything, and I think the workbook will build some skills I'll need when I take another painting class in February.

Those two things are just the beginning. There's a long list of other projects I intend to tackle this year (too many to itemize here) and an equally long list of self-improvement goals (including becoming quicker to respond to emails and slower to anger when I see misleading Tea Party posts on Facebook). Looking around this room now, I see that better housekeeping should be on one of the lists, but...meh.

One can only do so much.

Tell Me a Story

One-a-Day Redux
Day Three:  Something You Adore

For as long as I can remember, I've loved a good story. It can come to me in the form of a book, a movie, a TV show, a letter, or in a simple conversation. However it's presented, the telling of it transports me right into the middle of it.

The story that's on my mind today is the love story of my Aunt Martha, who passed away earlier this week. If The Notebook tugs at your heartstrings, so would the story of Martha and Wayne and their love affair that spanned more than 70 years.

I also adore music, and a song that tells a story is one of my favorite things. One I particularly enjoy hearing over and over is this one, even though it doesn't end as well as the story of Martha and Wayne in real life or the story of Noah and Allie in the The Notebook:

The song is "The River" by Bruce Springsteen.

Thanks to dizcula for posting the song and the lyrics on YouTube.

Taking Liberties

Fact No. One: My mailbox sits beside the road near the end of my driveway, a long stretch with a downhill slope that prevents me from seeing the mailbox from the house. Fact No. Two: I never--ever--put outgoing mail in that mailbox. I always take it to the post office.

Imagine my surprise, then, when I drove out to go grocery shopping and noticed the red flag up on my mailbox. I stopped the car immediately and got out to investigate. Inside the mailbox were two Netflix DVDs in their red return envelopes, no return address anywhere. How odd!

Who was using my mailbox? And why? My neighbors have their own boxes, so it wouldn't make sense for them to use mine. I was puzzled and mildly upset that someone would infringe on the sanctity of my private mailbox, but what could I do about it? I put the envelopes back in there, closed the lid, and went on to the store.

Since then I've given some thought to who might do such a thing. I don't think any of the adults who live nearby would mess with someone else's mailbox. There is one boy who conceivably might have rented movies he didn't want his father to know about, but he's a really nice kid, and I can't see him being presumptuous enough to invade someone else's space. The more I've thought about it, I've narrowed it down to one key suspect--someone new to the neighborhood, someone who arrived without invitation and shows no indication that he plans to leave anytime soon. That same someone has plenty of time on his hands as far as I can tell. He has no job. He goes out every night and spends most of his day alone in his little man cave, so it's reasonable to assume that he might seek out some form of home entertainment. It could be . . .

Nah! That's preposterous!

But what if . . .

C'mon! Don't be silly!

But think about it. We already know the new guy living at my house has a sense of entitlement. I think he could be the one using my mailbox to return his movies.

Yeah, right. And I think you're losing your mind.

I'm just sayin' maybe . . .

999 and Counting

Time flies. This week, in particular, has flown by. I thought time would drag once I retired and started staying home all the time, and it seems odd to me that the days pass so quickly now. Especially since one day is pretty much like the next. At the end of most of them it's hard to see what I've done to fritter away the hours. Anyway, here are a few of the ways I've spent my time this week.

Zoo Things
I've already told you about our trip to the zoo on Monday. Mentally, I was still at the zoo on Tuesday, which I spent sorting and editing zoo photos, blogging about our day there, and resting up (reading) after all that walking. I was a little stiff and sore on Tuesday, a clear reminder that I need to resume walking for daily exercise.

Art Stuff
On Wednesday I finished the fourth assignment for the Acrylic Exploration class, which was to paint a copy a Manet painting. Here's the end result:

I'm happier with this one than with the first three, but it seemed to me that the painted tablecloth under these painted roses grew darker and darker (and greener) every time I worked at it. Maybe one day I'll go back and lighten it up. Then again, maybe I won't; it's a pretty good color to go with my bedroom walls right now.

