Boules de Neige

Rutabaga Renewal

2010-01-02T09:24:00.003-05:00

Begin the new year with a promise to eat more tubers.

Acrylic paint and ink on a 10 x 8 inch board.

Welcome

2009-09-13T08:17:00.001-04:00

to my onion patch.

Acrylic paint on a 9 x 12 inch board

Impossibility

2009-04-19T17:50:00.002-04:00

Ah beets... Pretty to look at but I would find it close to impossible to actually eat some of these. They were fun to paint though.

Acrylic paint on a 10 by 8 inch board.

Subtract

2009-03-24T18:15:00.002-04:00

This is the second in my root and tuber series.
4 carrots + 2 apples - 2 apples = 4 carrots.

Acrylic paint on a 12 x 16 board.

Breezy

2009-03-02T17:34:00.003-05:00

Acrylic on a 9x12 inch board

Climbing

2009-01-28T15:44:00.005-05:00

Warthog step aerobics.

Acrylic paint on an 8 by 6 inch board.

Amphipod at Cinque Terre

2009-01-12T11:11:00.004-05:00

I haven't finished a painting or participated in Illustration Friday in more than a year. My father died January 6, 2008, then my mother-in-law in February. The loss of my father has resulted in the blunting of my creative impulses. I have six unfinished paintings; I couldn't summon the desire or skills needed to complete them.
Then recently I found an old drawing of an amphipod that I made years ago when I was working in a lab identifying invertebrates. I made up my mind to combine the amphipod with images from a photo I took in Italy in 2006.
I'm not crazy about this, it seems to need more work, but it's a start since painting and drawing are what will make me happy again.
(Oh, and I think eggs might be contained in her abdomen.)

acrylic and ink on 9x12 inch panel

Little Things

2007-12-10T15:53:00.000-05:00

Acrylic and ink on a 9x12 inch board.

Superstition

2007-11-18T17:53:00.000-05:00

This started out as the IF 'hat' theme. I didn't finish it in time. So when 'scale' was the theme for the following week, I painted the a smaller version on a coffee cup. Well, that didn't work out either, I couldn't get it done in time. Now this week is 'superstition'. More adaptation was needed.
An ancient superstition = if a woman sits down at a bar with a glass of wine and notices a cup which is painted with her image, then she will gradually disappear.

Acrylic paint on an 8x8 inch board.

Lerici

2007-01-21T11:08:00.000-05:00

I just finished this today and was going to post it to IF
if the topic fit in any way, but it doesn't so I didn't.
I tried something different here, alizarine crimson gesso
(which I bought years ago and had never used) instead of white.
The photo of a girl walking her dog that I based this upon was taken last May in Lerici, Italy.

Acrylic paint on a ten by 8 inch board.

Ghost

2006-10-25T16:48:00.000-04:00

Two ghosts.

Acrylic paint and ink on an 8 by 8 inch board.

Smitten

2006-10-19T18:03:00.000-04:00

This fellow seems fairly smitten with birds, or maybe they find him irresistable.
I have this little (2x3 inch) cutout from a magazine that I've saved since I was in high school. It shows a painting of this guy, in black and white. I have long since lost the information about who painted it and who the subject was. Another artist maybe? A naturalist painter? I can't remember. But here is my interpretation of the mysterious painting (or drawing) that I have saved so long. Maybe someone will recognize it.

Acrylic paint on a 10 x 8 inch board.

Quiet

2006-10-05T18:33:00.000-04:00

I like giraffes and thought one would be a good subject for this topic because I had heard that they don't make noise. So I worked away on this and when it was almost finished I did a google search and learned that they aren't so quiet after all.

"Although normally silent, giraffes are not mute. This is a myth. Baby giraffe calves have been reported bleating and making a mewing sound, while adults have been heard to bellow when seeking a lost calf, snort when in alarm and bull giraffes emit a raucous cough during courting. A variety of other assorted giraffe sounds including mooing, moaning, hissing, grunting, whistling, growling and, apparently, flutelike sounds have also been reported."

