Buffalo Bison Scribble Drawing

Here's my latest scribble...very pleased with this one

The Scribble Drawing Series: Letting MS Shakes Out to Have Some Fun

I can easily control my shaky MS hands by resting my wrist as I draw or paint but if it's held above the paper all heaven breaks loose.  Here are some sketches I did with this technique.  Please leave your thoughts in comments?

A Quick Bird Sketch

The Skinny on My Sheep Thing

"Sheep Portrait" 2002

People ask me why I draw and paint sheep so often. I doodle and watercolor and photograph and render them on the computer.   The answer is that I love sheep.  My family and good friends know this and I'm lucky enough to be remembered with sheep gifts at holidays and birthdays:  I have sheep key chains, sheep magnets, sheep bookmarks, sheep figurines, sheep socks and even a sheep scarf.

 The following story, tho kinda long for a blog, tells the true --- and what I hope is an entertaining -- story of the beginnings of my obsession with sheep.

When I was 11 years old I was walking across my yard and was suddenly roughly upended and shoved to the ground. Breathless and startled, I pulled myself to my elbows and cast my eyes around for the culprit. The answer stood behind me in the form of a now docile woolly mass: A sheep chewed slowly on a mound of lawn and nudged me gently with his nose.

The fluffy offender was my sister’s sheep. It wasn’t the first time he’d ambushed someone and it wouldn’t be the last. I reached up and patted his white face.

About a year earlier I’d learned my sister was getting a sheep. I was incredulous. And although I’d never considered it before, I bleated “Why can’t I have a sheep too?”
“Because she joined the 4-H Sheep Club.”, my mother explained patiently, as if I were a little slow and it were the most normal thing in the world for a 13 year-old girl to adopt a large farm animal.

I might add that this was a 13 year-old girl who’d never before expressed interest in farming, did not have a barn, and whose experience with barnyard animals was limited to once visiting the petting zoo downtown. And it wasn’t a fun visit either. The memory of my mother and sister and me backed against a fence,  hungry goats and sheep with hooves on our chests vying for grain handouts still haunts me.

                 Mom & Kathy at the petting zoo right before the animal mugging.

We’d had lots of other animals around our house through the years. We had the usual family cat and dog, a few gerbils with some fish sprinkled in occasionally; mostly normal pets. My brother found an orphaned baby squirrel once and brought it home for a while. Until it got mean and he had to let it go. But a sheep was a whole new level of animal. Sheep were barn animals. Sheep were big.

“It’s just a baby sheep. A lamb.” Mom said, now sounding like she was trying to convince herself more than me on the rationale of this decision. “And she just has to raise it, then it goes back to wherever it came from.”

“Um, that would be a farm, Mom. Where farm animals belong.” I said, barely restraining the “Duh.” at the end of my snotty pre-teen reply. Clearly I was jealous. Sibling rivalry dictated that, if I couldn’t have one I didn’t want her to, either.

I wandered out to the yard to ask my father where we would keep a lamb. I saw he’d built a little fenced-in corral for it in the garage. He also attached a small gated outside area to it. He stood with his arms crossed, seeming pleased with it. I crawled in and out through the little door he’d put in for it, and the idea of getting a lamb was actually starting to seem fun, even if it weren’t mine.

 I was beginning to look forward to meeting the little fella. I had images of Christmas cards in my mind where the shepherd carries the little lamb on his shoulders and cartoon lambs bouncing through fields of flowers and of course of the famous Mary’s little lamb who followed her to school.

                                                            "Sheep Dreams"2015

A few days later, the lamb was ready for pick-up. Dad, my sister, two brothers, and I hopped into our old station wagon—a long, low-slung car with fake wood painted up the sides, and drove to the farm, just a few miles away. Dad parked the car in front of the farmhouse. We all piled out and looked around. A few sullen- looking cows grazed in a nearby pasture. Just visible up the hill, about twenty sheep stood unmoving, like yellowy-grey shrubs in a field. A huge rickety unpainted old barn was slung behind the house.