At this week's class we started a new painting, the first one that isn't a copy of someone else's work. We were each given a brightly-colored cloth, a stemmed silver cup, and two pieces of plastic fruit to arrange any way we chose. My stepsister (an interior decorator and watercolor artist) won't be shocked to know that after multiple attempts at placing the objects on the cloth in a pleasing way, mine ended up more or less in a row. I wish I'd done a better job of it, but now, having drawn the whole arrangement in preparation for painting it, it doesn't much matter. I don't like my apple (it's honking BIG), I'm not crazy about the colors I'm working with, and I'm struggling with proportions and perspective, so my expectations for this painting aren't very high. That being said, I love this class and the people in it, so the process is more important to me than the finished product. Plus, I do understand that I'll learn more by working outside my comfort zone.

People at Walmart
I've been doing my weekly grocery shopping right after art class, which is working out well for me. For one thing I'm already dressed and wearing makeup, which eliminates the need to go to that trouble just for shopping. For another, shopping after class means I finish up just about the same time the afternoon batch of rotisserie chickens are ready, so the timing is good. This little change in routine has me going to a store that's close to the art class instead of the one where I usually shop, which is closer (but on the other side of) home. None of that is important except to explain where I was in relation to where I normally would have been yesterday. It turns out that right when I was shopping at art-class-Walmart, some guy was arrested at closer-to-home-Walmart while walking the aisles and simultaneously (um, how shall I word this?) "displaying his merchandise."

I'm never around when anything exciting happens. That's probably a good thing.

Today--and Then Tomorrow
Today started out like most days: reading blogs, answering email, working the crossword puzzle at Dictionary.com. I enjoyed both breakfast and lunch outside, using my left hand to carry food from the table to my mouth, my right hand to throw a slobbery tennis ball, and my lap to hold the mystery novel I was attempting to  read on my Kindle. While I was out there, I took four pictures of a mockingbird and one of a hawk, all of which I've uploaded and since deleted (too blurry to take up hard-drive space).  Also today, I've scheduled a week's worth of photos for A One-Pic Pony and posted another of my grandmother's stories at Audrey's Ambition. After that I went over my iTunes list, played a few bars of quite a few different songs before settling on one, then scouted out a YouTube video of it to post tomorrow. Tomorrow's Saturday Song Selection piece will be my one-thousandth post here at Velvet Sacks.

As I said at the beginning of this one, time flies.

Art and Storm Recovery

First they said the storms would hit our area around ten p.m., then, right at bedtime they changed it to two a.m. and said we were under a tornado watch. How does one keep an eye on the sky at that time of the night? I went to bed and took my chances.

It still hadn't rained by the time I got up this morning, but the weatherman said the thunderstorm would get here soon and it would be severe. I took the dogs outside to let them run for a while before the weather turned bad. The wind was kicking up quite a bit, and the air felt as hot and muggy as a mid-summer day. We went back in the house and waited.

Around noon it started raining. There wasn't much force behind the rain, but the temperature had dropped in double digits. I wondered, is this all there is, or is this just the beginning? I needed to know, because the new series of art classes was set to begin at one o'clock, and I had to decide whether to take a chance that I might be on the road in hazardous conditions or just stay home in case my roof and/or my dogs started to blow away. At the last minute I went to class.

I'm glad I did. There were 13 people enrolled in the first series of classes. This time around there are only five, all of us from the first group. Two of the five are women I've been meaning to tell you about. I asked their permission, and they said I could share their story.

This is not the first time these ladies have taken art courses. They knew each other when they both lived in New Orleans, and they painted together there. In 2005 they both spent part of a late-August day preparing for an art exhibit. They took all the paintings they'd done to the exhibit venue, where they matted them, framed them, and hung them for the next day's show. The show never happened, because Hurricane Katrina arrived the next day, wiping out most of the Crescent City, destroying their homes and their neighborhoods, uprooting their families, washing away every trace of their artwork.

Like many other people who were displaced by Hurricane Katrina, those two ladies ended up here, in a small town outside Baton Rouge. That was eight years ago. They hadn't painted since then until February of this year when the first round of Acrylic Exploration classes began. "I forgot how," one of the ladies explained. "I couldn't remember anything I'd ever learned about painting. My mind was just a blank."

It was those women I was thinking about when I decided to go to class today. I was pretty sure a little rain and thunder wouldn't keep them away, and I was right. They were both there, both smiling, both with their own lovely versions of the almost rotten peaches we'd been assigned to paint. Every time I see their beautiful work, I remember their story. The trauma of a hurricane may have erased the "how-to-paint" instructions from their brains, but I can assure you they're relearning it in leaps and bounds.