Acrylic paint on a 10 by 8 inch board.

Phobia

2006-09-23T19:18:00.000-04:00

No doubt someone who suffers from snake phobia (ophidiophobia) would be startled and terrified to find poisonous coral snakes in the bathroom. Even if they do happen to be imaginary.
I have always loves snakes, since I was a wee tyke. My parents tell me, that when I was about 7 or 8 and we lived in Maryland, I brought home a baby copperhead in my lunchbox. I don't really recall this very clearly but evidently I attempted to assure them that I knew how to handle poisonous snakes. Here I am as an enraptured schoolgirl gazing at my favorite reptile.

I tried to make this a black and white painting thinking I needed to try something other than the overly bright colors I normally use. But I couldn't finish it as b&w (it gave me a headache, like when you need caffeine), so gave in to my instincts and painted color over the black and white piece.

acrylic on a 6 by 8 inch board

Change

2006-09-18T17:49:00.000-04:00

These are some items I brought home from Italy. A little pear juice bottle, a small glass dish and some Euro coins.

I hadn't finished any paintings since July. The room that I paint in is small, with very little storage space. And since I have problems with throwing stuff out, my room had gradually become so cluttered and crowded that I would drag my paints out to the dining room so that I wouldn't have to work in here. Then I decided to get the room cleaned up and not do any artwork until it was finished. If you have the stomach for the squalor I was working in you can see it here (as well as the after pictures).

Acrylic paint on an 8 by 8 inch board.

Opposites

2006-07-24T19:21:00.000-04:00

This is a drawing that my father made in 1945 after he came back from WWII. He was about 19 when he drew it (he joined the navy when he was 17).
I have always been amazed that he remembered the scene in such detail and was able to draw it from memory almost two years later.
When I decided to make it into a painting, I asked him what he remembered about the circumstances of the scene he had drawn. He wrote three pages of his memories of that time.

He was stationed in French Morocco, North Africa, and was in charge of disarming unexploded shells, as well as maintaining the aircraft machine guns, torpedoes and depth charges. He liked to spend some free time in a cafe where he could get real scrambled eggs, bacon and good coffee. There he made the acquaintence of a young Frenchman who had deserted from the army in Algiers soon after the Vichy government was established. He was a proud Frenchman who was deeply hurt by the loss of his country and the establishment of the German controlled Vichy.
My father is at the table on the left and young French deserter on the right. The two French soldiers are from the security detachment at the French side of the U.S. airbase. Most soldiers like them were without real guidance or orders from the Vichy regime so they were fortunate to find a group that could use them (and house and feed them).
The hotel Atlas was in Agadir, on the coast. The building in the distance is a former Portugese fort that was being used as a tuberculosis hospital.
At the end of my father's written narrative he says, "The sad end to my story is that on Feb. 29, 1960 an earthquake, tidal waves and ensuing fire destroyed most of the city of Agadir and killed 12,000 people."
Some months ago my mother suggested that I create a painting from this drawing, and so I have.

acrylic paint on a 9 by 12 inch board (click image to enlarge)

Sacrifice

2006-07-17T18:08:00.000-04:00

I started this for the skyline topic, but could not get it finished in time. I decided to adapt it for this week's topic by including a zebra who has sacrificed her wild life on the beautiful plains of Africa to come to the city and seek work. So that she can 'put food on her family'.
(Food quote courtesy of our eloquent preznit.)

Acrylic paint on a 10 by 10 inch board.

Rain

2006-06-24T19:19:00.000-04:00

I started this 2 weeks ago for the jungle topic but couldn't finish it that weekend, then last weekend was too beautiful and sunny to stay inside and paint.
Now we have a rainy weekend so I was able to finish this, adapted to this week's Rain theme.
The parrot was caught in a rainstorm while wearing her favorite shirt, and she waits patiently as it dries.

acrylic paint and ink on an 8 by 8 inch board

Portrait

2006-06-06T20:39:00.000-04:00

These two figures appeared in a previous post, back when I was just making collages and hadn't started painting again.
So since they were crammed into my collage book, unseen and neglected, I decided to revive them into an acrylic painting.

