Goodbye My Dearest Friend Becky...

Becky, there is an empty space in my heart. You taught me so much. My life is more colorful than ever. Thank you for honoring my blog with your visits and words of comfort and kindness. Thank you for your grace and wisdom. May you rest in eternal peace.

I have known Becky since 2004. I met her through Mediumgreen, the Fiesta message board. I learned so much from her. She was a grand lady, a very interesting, creative and productive woman. I will miss Becky terribly. Fiesta dishes will forever be a part of my life and the wonderful people I met through them.

Becky's Blog

Love Does Not Make The World Go Round

It is naive and downright irresponsible to think that love makes the world go round. It doesn't matter which premise. It's romanticization. A romantic story almost always ends in tragedy. You think I am being cynical or pessimistic? Try paying the bank for next month's mortgage with love. See what I mean?

Improbable But Not Impossible. Micro pigment ink on 9"x12" Bristol Board. Among ornithological circles, it is highly improbable for a harpy eagle to capture an Argus pheasant in the wild. They live in different continents. I should have drawn a macaw as the prey but my son was marinating pheasant and cornish hens for barbecue. I am thinking I need to ink the background... I actually finished this drawing in graphite but I missed my ink, so I inked over it. I think is more challenging, using oo5 nib for the entire illustration.

This is my third attempt to illustrate Illustration Friday's "Round" prompt. My counsel advised me to scrap the first one. The second one, well, there was a lot of ink and while I liked it, when I wrote my post, in the end, I felt sorry for the character in my drawing.

I remembered the drawing, on the left, of the vaticinating moon many years ago. It was from Bimbimbie's photograph. When the prompt "Round" came up, I thought the drawing is very appropriate but I wanted a new illustration, so I did the above today, in between laundry, dusting, Christmas decorating, cleaning a bathroom, folding the laundry. Ah yes, I was lazy today, I just wanted to draw. What can I say.

By the way, there is still time to join my give-away. I added two more prints. The seven winners will be announced on December 1st.

Giving Thanks And A Thanksgiving Give-Away

Feast. Pen and Ink on 9"x12" Bristol Board.

A Prayer of Thanks:

Thank you, Dear God, for all the gifts You have given me. For those I love who are suffering and are not well, please bless them and make them whole and do not forsake those who care for them.

Amen.

And to my blog friends, visitors and followers: Thank you very much for sharing your time with me. I would like to start the Christmas season by sharing a little something with my blog followers, friends and visitors. These are 8"x10" prints of selected illustrations on acid free, archival materials. They are printed on velvet cotton rag paper come with backing boards and plastic sleeve.

However, since I have promised a few friends at different times some prints here are some prints for Steve (Lindol. Steve, I really meant it when I said I wanted to give you Lindol.), Mita (mAlice In Wonderland), Julia (Arches), Tammie Lee (Elma, The Hen).

GIVE-AWAY:

Below, are signed prints I am going to raffle for my blog visitors and followers. I will announce the winners on December 1st. Throughout the month of December, I will raffle a print every week. Good luck, have fun and thank you very much for your valuable time spent with me.

Anomie, HumptoroD2, Come Out And Play With Me, Where are You? (Pig in the Hall) and Tsup!

Tsup!

Here are a couple of reasons why our home is more crowded:

I admit it takes a special person to find an abused and neglected dog with scars from being cut and scabs and then let him into his home. This is Weezy (Wheezy, because he was wheezing when he was a puppy). My son let him into our home this past summer. He has not left since.

Someone always wants to occupy my drawing chair. Camera-shy Daisy. Weezy and Daisy playing nice.

I admit I love any aftermath of a holiday dinner, especially the linens and napkins needing to be washed. Isn't that a colorful laundry?

Barbarians At The Gate...

Damn carnivores!!!

I Love You!!!

Happy Movember Birthdays

To my beloved sisters, Inday Beck and Lynette!

And to my Beloved Viking whose birthday is next week, I love you so much. You are the only man I ever loved and love, as a husband; you know, I love my brothers and loved my father and my male friends. But as far as husband, yes, the rest were nothing, even if they wanted to marry me, I don't even remember their names, who were they? Hmn... Just kidding. Hahahaha!!! No seriously, I love my husband from the very moment I looked at him from across the room at a Christmas party when I was 19 years old. He is a very good man and a good father. He loves me even if I know nothing about football but call sports talk radio programs and discuss football with he hosts. God blessed me with him. Thank you!

And to my sister who is home after having been hospitalized for more than two months, I love you so very much and I love our sisters who love you. They inspire me to be hopeful, more loving, teach me to be spiritual and remind me that is is a great honor to care even when it is hard and challenging.

I love you!

TSUP!
TSUP!!!

What I am doing today: Do you care? Hahahaha! It's okay if you don't. I am doing laundry, vacuuming, playing Words, drinking coffee, brushing my teeth... Okay. Boring. Hey, Blogging: I have over 1240 posts. This does not include the posts on the past two versions of this blog which I deleted. That's a lot of posts. I should get a life, right? As of this writing, there have been 280,785 visitors to my blog. The most popular post in my blog is the one related to "patadyong." Now and then on Sundays, several crossword puzzle solvers search for my blog like: "here we sit like birds in the wilderness" and are led to a mediocre doodle about my Brownie days. And then "quercus." Last Sunday it was "quercus marilandica." By the way, I dropped that drawing and stepped on it while I was cleaning house one day. So it has a shoe print.

Do you know what I love? Very simple things, like a piece of white Bristol Board and a very fine tip pen, a pencil and clean eraser to start the sketch and then magic... I lovelovelovelovelove inking the white surface with black ink and then creating shadows and visual texture... but it's flat. It's on a flat piece of paper but the way I move my hand or press on the same pen creates different images. I love drawing trees because they are so full of interesting features and they carry with them so much life and vines, mushrooms, and weeds !!! They are the homes of the insects, the birds, the rodents, lagomorphs, snakes! Snakes!!! Damn snakes. I do not like snakes, real or the people kind.

I started the drawing, below, last night while I was waiting for my daughter's Vivaldi concert to start, because I finished Lindol before the month ended. My daughter is in high school and last night, the high school district's varsity choirs and orchestras got together and presented a fabulous rendition of Vivaldi's Gloria. My husband and I had goosebumps. They were that good. The two female high school students who sang the arias were awesome. I felt like I was watching future opera singers. Oh my. Just wonderful. So much talent. The trumpeter and oboe players were girls. When the boys sang their chorus, my heart jumped. Wonderful baritone. Oh my, just typing this paragraph makes me so happy and quiver.

Sometimes it just happens. I am so in love. I love the people I love so much, I cry. They make me feel so alive!!! And then I remember I have to continue doing the laundry and the cabinet surface needs dusting... Oh yes, I am alive alright. Now I need to get off my butt!!!

You know what's also amazing? Walgreen's Barcode Scanner application for Android. I scan the barcode and viola! My prescription is refilled. My, my, my!

What I Miss:

I have been so busy and occupied that sometimes, I just like to work a little harder in the kitchen and play with my dishes. I am posting these photos in the hope that I will be inspired to play with my dishes.