Maybe Today I'll Do the Laundry

It's warm today but a little cloudy. If it rains, I might be forced to do some housework. Aaaaaaand, wouldn't you know it? As soon as I typed that first sentence, the sun came out. Okay, then, God, I got your message, and I thank you very much. Another play day it is.

Yesterday started out the same way. I took my Doodle boys and my camera outside early. While Levi and Gimpy played, I checked up on Mother Nature to see how she's coming along with spring. A couple of crows were already inspecting the pecan tree that stands right behind my back fence. I'm sure they were as pleased as I was to see those branches beginning to leaf out finally.

My next-door neighbor's grapevine has new leaves, too. I love the perfection of these baby leaves, every feature of the fully grown version already there in miniature.

The clover didn't need inspection. It's been thriving for weeks now, patches of it sprinkled on every yard I can see from my own. I know it's considered a weed, but I think it's pretty anyway.

The lawn-maintenance man showed up mid-morning, effectively banishing me and my allergies from the yard for the rest of the day, so I worked (played) a bit more on the blog dedicated to my late Grandma Audrey. When Audrey was 70 (the same age I am now), she participated in a project to preserve the songs of the Ozarks, a collection that is available on the internet, and yesterday I posted links to her songs in the sidebar of Audrey's Ambition. I think her descendants will get a big kick out of hearing Grandma's voice. As for the rest of you, I know Grandma sang in the church choir for a number of years, but I would . . . um . . . respectfully suggest that by the time she was 70, she was better at writing than at singing.

Once the song-links were ready, I ate lunch and read for a while (finally finished that long, long book about World War I and started a new, user-friendly, mystery novel), then committed to a messy afternoon of painting. The second session of the Acrylics Exploration class starts later this week, so I needed to work on the last project from the first session. I turned my iTunes up loud and painted all afternoon. At the bottom of the next photo is my version of three overripe peaches on a plate:

As usual, I see plenty of room for improvement, but I'm so proud that my knife has straight edges that I'm gonna quit while I'm ahead.

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While I've been writing this post, my next-door neighbor has been getting her lawn mowed, so it looks like another indoor afternoon after all. Okay. Laundry it is. First load (dark clothes) coming up.

Simple, Bright and Bold

In this week's Acrylic Exploration class, while I was working in tiny, stingy strokes to try to replicate the detail in a famous painting of three peaches that are past their prime, my mind wandered back to an earlier experience with drawing and painting. I was a more confident artist in those days.

The day I remembered was a March day in 1967. Kim attended a church-sponsored kindergarten that year, and her class was getting ready to put on an Easter presentation for all the parents. Sunlight streamed through the windows of the church where the kids practiced their songs on the first floor of the sanctuary and I listened from the balcony. My younger daughter, Kelli, was up there with me, watching as I painted bunnies, chicks, colored eggs, and flowers on wide, white paper pulled from a roll. My finished work would serve as a backdrop for the children's Easter program. I was happy that day, painting in bright colors and big, bold strokes, not the least bit worried that it wouldn't turn out right.

I'm happy now when I paint, too, but the paint doesn't flow as freely. I wonder if I'll ever feel that easy comfort with painting again. Maybe, if I'd stick to chicks and flowers instead of overripe peaches.

Wonky Saucer, Crooked Spoon

Here's the number-one thing I've learned about painting a still life: I should stick to landscapes.

In the last Acrylics Exploration class we learned how to apply light and shadow to a painted object to make it appear three-dimensional instead of flat. The instructor gave each of us a still-life picture that demonstrated that concept and asked us to copy it. She explained how the shading should change softly and subtly as it grew darker or lighter. I understood her instructions clearly, but executing them was another matter entirely.

The bottom of these two pictures (as if you couldn't tell) is mine:

Now that it's dry and I can see what's wrong with the shading, I might be able to touch it up and get a better result, but I have neither the skill nor the energy to try to fix that wobbly-looking, pointy-edged saucer. And the spoon? It would be okay for stirring, I suppose, but anyone who tried to use it to transport a sip of hot liquid from cup to mouth would end up with a little spill in the lap region. I've learned that it's a lot easier to paint the imperfect edges of a perfect tree than the precise lines of a man-made dish.

You know what else I've learned about painting? A less-than-stellar end result doesn't diminish the joy of the work itself. It's fun and it's therapeutic. What's even better is that the dogs seem to think it's important. They don't beg for stuff while I'm painting. I like that.

