The Next Great Studio Purcahse

I do not know when this will happen. But it needs too. At only 92.00 I can't NOT get this one. It is the Leechwood Convertible Easel from Dick Blick. It looks like a great thing to have. Especially since I only have small spaces to work in.

If I ever get anywhere with a lot of space then I can have a couple going at once right?
Well... spent today sick as a dog after being sicker than a dog. All I managed was to unpack a few bags of supplies and set out to deal with the Poe challenge at Somerset Studio. Do not know that I will make the deadline. But will endeavor to do so.

I started out the same way that Mr. Trapp had us set out to study a poem. I made a thick margin down the right hand side of my page to make notes later. Then set out to copy "The Raven". I did not remember this poem being so long! Anyway. After the poem was copied I went back and wrote in the large margin the key things from each stanza that stuck out to me. And added any other pertinent notes from the treasure trove of information tucked into the nooks and crannies of my mind. Boy are there a lot of crannies!

Next I made the sketch.
What I want to do is going to require a great deal of math on my part. Harlequin windows for my interpretation on the latticed window through which the bird entered. YIKES! All kinds of math involved in this. I am not happy about it. But I can not think of any other way to get some kind of movement into the piece. And... it gives me lots of opportunity to bring rubberstamping into the project. The other thing that I am worried about is the process that I have decided on for setting the leading in the window.... could be problematic.

Anyway.... I'm off to ponder, weak and weary,
over many a quaint and curious episode of ghost hunting lore.....

Could this BE the new F r i e n d s ?

It would seem that almost everyone on my facebook friends list watches Castle. And I wonder, as my friend little sarah and I were texting back and forth even though we live in the same building... could this be the new friends?

When NBC ran Friends, those of us who were tight in our little group and enjoyed the show stopped the world for Friends. We got subs from TOGOs in the villiage or pasties from nextdoor and hunkered down for the night. And now, as the 4th season is set to open in less than 15 MINUTES! we are all a chatter with talk of getting all and sundry together for a viewing. It's kinda like Friends night but on a Monday at ABC and there is no clapping along with the theme song. Oh and its 10 pm instead of the earlier 8:30 ish.

Still.... how much fun would it be to have Castle nights? It would kinda be like David Hewlett's date night* but without the crying and the red wine.

Well gotta go. Soup's on. Literally. It's Bear Creek Cheddar potato with ham bits and extra cheese on top with a hearty dash of black pepper and garlic.

*David Hewlett is single-handedly responsible for at least three viewers. He tweeted about Castle and it being the date night goto plan. And I checked it out and was hooked. I brought at least 2 people aboard the Castle train. Way to go Hewlett. And Nate... if you see him at a Con  try to remember that he really isn't Rodney and thank him instead of punching him... even if that's what we want to do to Rodney. Thanx.

New Camera



watercolor of poppy seed pods

The camera is a GE X500 16.0 mega pixel with 15X wide angle optical zoom lens. It came with an 8gig memory card and I bought the case in addition to it. The whole kit and caboodle cost me less than 180.00.
This is a 3.5 by 7 inch watercolor. The shot is of just the top portion of the piece. And look how friggin cool this shot is. It shows all the variations: paper textures, the way the colors flowed across the paper for wet into wet blending AND clear pencil marks from the cross hatching I added when it was dry.

I am so excited. My next project from moo is going to be so much more cooler than the last with awesome clear shots like these. With the macro setting I was practically right on top of the paper and nothing is blurry. This will make all kinds of good things even better.