Acrylic paint and ink on an 8x10 inch board.

Cake

2006-05-29T18:01:00.000-04:00

The blue girl is knitting leftist bumper stickers while listening to one of her favorite bands, Cake.

Right before the November 2004 election, I noticed what appeared to be a funeral pyre for the Bush administration set up on a main road in my little town.
The effect was somewhat ambiguous, so I emailed the picture to the Freeway Blogger, asking his opinion as to whether he agreed that it was most likely a statement against Bush. Perhaps the people who made it intended to set it on fire after the results of the elections were announced.
Here was his reply:

"Very Interesting. I'm inclined to agree with you if only because only an artist would think to do such a thing, and although we don't have the military industrial complex on our side, we do have the artists..."

It's true that most of the great songwriters, artists, actors, writers have been and continue to be progressives who care about the human race and abhor war and all its horrid consequences.

Acrylic and ink on an 8 x 8 inch board.

Sorry

2006-05-22T19:26:00.000-04:00

I was sorry to have missed the past two weeks of IF.
We went to Florence then drove to Lerici .
The most beautiful place we visited was the Cinque Terre
The drive to the first town was a bit harrowing but the landscape was dazzling.

This zebra was to be the subject of my Fat entry, but I didn't have time to finish it before we left. He started out as a fat zebra standing in front of a liposuction clinic. Well, since I had already started this picture, I thought I could adapt it to this week's topic. I guess the zebra is sorry that he didn't get to star in the Fat painting as well as being devastated that he couldn't appear as a winged zebra angel for the following week.

Acrylic on board.

Under the Sea

2006-05-02T19:50:00.000-04:00

Also known as the Hawaiian Triggerfish (much easier to say), the Humuhumunukunukuapua'a is the unofficial state fish of Hawaii. There are various translations of the word humuhumunukunukuapua'a including "fish with a snout like a pig." Another rumored reason for the name is that when it is caught and brought out of the water, it snorts like a pig. One of its defensive characteristics is its ability to puff up somewhat, wedging itself between rocks or in coral. When it is brought to the surface, this air is released, making the snorting noise. The word "pua'a" in Hawaiian means "pig." According to this version, the name, humuhumunukunukuapua'a literally means "fish who comes out of the water and sounds like a pig."

Humuhumunukunukuapua'a info found here.

Acrylic paint on a 6x8 inch board

Robot

2006-04-23T19:41:00.000-04:00

When I was a kid, I devoured science fiction and Asimov was one of my favorite writers.

I, Robot is the title of Asimov's first collection of short stories. It consists of nine stories about positronic robots, united by a consistent narrative in which a reporter interviews the character Susan Calvin about her life working with robots.

There is a lot of information about Asimov and his work here.

Acrylic paint on a 6x8 inch board

Spotted

2006-04-20T19:02:00.000-04:00

I wasn't too inspired by this topic, so it took me a long time to get this done. Here it is Thursday night and I'm submitting something I'm not too crazy about.
This is a picture based on a photo I took in a cemetery in Cozumel, Mexico.

Acrylic paint and ink on a 10x8 inch board.

Speed

2006-04-10T18:54:00.000-04:00

This week I decided to paint a color acrylic version of a running zebra copper etching that I made some years ago.

Acrylic paint and ink on a 10 by 8 inch board.

Spring

2006-04-04T20:10:00.000-04:00

The return of the bugs occurs as spring begins.
I started this for the insect topic but couldn't finish it in time, so I finally adapted it to the theme of spring.
Here is a picture of some of my paintings around my kitchen window.
Another with two pictures added. I had to take this because it snowed last night!

Acrylic paint and ink on a 10 x 8 in. board

Monster

2006-03-26T08:40:00.000-05:00

I can't think of anything more monstrous than unprovoked pre-emptive war and the resulting death and maiming of countless human beings.