Paint Marks of Distinction

Last week I had my first Acrylic Exploration class and enjoyed it very much. We spent the first hour of the class learning about the composition of the paint, how to mix it, color values, light and shading, complimentary colors, etc. In the second hour we pulled out our art supplies and put the first hour's art theories into practice by mixing some colors of our own. I learned a lot that should be useful once it sinks in, which hasn't fully happened yet. I also learned how much paint it's possible to get on one's hands, arms, and clothes in a single hour.

Midway through the class our instructor passed out copies of the picture we'll all be painting in this six-week course. It's trees! You know how much I like trees, right? I took that as a good omen. The first part of our homework assignment was to do a rough sketch of the picture on the canvas or paper we'll be painting on--not a work of art, just enough detail to differentiate between the light and dark areas of the picture. I did mine a couple of days ago. I'm not proud of it (there are some errors in proportion), but you folks have always been supportive, so I'll go ahead and post it here. That way we can see the step-by-step process as the weeks go by:

The other part of the homework, which I did this afternoon, was to experiment further with mixing paints:

See that messy palette paper on the right? I ended up with a mirror image of it on the underside of my forearm. Fortunately, acrylic paint washes off skin fairly easily. (It isn't quite as easy to get it out from under fingernails.)

I realized by the end of the first class that I was going to need some kind of smock or apron, so I've been thinking ever since about what it should be. I knew it needed to have sleeves and should be easy to put on and take off. The fabric ought to be heavy enough to keep paint from soaking through onto my clothing. I thought maybe a men's heavy work shirt would do the job. This morning I was getting ready to go see if I could find one at a thrift store when I spotted this shirt-jacket hanging on the back of a chair next to my backdoor:

It's a little too big, so it'll fit easily over a blouse or sweater. The zipper takes care of the on-and-off issue, and the cuffs will keep the sleeves of my good clothes from falling out. Also, the wide-wale corduroy is nice and thick. It's perfect. I wanted to laugh . . . and I wanted to cry.

The shirt belonged to my mother. It's one of the things of hers that I brought home after she died thirteen years ago. I thought the small stains on the sleeve would wash out, but they didn't, even after several washings. The shirt has been in my closet all that time. I've never worn it even once until I grabbed it last week to wear while I hosed mud off the dogs' feet. Mud washes out, but paint is a different story. I postponed my shopping trip, but the idea of getting permanent paint on Mother's shirt unsettled me.

After thinking about it for a while, I remembered that Mother was the one who drew pictures for my sister and me until we were old enough to draw our own. She was the one who brought home reams of paper and a steady supply of crayons and encouraged us to use them. It was she who bought paint-by-numbers kits when we were adolescents and let us work on them alongside her.

Knowing Mother would support my efforts to try something creative at this stage of my life, I made a decision: I will wrap myself in this shirt and know that she's there in class with me, that every spot of pigment and every splash of color that falls on her shirt will reinforce the memory of something we once enjoyed together. The little stains that have kept the shirt hanging at the back of my closet for so many years will no longer matter. In fact, now that the shirt has a new purpose, I'm thinking it might become one of my favorite things.

I Used to . . .

One-a-Day Photo Challenge

Day Twenty-Five:  Something You Made

Today's photo prompt hit me in the face like a splash of cold water. What do I have that I've made? And when did I stop making things? 

I used to make clothing for my daughters and myself. I used to paint bold designs directly onto walls in my house. I used to make Christmas ornaments and paint bright pieces of fruit on carved wooden plaques to hang in my kitchen. I hooked rugs. I painted still lifes in acrylics; they weren't masterpieces but were decent enough to frame. I did crewel embroidery, using stitches so tiny and distinct that a cluster of them realistically represented a woven basket or a fern or a flower. I used to clip pictures from newspapers or magazines and sketch enlargements of them for the sheer fun of it. Pictures like this one I found tucked away in a folder of old poems: 

I don't do any of those things anymore. The last thing I sketched that I liked was a picture of Butch as he slept a few feet away from me. Knowing he'd move as soon as I did, I drew with what was available: a ballpoint pen and a folded paper towel. It was a good enough likeness that I wanted to keep it, but paper towels, I soon learned--especially those that have been folded to keep crumbs from spilling--get tossed in the trash without a second glance.

