Giant Jawbreaker

I haven't been up to much pastel work in the last few weeks. My hand hasn't totally healed (though, it's much better than it had been over the summer), and I've been very focused on losing weight. I've lost 41lbs so far.

That said, you have to wonder why my latest pastels have all been about candy. I don't know, but candy is very colorful and has great reflections. I haven't gone after much in the way of car portrait commissions, because I usually go to talk to people at car shows in the summer. With my hand doing poorly over the summer, I wasn't anxious to go after that work over the summer. Which means that Christmas will be lean for me in commissions. I know that I have 2 scheduled, and that might be about all. Though, I do have time for more, I assure you!

So, this is how far my latest pastel has gotten over the weekend. It has a sibling painting that is in the trash already, but I think it was good to throw that out to get a complete fresh start. This one looks okay to me. It has that slightly shiny/slightly chalky look of those giant jawbreakers. I just loosely laid the color of the gumballs in, because it was getting late last night. I might not have time to work on it again until probably Wednesday night. But, it's going smoothly so far.

Vote Early

Went last week to the Board of Elections for early voting, because I'll be visiting my sister in Maryland on election day. It went smoothly(or at least I think that it did), and the pollworkers seemed genuinely happy to see voters taking advantage of early voting.

Fortune Cookie Chronicles

Just finished The Fortune Cookie Chronicles by Jennifer 8. Lee this week. It was a good book, if a little disjointed. The story about the fortune cookie bounces around a bit about other interesting stories about the history of Chinese food in America.

Ikebana

This is a small sketch of my small purchase from last weekend's Fort Ligonier Days. I went out on Sunday, met my parents there, and spent the afternoon in the bright sun (meaning: small amount of sunburn---in October!!!).

This is a small open vase that is available from artist, JoAnne Arnone. My quick sketch doesn't give it justice, though. It's turquoise and burgundy and brown and bronze. It's just beautiful.

Flowers by Whole Foods. They sell just 3 flowers of many different varieties for a few dollars, and those are perfect for these types of vases. Otherwise, I'm not much of a vase person. But, I like these open types.

Cleveland Sketchcrawl

I got to the sketchcrawl 15 minutes late, because my tai chi class ended at 9:45. And, I couldn't find the group anywhere around the west side of the flats. After looking for probably 2 minutes, I just settled in with the seagulls, and started to draw. It was nice that once I got into something, I didn't have to get up and move on with the group to a second location.


I was in the nice warm sun near the river, even had a picnic table to set up at.

No New Drawings

I haven't been drawing a whole lot lately, because I've been spending my spare time either reading books or on the treadmill down in my building's exercise room. I've read so many books in the last few weeks. Mostly non-fiction. I had told someone at work who also works at a bookstore, of which I haven't done in about 4 years. I told her that I have been so disappointed in fiction lately, that I haven't been reading a lot this year. Everytime I dropped $26 or so on a book, I would read a few pages, and become totally disinterested. She said, "Non-fiction is the new fiction." I have enjoyed reading non-fiction, but it's never what I gravitate toward when I'm at the bookstore. But, taking her advice, I strolled only through the non-fiction areas of Barnes & Nobles. I must have found 20 books that looked fascinating to me, and when I did my "first page test," I found that they were written in a way that I knew I would want to read further.


Now, I've devoured so many books, I've switched to the library to save money. I love going to the downtown Cleveland library. They always have what I want, and I can just run down on Sunday afternoon, park for free (unless there's a football game, I presume), and run in to grab what I want.


But, I will try to get some writing done. Maybe I'll do drawings on all of these books that I'm reading?