“There he is!” Kathy said and pointed. We stood watching as an old farmer in droopy jeans and big black rubber boots came out of the barn.  He was leading the biggest lamb I had ever seen. Its wool was about 5 inches thick and looked to weigh more than me. The farmer stopped in front of us. The round, fat animal looked up benignly as we all gathered round to pat it.

  

I don’t know why my father didn’t ask about its large size right there, but instead made small talk with the farmer, as if picking up a sheep were something he did regularly. Looking back on it I now think Dad realized he was way out of his element. Chatting nervously about the football and the weather he proceeded to load the hapless sheep into the back of the station wagon.

When you put any other animal—say a dog, or a cat--in a place that’s a little low-ceiling for them, they know enough to lower their heads, maybe bend their legs and crouch down. Not a sheep. That animal could not understand the concept of, or would not try to conform its too-high body to fit inside the back of that wagon. Its legs were stiff sticks. In the end Dad had to lay it on its side and slide it into the back of the car like a loaf of fluffy bread into an oven.

“Is it a boy or girl?” Dad asked the farmer, straightening up, sweating and wiping his hands on his jeans.

“Girl,” the farmer said looking at him out of the side of his eye with a voice that implied “Duh.”.

In the car on the way home, the sheep lay silent and confused in the back of the car and slid around like a giant sponge at each turn and stop.

Kathy named her new pet Trixie. Sheep make unusual pets. Trixie was no exception. Petting a sheep is a lesson in curl care. A sheep’s hair can’t be petted one way or another like a dog or cat’s. It grows straight up and curls into little oily knots. And Trixie's was deep, oily and thick. So we to just gave her a rub or a pat rather than a pet.

                                                                             Trixie

 But it really didn’t matter. Trixie didn’t seem to appreciate our affections. Though docile and relaxed, she didn’t seem to care whether people paid her any attention. As long as she was fed, she was content and was sweet, but I always felt she was somehow disconnected from us.  A dog or a cat will gaze straight into both your eyes and you may feel a real connection there, a sort of soul inside the animal.

 But sheep’s eyes are on the sides of its head so it always appears to be looking into the distance and has to turn its head and look at you with only one eye at a time. When an animal can only look at you that way, it feels like she distrusts you; maybe thinks you're weird.. Or there’s somewhere else she’d rather be. So Trixie would stand and let us pat her and she'd gaze out at the yard or seem to peer at us suspiciously out of one eye or the other. It was sort of like the look the farmer gave Dad when he inquired about Trixie’s gender.
                                       
The reason for the farmer’s funny look was revealed about a week later. Dad went out to the garage to check on Trixie and discovered her lying in her stall with a newborn lamb! We kids squealed and shrieked with excitement but Dad just stood there shaking his head and grumbling, rocking on his heels, his hands deep in his pockets.

This astounding news to us was not at all a surprise to the 4-H leader, who received an immediate, panicked call.. She assured my parents that Kathy was told she would be bringing home a pregnant mother sheep, called a ewe, and was supposed to keep them both until the lamb was raised and weaned.
“How else could she raise a lamb?” the leader chuckled. “He needs to be fed.” I’m sure another “Duh” comment was implied here.

So now our non-farm house with its non-barn garage was housing two sheep. Someone in the family---I think it was Dad --- named the lamb Punk.

Kathy & Punk

An uncle was soon called who had a real farm of his own. He informed my father that Punk’s tail would need to be docked. I learned then that “docked” means “chopped off”. It seems their tails grow too long and fuzzy and present a hygiene issue—that is, they get poopy. So Uncle Dan arrived to help Dad perform the operation.
                                 

We were all horrified about the operation and to learn later that day that Dan had used our kitchen pairing knife for the task. That black-handled little sharp knife ended up back in the kitchen drawer but was never again used by my mother or any of us kids and was always referred to ever after as The Knife They Used to Cut Off Punk’s Tail. I think it’s still there today.

But no one uses it.

But that little lamb was the most adorable thing on four legs and charmed the whole family right away with his cuteness and playfulness. His fleece actually was white as snow. His tiny legs had huge knobby knees and he had a perpetual smile.

