and then I drove all over the place some more

I told myself I would never turn into one of those slacker bloggers, those people who only update on a weekly basis. Oops. Evidently I've let things slide a bit around these parts. I think my "gone all the time" time is finally over, so I'll be staying home and putting pencil to paper, and needle to ivory, a lot more. But for one last adventure I took off last Thursday and headed north, with two chickens, to Jen's place (200 miles).

On Friday, she and I went over to the coast for a poultry show in Eureka (170 miles). Have you ever driven on highway 299? I have many times, but I seem to forget from one time to the next just how windy that road is! Here is the one photo I took on the whole trip, because this entertained me ever so much, in a sad way. This was at a rest stop on 299:


So it was strange to wake up to cool foggy weather in Eureka on Saturday morning. Cool and foggy are not things that one experiences in the central valley in July. It was a small poultry show, around 100 birds, and really it's just an excuse to get together and see people on the "off season." I have missed this show for the last several years due to various date conflicts, so I'm glad I could go this time. It was really great to see people! And of course in keeping with tradition I had to walk to the back of the fairgrounds and see all the horses and play with the many cats that live at the boarding stables. One of my birds won reserve of class, but in a show of this size that's not really anything to brag about. My friend Dan won the show with one of his Golden Sebrights. Lunch was amazingly delicious as always, and it was a great day.

Oh, get this! It was a moment I thought might never happen, a moment I have awaited for YEARS. Drum roll please.... I GOT MY STANDARD!!!! For reals! Yes! The 2010 American Standard of Perfection that I drew all those chickens for all those years ago! I now have one! And therefore I finally, FINALLY, believe that it truly exists. I was a tad giddy, and I just have to say it's kind of amazing and freakin cool and still a little unreal to see my drawings in there. I grew up idolizing that book. And now I'm in it. *Squeal!*

Here I am modeling the large Buff Cornish, only because I happened to open that page and conveniently I think the sponsors of those illustrations might just happen to read this blog.


Anyway... we headed back over the mountains on Saturday afternoon (170 miles) and it was about twelve billion degrees in Oak Run. We went trail riding on Sunday morning, I rode a very adorable Gypsy gelding named Clancy. He's beautiful, headstrong, food-oriented, and rather lazy. Hmm, yes, sounds like a male equivalent of Shylah! The ride was nice aside from being stupidly hot, and I did see a juvenile golden eagle. Monday morning I got to help with the cows, which were brought in the night beforehand for vaccines and deworming and castrating... Ah, it was like going back to my roots waving my arms around and thwacking cows with tree branches to keep them from running me over... Aside from that, well, since it was stupidly hot we watched a lot of movies!

And then on Tuesday, I got to do the really exciting (not) drive back to Wilton (200 miles). Boy have I seen a lot of I-5 lately. It's uncanny how so often within a week of driving to San Diego I end up going up north as well.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, everything is just chugging along. I have oodles of "pet quality" birds to sell. I will have show/breeding birds available in a few months, but I don't yet know what varieties and in what quantities, so please don't ask. And of course as with the past few years, my bird outlook right now is "I don't know what to do." I really don't.

I've been baking all sorts of goodies from the wedding list (I talked about that in a previous post). It's lots of fun, I post all the pics on facebook but I'll post a bunch here too eventually, just to make you drool.... The apricots in the orchard are just about ripe. It's an ugly crop this year, and not a lot. I think I'll be grinding them all up for either jam or puree (for my infamous apricot kolachky pastries). I started picking blackberries tonight. 2.5 pounds so far, and it should be a HUGE crop this year because we had so much rain.

I started writing this a few hours ago and then got sidetracked with about a zillion other things, and now I don't remember what the heck I was going to say anyway, so I'll just stop, because I really could ramble on an on for quite a while in some sort of long run-on sentence that would lead you to believe nobody ever lets me talk even though that's really not the case; I just happen to write quite a lot compared to how much I talk.

HA HA! OH I crack myself up! ;-)

Yeah, I'll stop now...