These days "something I make" is likely to be no more complex than meatloaf or soup or a salad, and the only thing I ever draw is a conclusion. It feels like all my creativity leaked out a long time ago, while I wasn't looking. Sadly, I never even noticed it was gone.

Try this if you're so INKlined

My daughter Kim recently turned me on to a design technique called Zentangle®. I read online that it's okay to use that name as long as I include the following paragraph when writing about it:

The Zentangle® art form and method was created by Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas and is copyrighted. Zentangle® is a registered trademark of Zentangle, Inc. Learn more at zentangle.com.

The hundreds (thousands?) of Zentangle images online make it obvious that I'm late to this arty party, but I'm enjoying it enough that I thought you might like to try it, too. It's relaxing, it can be done anywhere, and it doesn't require a huge investment in supplies. Paper, pen, and pencil are all you need. The experts prefer certain brands and types of those supplies, naturally, but you can use whatever you have on hand to try it out and see if you like it.

Zentangle basically consists of lines and doodled patterns put together on small sheets of paper, and it's incredibly easy (unless you're a perfectionist, that is). The art is in the overall look, not in the individual strokes. Thank goodness, because I mess up a lot of those simple little strokes.

I'm a little embarrassed to put my first efforts up here where you can compare them to some of the strikingly beautiful designs on the rest of the Internet, but I'll do it in the interest of showing you that even a beginner can achieve some interesting effects. With two exceptions, these are the only ones I've drawn, and they're posted in the order in which they were drawn. One exception is my favorite so far, and I've saved it for the end of this post. It isn't necessarily the best of the lot, but, for reasons I'll explain, it holds more meaning than the other ones. The other exception (I think it was the sixth one I drew) was messed up beyond repair, so I cut it out of my sketchbook and threw it in the garbage. (If you think a one-out-of-nine reject rate is too high for a novice, you should have seen some of the failures I created on earlier projects.)

Oh, another thing: I usually encourage you to click on my posted images to enlarge them and see them in greater detail. Not so in this case. Enlarge this set of images only if you want a close-up look at the hundreds of imperfections in these drawings. Sometimes, it seems, smaller images are more forgiving.

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One more thing I found interesting was that after I had done only a couple of these designs, I started noticing patterns in my environment where I'd never seen them before. There were patterns everywhere, and it was fun to see them pop out at me after years of blending in with the scenery. 

The following drawing is my favorite because I sat in my living room and picked out patterns I could see from right there on the end of the sofa. The connected black squares at the upper left (they're black squares, not white crosses) represent a wall hanging made of laquered metal squares connected by black bars. The top center design is my version of tall dried vines that stand in a vase near a doorway. Next to the vines is a silk philodendron, bordered on the right by a pair of drawer handles. Underneath the drawer handles sits a patch of rattan from the baskets under my coffee table. Below the rattan there are four pine cones like those piled up in a dish on the coffee table (except when Levi messes with them). At the bottom right is a design cast into a bronze lamp base. The shape at the bottom left is a curved chair arm with its nailhead trim. The pattern of the actual chair consists of narrow stripes similar to those shown in the center of this  chair-arm shape. For the outermost portion of the chair arm, I repeated the amoebic shape of a single large leaf from a botanical print on my wall. See what I mean about patterns everywhere?

If you're looking for something to keep your hands busy, you ought to give Zentangling a try. And if you do try it, please come back and tell us what you think about it.

Frayed nerves and ruffled feathers

I have come to the store equipped with a detailed list, items grouped together according to aisle location, and have traveled from one corner of the store to the other, gathering my goods in record time. I survey the check-out area and find more closed registers than open ones. I briskly roll my cart to the end of the shortest line. There are three people ahead of me, none of whom has a large number of items. This should be quick.

I survey the covers of the tabloids and the slick magazines with pictures of celebrities or fancy desserts on their covers. Nothing I need there. I glance at the lighters, nail clippers, and single-serving bags of beef jerky, then inventory the candy bars in search of new products. I don't eat sugar anymore, but it's good to stay abreast of new developments. As I begin to check out all the different types of chewing gum, it occurs to me that the line hasn't moved since I got into it. Not one step.

The lady in front of me has begun to shift from one foot to another and to glance around nervously in all directions, like she's getting ready to bolt. The woman in front of her appears agitated, too, but she's stuck because she's already piled all her stuff on the counter. Now that I'm paying attention, I look at the person at the head of the line and, presto, I see and hear the problem simultaneously.

