Sketching - My Drug of Choice

After a few days of remodel stress, shopping stress and indecision overload, I hit the wall. I needed to go sketching in the worst way. Kris and I made an evening of it at Prima Bistro and Mo's. We were all set to do an outdoor sketch of Christmas lights in downtown Langley after Mo's closed at 11, but it was pouring down rain.

Prima diner

Prima patrons sharing a bottle of red.

Half of the Jurriaans party of 4, dining at Prima.

Mo's crowd

Snow Berries on Penn Cove

This sketch is a composite of images from my walk along Penn Cove near our house in Coupeville. I've tried to capture the brilliant whites of distant Mt. Baker and the snow berries in the hedgerow.

Nosh and Sketch

nosh |nä sh | informalnounfood : filling the freezer with all kinds of nosh we bought at the Star Store.• a small item of food : "We have plenty of noshes and nibbles" said the waiter.• a light meal; a snack : in between noshes we sketched people at Prima Bistro and Mo's.verb [ intrans. ]eat food enthusiastically or greedily : there are several restaurants in Langley, so you can nosh to your heart's content | [ trans. ] there I sat, noshing my favorite food as I splashed paint on the table cloth.• eat between meals : today's grazing is different from what we used to call noshing or snacking. But noshing sounds better.ORIGIN early 20th cent. (denoting a snack bar): Yiddish.

First stop, Prima Bistro.

A local fixture at Prima

Then a portrait of Kelly at Mo's.

A pre-med student also studying spanish.

A profile at Mo's

From Whidbey to Fidalgo Holiday Party

What a wonderful afternoon at the Anacortes Sketchers holiday party in Aleli's beautiful home.  We had a ball with our sketcher friends to the north and Ali's home is a treasure-trove of great things to sketch.  Thanks ASK!

Beautiful Thai goddess with a red hat on.

Joining the fun, new friend Robin from Seattle.

Merry Belated B-day Christmas!

For Lisbeth and all! 

KW Mug for SG

With love...

Aleli's Library

WISkers were guests of the Anacortes Sketchers and met at Alieli's beautiful and amazing home.  There were so many beautiful things to sketch that it was almost impossible to choose, but my favorite corner was in the library with its lovely stained glass lamp and bowl full of colorful Russian matroyska dolls.

The Beat Lives On

Had a great evening sketching at Ott and Murphy in Langley.  David Ossman performed poetry readings of Ginsburg and Kerouac while David Gregor accompanied on guitar. I was truly inspired and can't wait for another performance!

Mr. Bennett bathed in mood lighting. 

David Gregor playing guitar, though it's hidden.

Beat Poetry Night at Ott & Murphy's

Sketched some hep cool cats at Ott & Murphy's "Beat & Jive" poetry Saturday night with David Ossman on beat and David Gregor on jive. Wasn't sure if I was in Langley in 2011 or Greenwich Village in 1961. Trippy!

The scene.

David Ossman lays some Ginsburg and Kerouac on the crowd.

Face Time

Whidbey Island Sketchers, could you possibly be any more adorable?

Self portraits by Whidbey Island Sketchers for Sherryl's handmade book:

"Mary" by Mary

"Gnat in a Hat" by The Gnat

"Judi" by Judi

"Lisbeth" by Lisbeth

"Julie" by Julie

"Cathy" by Cathy

"Diana" by Diana

"Faye" by Faye

"Gene" by Gene

"Betty" by Betty

"Phyllis" by Phyllis

"Me with No Wrinkles" by Yours Truly

Holiday Party

There was a menagerie of people and holiday decorations at Mary's for (what else?) a sketch party!

Beware of fox sitting on couch.

Christmas Party at Mary Lawson's

Sheryl is on the phone listening intently.

Sue is drawing the lovely fireplace.

Great, relaxing day. Thank you, Mary!

Christmas Treasures

Wishing all my sketching friends and your families a wonderful Christmas! This is my collection of odd little Christmas trees----the more Charlie-Brownish the better!

Holiday Sketch-Together

Wonderful second holiday party for Whidbey Island Sketchers today.  Thanks Mary!  I decided to sketch Faye by the fireplace though she didn't sit still long!  Happy Holidays fellow sketchers!