When approached, Punk would stand perfectly still, except for shaking his now shortened tail. With his head lowered, he’d smile at you. He’d let you pat him. Suddenly he’d leap in the air like he’d gotten an electrical shock and charge around the yard, bucking and jumping every few feet. Then he’d come back, still smiling, bump his head against you and allow his ears to be scratched or his head to be patted again.  When Dad mowed the lawn, Punk would be an adorable bright green by the end of the day from rolling and playing in the grass.

"Green",  2015

“I like having two sheeps!” my little brother said.
“Sheep,” sighed my father. “More that one and you still say ‘sheep’. Many sheep. Like the word fish, you call them ‘many fish.’”
“But what about fishes?” said my mother.
“Oh. Yea,” said Dad, rubbing his head, suddenly seeming tired. “Okay, you can say many sheeps”. And he pronounced it sheep-izz, like fishes. We were about to learn that sheepizz, like fishes, were not very smart.

Punk liked to bump his head into things. We'd started a game with Punk in which we’d encourage him to “ram” his head against our outstretched hands. He seemed to love it. He would bang into your hand, back up and do it again. It was really cute when he weighed about 12 pounds. But as Punk quickly grew and grew, he never grew out of his love for this game. A lamb butting you is cute and entertaining. A full grown sheep with curly horns is quite another thing.

                                              "Irish Sweaters" 2016

After ending up on our back in the mud more than once we eventually learned to look carefully out the door and around the yard for Punk’s whereabouts each time we left the house before making a dash for the car. Sometimes we'd get halfway there and see Punk, a big woolly train, barreling across the lawn towards us, head lowered, smiling. Many times he’d chase one of us up onto our cellar door and trap us there, dressed for church, or a date, or for work.

Punk didn’t have any malice or ill intent. It was all a game for him. But if he caught you, you were going down. Hard. Then he’d just stand and smile at you, nosing around at the collar of whatever outfit he’d just ruined until you got up out of the mud or grass and gave him a scratch behind the ear.

Punk presented other troubles. When we first got Trixie, she’d stay around the house and happily munch on the grass of our one acre or so of lawn. But Punk was a wanderer. He took to roving the neighborhood without regard for neighboring borders and Trixie would follow.

 Dad would get a phone call and have to go fetch them from a neighbor’s garage; or worse, from someone’s decimated vegetable garden. On the way back from rounding them up, cars would slow and people inside would point at the strange sight of Dad, still in his tie and dress clothes from work, leading two sheep down the street on a rope.

                                                          "Sheeps"  2015
For a while we tried keeping them in their little pen, but they seemed unhappy in there. So we set up a couple of stakes in the yard, got some long ropes for each of them and tied them up. If you chain up a dog like this, he may run and lunge and choke himself a little the first couple times he tries to get away. His legs will slide out in front of him and he’ll stop. It was different with Punk. He never seemed to learn where his rope ended.

Though we no longer had to dodge him so he wouldn’t butt us, we now had a far sadder situation. Punk would run, head down toward us, get to the end of the rope-- and flip over like a spongy yo-yo. He’d land on his back, legs sticking up stiff and still. He’d lie there still a few moments, breathing hard. Slowly his stick legs would start spinning in the air like knobby white clock hands. The spinning would cause enough momentum for him to roll over and get back up. And, if he caught sight of you, he’d do it again,
And again.
It was sort of funny to watch but also heartbreaking.

In the end we brought Punk and Trixie back to the farmer. We kids missed them, and to this day I still have what my husband and son refer to as a suspicious love of all things sheep-like. Dad acted as if he was glad to see them go, and I’m sure in many ways he was, but for the rest of his life he never ate lamb-chops. I think he really liked those sheepizz.

"Happy Hour" 2012

A Fig Leaf

In college I didn't study art; I earned a Criminal Justice degree and took only one art class; Drawing 101.  I’d been doing pretty well and was pleased with my progress on still life and landscapes.  About the fourth week into class the professor told us we’d have a live model the next day and would begin drawing the human figure.  

Now, I'd done figure drawing and portraits in high school art classes and assumed it would be about the same thing.  A person would come in and pose while we stood around in a circle behind our easels and sketched.  

As I happily set up my easel and papers, the male model walked into the room in a bathrobe.  Pencil poised, I expectantly looked on.   He stopped and dropped his robe to the floor. And stood there, completely naked, facing me. 

 I couldn’t have been more surprised if he turned into a mouse and ran away.  In fact, that’s exactly what I wanted to do.  I ducked behind my easel, shocked and embarrassed, my face getting hot.

I cast my eyes wildly about the room at the other students wanting to shout “He’s naked!” But everyone was calmly sketching away. Of course.

It suddenly dawned on me that in a college art class we would work on the whole human figure. And of course the model would be naked.  I mean nude. I realized I was being immature and that I had to pull myself together and act as if I were a cultured and worldly student, accustomed to drawing naked guys all the time. I mean nudes, not naked guys.

See?  Still immature.

I peered over my easel with what I imagined at the time was a casual, observant gaze.  I’m certain now my eyes were like pie plates. The model reclined in front of me, looking bored.  I took a deep breath and began to draw, gradually calming down a bit. I kept telling myself everyone else is drawing this naked guy ---I mean nude figure---Why couldn’t I?

I drew the entire model, head to toe, every finger and facial feature.  But I could not draw his penis.  I couldn’t even look at it!  

What if I drew it too big?  

Or too small? 

Or what if it looked weird?

What if it moved? 

I knew I was being ridiculous and but I couldn’t help it. 

I noticed the model took a break now and then and walked around the room peering over students' shoulders at their drawings.  I didn't want him looking at mine. So I packed up my stuff and ran out of the class early. I got home and told my roommate, an art major, my harrowing story.  

“Let’s see it” she said matter-of- factly.  I unrolled the drawing and there in all his detailed glory was this poor male model lacking his manhood. There was a a big blank spot where his penis should have been. 

Without a word she calmly picked up a pencil and drew in a fig leaf. 

It was complete.

I got a C in Drawing 101.

Bloomin' Artist

So here I am, starting a blog about art.  I suppose it ought to start with an artist statement of some sort. But artist statements always freak me out a bit.  I have to be honest; when I read other Artists’ Statements I usually come away puzzled and sort of weary; “Aesthetic values”? “En plein air”? “Metaphor of the Middle Class”? It’s like I’ve been to an Art History lecture that I didn’t fully understand.

 I tried to write my own Artist Statement, and it came across as pompous at best, and re-reading it confused even me.

Then I thought I'd just give the facts: I wrote about my education and art training, clear, straight to the point and in order.  And it couldn’t have been more dull.

So now I think that, instead, I’ll just tell my story in a simple “me” way and illustrate my life as an artist. So here goes:

Like most kids, when I was little I adored coloring, drawing and painting, Playdoh, glue, sparkles and scissors. Unfortunately kids’ art supplies weren’t inexpensive back then like they are today.  I didn’t realize it at the time, but we were pretty poor. I remember vividly coveting the 56 pack of crayons with the built-in sharpener belonging to another kid in my first grade class, having only an 8-pack for myself.

 My parents liked art—Dad was a good artist-- and they did try to give my four siblings and me art stuff when they could.  Christmas-time came with new paint-by-numbers, coloring books, and play dough for everyone.  I love the texture of the then-real oil paints in the paint-by numbers, the feel of my little skinny fingers poking around in the Playdoh, and the smoothly satisfying rub of a new crayon on paper.

  But the smells!  The oil paints were rich and heavenly!  Probably inhaling them weren’t  good for my then-developing brain-- and may explain my later diagnosis with MS, but even today the smell of oil paints transports me back to happy days coloring in little numbered spaces with my brothers and sister at our Formica kitchen table. Crayons and Playdoh had their own wonderful, uniquely childlike smells. I’ve never met an adult who didn’t at one time try to eat either a crayon or secretly munch a ball of Playdoh.   Luckily they didn’t taste as good as they smelled.  Though I did hear about a neighbor kid whose mother reported that his poop was regularly bright blue.

It was never long, though, before the paints were gone, the crayons broken, the play dough dried into hard lumps. I drew this first picture imagining what it would be like to have had unlimited art supplies as a kid.
More to follow.