This woman, who has been in the process of checking out since before I got in line, is talking, talking, talking, non-stop, to the frazzled cashier, to the new trainee clerk, to people in other lines, to everybody within earshot. People are looking away from her, refusing to make eye contact, all but dropping to their knees and praying for her to just shut up. For a second.

She is enormous, this gabby woman. (I use the term "enormous" in a descriptive sense, not a disparaging one, because a thin person could run her mouth just as easily. The word "gabby," though, is intended to be disparaging.) She is wearing a very bright, frilly blouse, and she's talking with her hands, so that the colors of her blouse seem to blur with her quick movements. She rotates in bold semi-circles, keeping an eye out for anyone who's open to a little friendly conversation.

The cashier has finished ringing up the order and is waiting for the woman to pay. Only then does Talkative Tina reach into her cart and rummage around through the plastic bags she's just piled in there. Finally, she retrieves her purse. The purse is enormous, too. It's silver-grey, faux leather, and has big, cutesy ruffles on both sides. Here's a sketch of the purse:

The woman's incessant chatter has been grating on my nerves, and now, curiously, I find myself feeling some animosity toward her huge, ruffled purse. I understand that this makes no sense, but the longer I stand there, the more I despise that purse.

Jabbering Josephine hefts the purse up onto the counter (no easy task, that) and starts digging in it with both hands, momentarily interrupting the gestures that have thus far accompanied her words. Bingo! One fist pops up with a wallet. A matching wallet. And I'm not kidding.

I instantly detest the wallet, too.

Babbling Bertha opens the overstuffed wallet and begins to write a check. I'm thinking this might slow her down to at least a low-level mumble, but no, she's a multi-tasker. She writes and talks at the same time, all the while looking around to make sure she still has an audience.

Aha! A tired-looking woman, probably a grandmother, rolls onto the scene with a beautiful baby girl in the seat of her cart. The baby's head is dressed in a colorful elastic band with a giant bow on it, and she's screaming her little gift-wrapped head off. As the grandmother tries to move to the end of the line, the chatterbox whirls on the baby and begins cooing to her. "Whatsamattah wif oo, weetiepie, is oo hungry? Is oo tired? Does oo need to go beddie-bye?" She reaches a dimpled arm out and begins to poke the baby, who cries even harder. The grandmother rolls her eyes and takes two assertive steps forward, leaving the baby-poker with a half-written check in one hand, a pen in the other, and a shocked expression on her face. Do you think she returns to writing her check? No. She steps out into the aisle and yells to the back of the baby's head, "Welllllll, okay, sweetums, I hope you have a better day. Goodbye, babykins, okay? Bye-bye, now."

Only then does she turn back to smile at the cashier, who by now is leaning on one elbow and propping her chin in the palm of her hand. The trainee's eyes are about to pop out of her head. She looks at the rest of us who are waiting in line, offers a tentative smile and a shrug of her shoulders.

I am no longer looking at Prattling Patty. My eyes, my thoughts, my irrational anger are all focused on her ugly purse and her stupid matching wallet. If my eyes were lasers, they would burn holes in the side of her purse. I have a mental image of that silvery fake leather beginning first to smoke, then to blaze, the fire making a black-edged hole through which I can see sparks falling on used tissues, old grocery lists, and empty Twinkies wrappers. Somehow, while I'm mentally burning the woman's purse, she manages to finish writing her check and leaves the store. I don't even see her go.

Minutes later the three of us who have waited in line behind her have all checked out, and I'm on my way home. I put my groceries away, then seat myself at this computer while the images are still vivid in my mind. I carefully draw that ruffled purse and wallet to the best of my ability. I realize as I draw them that they probably aren't as ugly as I first thought they were. But I hate them because my eyes have overdosed on an excess of fluff and frills and ruffles and because gibberish is still echoing in my ears. I hate them, I tell you, yet I'm kind of excited at the idea of showing them to you.

Obsessed much?

Trying something new

I've spent most of this (so far) quiet holiday playing with Paintbrush, a free download for Mac that's similar to the paint program packaged with Windows-based computers. It's a fun way to spend an afternoon if you don't mind using the eraser tool a whole lot.

Here's my best effort of the day: