Friday, October 27, 2006

BITE ME

I'm going through the archives in "Keep On Knitting in the Free World" and found a link to this pattern at Knitty. They call them Knucks (fingerless gloves). These have words written across the knuckles, sort of like those jail house tattos. I'd be inclined to put "BITE ME" but probably not wise. I'm not going to be happy until I've written BITE ME on something, I don't know why really. Taking a cue from Teddy Roosevelt's daughter, I could do the pillow thing. The story is that she once embroidered a pillow that said "If You Have Nothing Good to Say About Anyone, Come Sit Next To Me". I don't know if it's true or not but it's a good story. There is a really cute Superman dog tag in that machine at Pets Mart. It would, perhaps, be more appropriate to write it on that and give it to Bosco.

Random Thought on Paint by Numbers

I wonder if anyone has ever learned to paint by doing paint by numbers pictures. After years of making fun of them, it looks to me like it would be a good way to learn what color and shape can do in a piece and how odd they look when you first put them down. Also a good way to learn that you have to keep stepping back to look. My painting teacher, Toby, used to say that you need to be walking as much as you're painting. "There is too much painting going on in here! Walk. WALK!!"

Thursday, October 26, 2006

Paint by Number Porn

Here's a new take on paint by number. Paint by number porn. It's really not that bad, just a topless girl in her underwear. It's kind of cute, really. Found on a site called Supernaturale that I came upon via Knitty when I clicked on a link for the creator of the cute knitted "Off to College" washclothes pattern.
They're touting a new craft book on Supernaturale, I like this rug made out of pom poms, it's silly and looks like it would feel nicce on bare feet.

T-shirts into Underpants

Pattern for turning t-shirts, that you don't want to wear, into underpants (with pictures) via AskMeFi. I'll probably never use this but I love it that someone was creative enough to try it. I could have used this 30 years ago.

The generation coming up now seems so much more confident than previous generations, like mine. The first thing that pops into their heads isn't "I don't know how". They have the internet and so directions for everything, and much of it free. People like helping each other, sharing what they know, and even if you run into a problem there are people out in cyberspace who will help. Wouldn't it have been wonderful to be able to look up math and science problems and learn how to figure them out without going through the humiliation of asking a question ("I just covered that. Can't you listen?") in a class full of kids whom, let's just say, don't have your best interests at heart. Not to have to raise your hand and volunteer for verbal abuse and ridicule.

And, I'm finally starting to understand why a fixed income is such a problem. Things are already getting ridiculously expensive, by the time I'm 65 I'll be eating cat food and I won't be able to afford a car. Speaking of which, I just saw a commercial shilling a car that can parallel park itself. A Lexus, I think. Another one of my dwindling stash of talents made redundant.

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Ed's Christmas Card

I don't do Christmas, and haven't for years, but I always send one Christmas card.
One year my cousin, Ed, said something like: "Just send me a damn Christmas card or a postcard once in a while" so now when I've found Ed's card I'm done with my Christmas shopping. I always try to find something kind of strange and I think I may have found this years card at stupid.com. It's a Christmas card made out of soap. Can't get much stranger than that.
I'm spending way too much time just browsing through this catalog, Bosco's been up twice to see if maybe it's time to eat yet (it isn't, but hope springs eternal). I wish I'd known about this site when I was looking for kids presents this year.
One year I found the perfect card, it was one of those that has an old, tacky, black and white photo from the 60's or 70's pasted on the front, this one of a really bad creche, and the caption said: "Christ child maybe, but all and all Mary wished she'd asked for the epidural". It probably doesn't seem that funny but Ed is an anesthetist so it was perfect and he hung it up at the hospital where he worked.

Stupid.com

Found a great online catalog for silly, cheap presents via AskMeFi. The Vanishing Civil Rights Mug is my favorite so far but it's, unfortunately, becoming less funny every day. They also stock the magnetic poetry keychain with it's own refrigerator.

Tuesday, October 24, 2006

Chocolate Dieties.com

Chocolate Dieties I think the Ganesh is my favoriete but the Sheela Na Gig is pretty good too. No idea who I'd send one to though. Available in Milk, Dark or White Chocolate. Also can be hand painted. What a hoot.

Lora and Alex Watercolor


I've been working with a book called "Fast Sketching Techniques" by David Rankin that seems to be inspiring me, today anyway. So I tried the picture of Lora and Alex again & painted this while I was watching TV. Not quite there yet but I think I'm getting closer.
I love this picture. It was taken a couple of years ago at Halloween, Lora was a cat and Alex the mouse.
I'm going with the theory that it doesn't have to look exactly like the people I'm trying to paint.

Friday, October 20, 2006

Darkly Dreaming Dexter

I've been wanting to watch this new show but it's on Showtime and we don't get that. Apparently you can watch it online though. Dexter I'll have to check "on Demand" it may be on there. It's from an e-book called "Darkly Dreaming Dexter" I can't imagine reading an entire book off of the computer.
Dexter is about a CSI guy who is also a serial killer. I think it sounds interesting. JP & Kama say it's really good.

History Detectives

I'm watching History Detectives EPISODE 9 - August 21, 2006. The story is about a man in a prison for confederate soldiers who took clandestine photos of other prisoners with a lens that he happened to have in his pocket when he was captured. Using that and a cigar box he made into a primitive camera. Very cool. I just caught the end of it, they were trying to track down some guy's Grandfather. I'll have to see if I can catch a repeat. There is a script of the show that I could download but I don't know that it would have any more information. May someone will write a book about it.

Wish list

Found the little Golden Paint Set at Flax (expensive). There was also a great palette (Rowney Stay Wet palette) that keeps the paints wet all day. I want. Both of them would be, like a two hundred dollar investment. I am painting though and it is easier to keep on task with good equipment.

Thursday, October 19, 2006

Wash Cloths

Cool wash cloths at knitty with words like STUDY and PARTY knitted into them, just think of the possibilities. It reminds me of the needlepointed FUCK OFF, I'M READING bookmark that I found last year and still haven't made.
I'd like to get organized enough to have little projects set up in a box or bag to take around with me when I travel or have to wait somewhere. Having the set of small acrylic paints with some brushes in a zipper notebook has really been working out well. I would like to get Golden Acrylics though, they really are better and I'm hoping the caps might not get messed up on the more expensive brand. I found another notebook at the thrift store that I think I'll put a watercolor set in. Knitting would have to be in something else but needlepoint would fit in a notebook.

Ice Cube Trays That Look Like Legos

This is fun. Ice cube trays that look like legos.
I'm looking for silicon ice trays that make round ice cubes so I can try making gelatin eye balls for Halloween I want to make the witches fingers too, kind of gnarly looking cookies with sliced almonds for finger nails. I wonder if Jayme would like the eyeballs for her birthday too. She's having her birthday party here the week after next, I think this is her tenth. I got her a big sketch book and a book on how to draw things, one of the ones that shows, step by step, this shape then that shape, how to draw things. I was taught not to use those, but if I had, it might have given me enough confidence to feel that I was good enough to keep drawing. I was also taught not to draw or paint from photographs, but then, like 25 years later, another teacher said: "So you don't paint". So now I do, from photographs and I'm better than I thought.

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Huntsville Art Museum

Went to the art museum in Huntsville today. Fantastic blown glass pieces by an artist named William Morris


There was a documentary showing him working with the four other people who help him get these amazing things realized. It doesn't really look like blown glass, which I usually don't care for. I loved this stuff though, very inspiring. Incredible work and the documentary was really worth watching, I wouldn't mind seeing it again.

Yikes! Just went to his website & checked out prices, just for the hell of it.
Hmmm, do I want a William Morris piece or that castle in Spain? Beautiful stuff though.

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Tuesday, October 10, 2006

Halloween is coming.


Squelette Dance. Very cool. Try checking the different boxes. Mutation-X is especially bizarre. Enjoy and Happy Halloween.

Coon Dog Cemetery Road

I really love my family. Some of them are just as strange as I am. Maryanne's son, John Paul, turned me on to http://www.catsthatlooklikehitler.com/ --very scary.

I thought for sure I would be driving up to the Coon Dog Graveyard by myself but Maryanne came through and we went up on Sunday. I also thought it would be hard to find but there were signs, and it helped that it was located on "Coon Dog Cemetery Road". There were probably a hundred graves, the first one was "Troop" from 1937.

There were a couple of professionally done markers that rivaled the ones you see in regular cemeteries but it was the homemade ones that were the best. They were just scratched into rocks or burned into wood and probably took days to complete. It sounds like it would be really tacky, and I'm sure that's why everybody goes, but it was really kind of peaceful and sweet. There was a shelter there and some picnic benches and I think this must be how cemeteries used to be when we just buried each other off in a corner of the yard.

Labor day weekend they have some sort of a festival there that sounds interesting. Like maybe if you could watch from your car sort of interesting, but the cemetery really is worth experiencing and I can see why it's actually made it into one of the guidebooks that Maryanne has.
We stopped at Big Bob's Bar-B-Q on the way back and I had a smoked turkey stuffed potato that would have fed a family of four, and I'm not kidding. I'll be eating the leftovers for the next three days. It was really, really good though. There are a lot more grave stones shown at the website. As I browse through them I realize there are some I didn't see when we were there. I hope I just missed them but I'm afraid some jerk may have stolen them. Key Underwood Coon Dog Memorial Graveyard: http://www.coondogcemetery.com/

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Tennessee Valley Old Time Fiddlers Convention


There were the usual booths with knitted pot holders and things made out of gourds but also, off in one little area under the trees, were the musical instrument displays. Some were in tents but some were just laid out on tables like lemonade stands. People would wander in, pick up an instrument, and start playing. Some of these people were very, very good. If you look closely at the guy in the cap playing a fiddle you can see a price tag hanging off of the bow.
One thing that struck me last year was the makeup of the various groups that would play together. Cowboy hats and John Deer caps, old and young and often it was a woman playing the Bass. It didn't seem to matter as long as you could hold your own within the music. There was one group we kept going back to that were really appealing. Two guitars and a mandolin. A kid, a middle aged guy and an older guy who sang out of the side of his mouth. I tried to get a picture of the older guy singing but every time I'd get it set up someone with a guitar would shift and block his face. They held their instruments as though they were just another appendage, like an arm or a finger. When you looked at the older guy straight on he looked kind of like a singing bulldog, but in a good way, if that makes any sense. They were the core group but others with fiddles, banjos, a bass etc. Drifted in and out occasionally.

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We Done Give Up



We finally made it to the fiddle fest on Saturday. The stuff going on the main stage is great but it's the the little things you find going on all around you that are truly enchanting. I became aware of this note, right in front of my nose, as I was trying to get a photo of a five musicians who were just sitting around on folding chairs in the middle of the lawn.
For those of us who need reading glasses but can't find them, and yes, we did look on the tops of our heads. Also in the neck of our shirts and over there where we're absolutely, positively sure we used them last. Or was that yesterday and maybe they're in the car? Anyway, it says: (on Mt. Carmel Church of Christ stationary, no less) Larry & E - We done give up and went to sit in the chairs.
I love this place.

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Thursday, October 05, 2006

Lora & Alex


Still just a drawing but putting it on the computer makes it easier to see what is wrong with it. Alex definitely needs work. her head is much too big.

Wednesday, October 04, 2006

Motorcycle Ad

Subject: Motorcycle Ad (via Mark)

2006 Suzuki 1000. This bike is perfect! It has 1000 miles and has had its 500 mile dealer service. (Expensive) It's been adult ridden, all wheels have always been on the ground. I use it as a cruiser/commuter. I'm selling it because it was purchased without proper consent of a loving wife. Apparently "do whatever the f*** you want" doesn't mean what I thought. Call me, Steve. (801)867-8292

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