Monster
Our cities have turned into jungles
And corruption is strangling the land
The police force is watching the people
And the people just can't understand
We don't know how to mind our own business
'Cause the whole world's got to be just like us
Now we are fighting a war over there
No matter who's the winner
We can't pay the cost
'Cause there's a monster on the loose
It's got our heads into a noose
And it just sits there watching

America where are you now?
Don't you care about your sons and daughters?
Don't you know we need you now
We can't fight alone against the monster

1970 Steppenwolf

The complete lyrics are here.

(Acrylic paint and ink on 9x12 inch board. Click for larger image)

Feet

2006-03-23T09:20:00.000-05:00

This week I have attempted to adapt another of my kids' paintings.
My son did this watercolor for an art class assignment in high school when he was sixteen.
Mine is a 9x12 inch acrylic and ink painting on a board.
It took much more time than I anticipated and I haven't quite finished it, but I so love his imaginary cityscape that I have wanted to make my own version of it.

I'm not sure what this has to do with the topic, except the Okapi does have four feet.

Tattoo

2006-03-13T20:07:00.000-05:00

This is something of a departure for me. It's a variation on a colored pencil piece my darling daughter made in art school. (Sarah's website)
Her picture is framed and on my wall and I just love it and thought I would attempt to recreate it in acrylics with some changes. I'll have a link to her piece as soon as I can take a decent picture of it, since it doesn't fit in my scanner. Here it is.

Acrylic paint and ink on an 8x8 inch board

Insect

2006-03-09T17:16:00.000-05:00

I painted this more than 15 years ago and my plan for this week's topic was to make something new using the same insect. I haven't finished it yet and it's already Thursday evening, so I'm putting this one up instead. When the new one is finished, I'll replace or add it.

Acrylic on canvas

Tea

2006-03-02T16:43:00.000-05:00

Acrylic and ink on 10 x 8 inch board.

Song

2006-02-20T17:42:00.000-05:00

When I lived in a house in the woods, the most beautiful sound
I would hear was the flute-like song of the wood thrush.
Henry David Thoreau wrote, "The thrush alone declares the immortal wealth and vigor that is in the forest. Here is a bird in whose strain the story is told... Whenever a man hears it he is young, and Nature is in her spring; whenever he hears it, it is a new world and a free country,
and the gates of heaven are not shut against him."
You can listen to the thrush's song here
Acrylic paint on an 8 x 8 inch board.

Simple

2006-02-13T11:09:00.000-05:00

I was sort of glad to see the topic Simple because I didn't have much time to finish a painting this week, so I thought I would do something uncomplicated, rather than get carried away with
little details and objects - sitting painting away for 20 hours or more like I usually do.
I decided to do a simple small picture of a lizard because I only had Sunday to work on it. (We are leaving for Nevada tomorrow and won't be home until Friday.) Well it's not one of my better efforts but at least I got it finished.

Acrylic and ink on a 6 by 8 inch board

Chair

2006-02-06T15:31:00.000-05:00

Acrylic paint and ink on a 10 x 10 inch board.
(click for larger image)

Glamour

2006-01-31T17:28:00.000-05:00

I was having trouble coming up with a glamourous idea until I found
that glamour can also be a verb.

v : cast a spell over or put a hex on someone or something

This lemur cast a spell upon the bathroom and oversized fruits have magically appeared. (Lemurs are vegetarian, consuming leaves and fruit.)
Ring-tailed lemurs live in groups of five to thirty members. Females, who stay in the group for their entire lives, dominate the group. Males have a social structure that undergoes great upheaval during mating season.

acrylic and ink on an 8x8 inch board (click to enlarge)

Cat

2006-01-23T13:34:00.000-05:00

Someone from a knitting company emailed me; she said she liked the work I post here and wondered if I would be interested in doing some illustrations for one of their products. So I made some pen and ink sketches based on what they said they were looking for, scanned and emailed them, but never heard back from the knitters.
Q. So what to do with unused sketches? And how to apply them to this week's topic?
A. Paint a picture of a woman knitting scarf and booties for her miniature cheetah.

Acrylic paint on art board.

E is for..

2006-01-17T18:45:00.000-05:00

Echolocation. Bats are amazing.

A bat emits a sound wave and listens carefully to the echoes that return to it. By determining how long it takes a noise to return, the bat's brain figures out how far away an object is.

The bat can also determine where the object is, how big it is and in what direction it is moving. The bat can tell if an insect is to the right or left by comparing when the sound reaches its right ear to when the sound reaches its left ear.

A bat can tell how big an insect is based on the intensity of the echo. A smaller object will reflect less of the sound wave, and so will produce a less intense echo. The bat can sense in which direction the insect is moving based on the pitch of the echo.

http://science.howstuffworks.com

acrylic paint and ink on an 8x10 inch board

Sea

2006-01-11T19:34:00.000-05:00

Okay, they're back again. The blue woman and her odd pet.
The airplane fell into the sea. Since the oxygen bags didn't fall down and the air pressure was lethal, the other passengers and crew perished. Though saddened by this tragic fact, blue woman (who obviously doesn't rely upon oxygen to survive) took the opportunity enjoy a much needed smoke.

Acrylic on board

Flavor

2006-01-02T17:18:00.000-05:00

When I saw this week's topic, the first things I thought of were those slurpee/slushy drinks that come in so many flavors. So I decided to try to create a slushy dispenser bar in outer space. The blue woman and her pet (from my Night submission) return as slurpee bar patrons.

Acrylic and ink on 8 by 10 in board.

Holiday

2005-12-27T18:05:00.000-05:00

There is a lot to do over the winter holiday season. So much preparation - cooking, shopping, cleaning, and of course, the zebra's annual bath.

Acrylic paint on a 10 x 8 inch board.

Imagine

2005-12-21T18:43:00.000-05:00

This was a great topic because there are no limits to the imagination.
My idea was to paint penguins on a tropical beach. (penguins, rhinos, zebras and giraffes are some of my favorite animals to draw). Well, as often happens, the painting evolved into something quite different from what I had initially imagined.

Acrylic paint and ink on an 11 by 14 inch board.

Surprise

2005-12-14T21:05:00.000-05:00

Acrylic paint and ink on an 8x10 inch board.

Blue

2005-12-04T12:56:00.000-05:00

The blue-footed booby is a comical-looking tropical seabird with bright blue webbed feet.
Breeding begins with elaborate courtship displays by the male. He flies around his territory, flaunting his blue feet in an exaggerated high-stepping walk, and presents pieces of nest material to the female. After making a courtship flight, the male flashes his feet at the female as he lands. Then each bird tilts its bill up towards the sky and the male gives a piercing whistle. The female responds with groaning calls, and mating follows shortly afterwards.

The blue-footed booby got its name from the spanish word bobo, which means stupid fellow. Its lack of fear and clumsiness on land has made the species vulnerable to man.

Information from - http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu

Acrylic paint on an 8X8 inch board.

Small

2005-11-29T21:27:00.000-05:00

Amphipods are very small

Free

2005-11-23T15:41:00.000-05:00

This is an acrylic painting on an 8 by 10 inch board..
Fruit has been freed from the grip of gravity!

Strength

2005-11-17T18:20:00.000-05:00

This probably has little to do with strength. I had trouble coming up with something for this topic, so I delayed until Thursday night.
Strong clothes pin? Strong clothes line? Strong proud giraffe perhaps?

This is a composite of two of my acrylic paintings, made into a collage. The girl is my daughter at about the age of eight. I had scanned or photographed the paintings, then printed them out on matte heavyweight paper, cut them up, and slathered glue and varnish on everything.
It's a bit messy but I wanted to submit something before the deadline.

Night

2005-11-08T21:51:00.000-05:00

I'm not sure what this is. I wanted to paint with acrylics (since I hadn't for a few years) and also use an artboard, which I had never done.

So it started out with the chair, window and background, in acrylic paint. Then I decided on a figure seated on the chair, but I wanted it to be transparent, so I made that with tracing paper, colored pencil and watercolor.
I have no idea what that thing is that she is holding. It just happened that way.

(click for larger image)

Broken

2005-11-01T19:29:00.000-05:00

Stranded in the middle of nowhere with a broken down bike!
And no one will come to your aid because you are a........
-big Lizard-.

Remote

2005-10-25T19:02:00.000-04:00

Penguins and pumpkins floating through space in a portable room.
This is a composite of an acrylic painting and water color pencil penguins.

Cold

2005-10-16T13:57:00.000-04:00

The figures were drawn with ink and water soluble colored pencils, then cut out and pasted onto a background of tissue paper. Click to enlarge.
(I'm not sure what the animal is. I found a sketch of one that I drew years ago, but it had no name.) It doesn't show up well in this scanned image but the girl is holding a snow globe.

Lost

2005-10-13T09:46:00.000-04:00

Armadillos lost in an unfamilar location.
(acrylic on canvas)

Float

2005-10-05T16:43:00.000-04:00

A fish floating through air. Collage with colored pencil drawing.

Fresh

2005-09-29T10:32:00.000-04:00

I didn't have a chance to come up with something original this week, so I cheated and submitted a watercolor painting that I made a few years ago.

Escape

2005-09-18T22:37:00.000-04:00

"Suicide is the punctuation mark at the end of many artistic careers"
-Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

When I am dead and over me bright April shakes out her rain-drenched hair, though you should lean above me broken-hearted, I shall not care. I shall have peace, as leafy trees are peaceful when rain bends down the bough; and I shall be more silent and cold-hearted than you are now.
-Suicide note to her lover who left her. Sara Teasdale, poet, d. 1933

One more Unfortunate
Weary of breath
Rashly importunate,
Gone to her death.
...
Mad from life's history,
Glad to death's mystery
Swift to be hurl'd—
Anywhere, anywhere
Out of the world.
-The Bridge of Sighs by Thomas Hood

"No More Games. No More Bombs. No More Walking. No More Fun."
-Hunter S. Thompson

“Ah! mon ami, je m'en vais enfin de ce monde, où il faut que le coeur se brise ou se bronze.”
- Nicolas Chamfort, French writer, d. 1794

Depth

2005-09-13T19:38:00.000-04:00

This week's Illustration Friday topic.
This is a print of a copper etching I made using a soft ground technique.

Roots

2005-09-05T22:12:00.000-04:00

Visiting the White House in Washington, D.C. was a representative of an all-white talibangelical lobbying group.
Upon opening the door of a guest bathroom near the Oval Office, she was met with a sight so disturbing, so unspeakably unsavory that she was immediately driven mad, and as a result has become unmindful of her appearance and is now unable to make her weekly trips to the hair salon.
What she witnessed was sordid and repellant to such a degree that her mind shattered and she instantly lost all fashion acumen.

A pig-pile of pudgy writhing amply lubricated flesh heaved upon the slippery floor. Nearby lay what appeared to be several hastily discarded blue Armani suits.

Later that day, a sharp eyed leftist blogger was watching a quickly called and unannounced press conference and noticed that two administration officials, Karl (Puffy Svengali) Rove and Scotty (Piglet McMoonface) McClelland, who appeared flushed and out of breath, were wearing identical rumpled, stained blue suits.

The blogger’s keyboard smoked as he broke the news that these blue stained suits could bring down the administration.

(Since Roots is the Illustration Friday theme this week, I decided to draw a madwoman who is no longer interested in having her roots touched up. I drew this at the beach today and I was trying to think of a vile sight that could drive someone mad. When we got home I painted and scanned it. Pencil, ink and watercolor)

Dreams

2005-08-29T22:25:00.000-04:00

I love dreams, the incongruity, objects and situations juxtaposed in bizarre ways. Unexpected improbability, illogical situations.
Last week I dreamed that I was exiting some official looking building in an unfamiliar city and noticed what appeared to be a homeless man lounging in the street and using the curb as a pillow. But he seemed content and had next to him a mother cat, and her kittens were sprawled on and playing about him. He looked exactly like John Cleese (but in a raggedy outfit). I approached him and started to say, 'are you....'. He interrupted me with a smile and said, 'I know, everyone mistakes me for John Cleese'. Then I crouched down next to him and played with the kittens for a while. Next thing I knew I was holding either a newspaper or a bulletin of some sort and the headline was something like 'Jaimie W. rescues her 7th John Cleese look-alike vagabond this week!' In the dream there was no 'rescue' that I could recall.
Then I woke up.
Well who knows where this came from. I never think about John Cleese and I certainly have no desire to see my name in headlines.

I just find it so interesting where the subconscious may take us when we sleep.
I had no hope of adequately illustrating that dream and doing it justice so I'm submitting a collage that somewhat demonstrates my sense of dreams. Things that one would not see in waking life, but may appear perfectly normal while asleep, like an okapi standing next to a Wurlitzer jukebox.

The Okapi and palm tree are from a copper etching print I did some years ago. The jukebox was drawn with water soluble colored pencils.

Reflection

2005-08-22T19:21:00.000-04:00

This submission for the Illustration Friday topic Reflection is a collage that consists of a cutout of a water color painting I made, glued atop some scraps of homemade paper and some gold leaf around the edges. (click for larger image)
The wooden fish is reflecting upon his mirror reflection. (I think).

Wisdom

2005-08-14T18:31:00.000-04:00

Doubtful beet man with foolish, reckless bats. (click for larger image)

I turned to the words of Bertrand Russell for some thoughts on wisdom.
A lack of wisdom on the part of our leaders and the failure to listen to those who do possess it have divided and damaged this country, possibly beyond repair.
Russell also had this to say, and I believe it perfectly describes the criminals who are currently in charge of the U.S. government.

"Are we to continue entrusting our affairs to men without sympathy, without knowledge, without imagination and having nothing to recommend them except methodical hatred and skill in vituperation?"

Empty

2005-08-11T09:19:00.000-04:00

Illustration Friday topic.
Empty gas tanks, late at night, the gas station is closed......
I drew these figures on tracing paper to give them a transparent look and used water soluble colored pencils, tissue paper background with stick-on drug store stars.

Illustration Friday - Aging

2005-08-01T15:07:00.000-04:00

Since aging begins at birth and happens in increments, I thought I would show the result of 14 years in the life of my daughter. The collage consists of tissue paper, paint, glitter, gold leaf, So. Korean money, altered rhino photo, (which I took at the San Diego Zoo), and photographs.

Tranquility

2005-07-25T19:07:00.000-04:00

I chose a picture of my grandmother for this collage and submitted it for the Tranquility topic because her expression is so serene. She was 19 when the photo was taken, approximately 1912.
American women did not yet have the right to vote. I don't know how she felt about this, or whether she may have supported the women's suffrage movement. I would love to have known, but she left this world when I was young so I never had a chance ask her.

Karma

2005-07-19T22:01:00.000-04:00

New Hampshire has a small Atlantic Ocean coast. We have lots of lakes too. But most of the ocean and lake coastlines are lined with private properties that prohibit citizens from accessing these bodies of water, which are owned by the state, not the wealthy homeowners. The supreme court has decided that poor people's homes can be confiscated by local governments for the benefit of corporations. Well I would like to see this same law applied to huge beachfront trophy houses, so that these properties might be returned to the people. Fair is fair.

Illustration Friday

2005-07-11T16:48:00.000-04:00

Metropolitan

This is a wrought iron gate at the Massachusetts College of Art in Boston.
The figures at the top are two welders and a goat.