Grisalba

I finally got to draw Grisalba, the beautiful server at La Casita. I've always wanted to sketch her because of her fabulous hair and exotic features, but busy waitresses don't have time to sit still for a sketch. So, I got her a gig as as our first model for the new Monday night figure-drawing group at Studio 106. Since she had never done this before, we couldn't believe how flawlessly and elegantly she sat for 3 hours (with breaks at 20 minute intervals). A natural!

Friendship Star Quilt

Winter Dreams

WISk Party at Studio 106

Celebrating our 2nd anniversary with some holiday good cheer at Studio 106 . . .

Holly Centerpiece

Unsuspecting visitors to the studio WILL be sketched! I'm amassing quite a collection of sketcher-husband portraits. Soon I'll be able to do a show!

Gar with holiday splashes

Studio Sketching

Whidbey Island Sketchers celebrated our 2nd anniversay with a little holiday get together at Studio 106 in Langley.  Great friends, great gab, great sketching.  What it's all about.  Cheers!

Inside the artist's studio

See Faye Work

After scheduled sketching at Useless Bay Coffee, we repaired to Studio 106 where Faye worked and I sketched all afternoon.

Faye setting up for Saturday's Open Studio

Fay at the easel, working on a still life and not happy with it.

Ms. Belov stopped by the studio for a visit.

Robert is always a pleasure to sketch with his wonderful headgear and beard!

Man Eating Crocodile

I created these two images to illustrate a point about punctuation in a future article for AzarGrammar.com, the website I manage at work. I generally don't like to work from photos, but Dan refused both to eat or to be eaten by a crocodile in the interest of creating authentic sketches from life. So I had to resort to photo references for these. 

Man eating crocodile

Man-eating crocodile

Richard Firsten is the author of the article and asked me to do the illustrations. These are his words from the article regarding the importance of the hyphen:

Punctuation marks were created to aid readers, to make phrasing clearer and more easily recognizable for readers. Here’s a case in point. If I write here Man Eating Crocodile, which picture reflects what I’ve written?

In actuality, it’s the picture on top that depicts what I’ve written, but a show entitled Dangerous Encounters on the cable network NatGeoWild (National Geographic Wild) used that title for one of its episodes. Of course they should have written Man-Eating Crocodile. That hyphen shows readers that man and eating are being used together as a single adjective to describe a ferocious crocodile. The hyphen helps readers to understand that and phrase it properly in their minds. In fact, the rules of prosody in English dictate a change in how these words should even be spoken if the hyphen is present or absent. (I’m going to use capital letters and bold face to show which words or parts of words receive more or less equal stress in the flow of speech): 

                                    man eating crocodile = MAN EATing CROCodile

                                    man-eating crocodile = MAN eating CROCodile

Stickin 'Mud' on a Shitty Wood Stove

I knew before i moved into the yurt that the woodstove was kinda moody.... it burned hot and fast - not the way you want it to burn for a long cold winter. Then when i was casually perusing the wood stove section of a Lehmans (non electric homesteading) Mag i saw this exact stove pictured....

Omgawd... the first words next to the glossy pic were "don't buy one of these cast iron stoves if you desire high quality." I laughed. and laughed. and then started to think of ways to work around it's poor quality...

While experimenting with pushing ash in the grill holes and also against the giant gap in the door, i felt like an uber genius when i thought of using a clay/ cob / -like substance to fill in the cracks and holes.

I could totally get toxic stuff to fill this in.... i could use glues and pastes and fire proof fiberglass ropes, but i hate chemicals. I hate ruining my home space with chemical stuff - because what i am looking for is to make things more comfortable, easier, healthy and pleasant.

!! Screw buying some creepy VOC goop..... cause for free i got some clay from a dug up pile of dirt on Dogget Mountain, and mixed it with rice flour. Anyone who eats gluten free knows rice flour turns to something awful and cement-ish when baked...
I mixed the clay, the rice flour and water in a bowl and started filling in the spots where air was leaking too much (causing the hot fast fires)......

and so far so good. There was some slight cracking in the clay, but i kept filling in the cracks as it shrunk and dried, making sure less air could get in the stove while the door is shut.

Now i have to do the smaller cracks.... like the cooktop and all around! and this doesn't solve the issue that the manufacturer didn't even bother to make the flue/damper fit correctly either! (lame and shame!) The only solution for that is to put a second one on there.

I am kinda glad about the cracks though, cause its fun to play with the clay... and i like experiments. :)))

XOoxOX