Rosecomb drawing finished

"Prima Donna"
(Black Rosecomb hen)
5 x 7 inches
colored pencil and graphite on tan Stonehenge paper
sold (custom commission)

If you've been wondering, no this is not a portrait of any of my birds. I wish mine would pose like that at shows instead of taking naps! I did know this bird though. She belonged to a friend (and competitor) and always beat my birds. A memorable experience was one show where my Lemon Blue (that Lemon Blue was awesome!) female darn near beat this Black female. I took Reserve of Breed with mine if I recall correctly, and maybe that's just as well. I don't think Bob, bless him, would have taken the beating too well. ;-)

Anyway, this piece was commissioned by this bird's co-owner, Conor. (The bird is no longer alive, she died years ago.) The main goal of the project was actually to produce a kick-ass business card for Conor, with a portrait being a "maybe some day down the road" kind of thing. Well, may as well kill two birds with one stone, right? I convinced him to get the portrait done now, and that way I can make a business card out of it. Definitely the right choice, and he gets a nice framed drawing to boot!

The final piece of this project was to design a business card. I do all my own graphics stuff (cards, website, etc) but don't do much of it for other people. I generally refer those jobs elsewhere, but since this one involved my drawing, I wanted to see it all the way through. In other words, since it uses my art, I wanted full control over how it would be used. Nothing worse than having someone else bugger up my stuff, right? Here it is, and yes this is posted with permission. Conor knows his info is going on my blog. :-)


This drawing is very much in the style of the ones I did for the Standard. Oh hey, the Standard. It's printed. It's out. Lots of friends of mine have seen it. They say good things about it. I have not yet seen it, I have not yet held it in my hands, therefore I do not yet believe in its existence. I do not intend to buy one, I am feeling a bit entitled and thinking that the APA really ought to give me one. Right? [la dee da, and then I went off on a big rant about something I might get in trouble for ranting about, so I deleted it, but I'll just summarize with this parting thought: I should have been asked to proof it. Or I should have asked to be able to proof it. Hindsight, live and learn, etc. *Sigh*]

Eighteen down...

I have washed 18 chickens in the last two days. Actually, technically not, because 4 of them were still clean from last time around. But still, they count toward the final tally. At this rate I may actually finish on Monday, that would be nice! Of course there will be a lot of touchup work to do on Friday...

I've been looking at the BBRed cockerels and trying to figure out which ones to keep for breeding pens this (will be hopefully selling the rest next weekend.) It's so tough, none of them is perfect. Some have better type but poor color, some have better color but poor type. I'm sort of feeling like I need to keep the ones with the best type, since "type makes the breed and color makes the variety, and type always must come first." I do get pretty hung up on color though, since it's darn near impossible to get it right. So when I have a bird with proper neck color, it's almost easy to overlook that his tail feathers aren't long enough, or he has red spots on his chest (should be solid black). Maybe I should just eeny meeny miney moe them...

I finished up drawing for the night last night at 12:15 and then headed off to bed. Olin was asleep on my bed, and I was feeling generous so I decided I'd let him sleep inside (knowing it meant I'd have to get up around 5 to let him out... but I always have faith in my ability to go back to sleep. If I've never mentioned that I'm not a morning person, I am NOT a morning person). Anyway, around 12:45 he left my room, and about 5 minutes later I heard it--the Sound of Impending Doom. When you hear it, it's too late. I launched out of bed in movie-like slow motion, the voice in my head shouting "noooooooooooo!!!!!!" But it was too late. Four, count em four piles of cat barf in the hallway. Do cats ever barf on linoleum? He could have walked just a foot and a half down the hallway and had a vast expanse of easily cleanable floor in the laundry room, but no... I had to be out there in my pj's scrubbing cat puke out of the carpet at 12:45am. I love my cats, but I hate cat puke.

So then this morning I stumbled out to the kitchen (was it early? Nooo, just takes me a while to wake up!) and what did I encounter? No, thankfully not more cat puke, but a very substantial trail of ants traipsing across the kitchen floor from the grate under to oven, to the cat food dishes. Gross. I was pretty sure I could hear them all gleefully singing the "hi ho hi ho" song as they went off to work, but those were not the words going through my head. I blasted some ant poison around the room and wiped up all the little carcasses. There are always strays though, running around the floor in a "oh crap oh crap!" panic. I'm not a big fan of ants.

In other news, those drawings I said I was going to finish the other night are more or less done, I just need to sign them and make sure I don't need to tweak anything. I've noticed that my drawing style has actually changed a fair amount between now and the start of the Standard project. Evolution, I guess. I think it's improved, but I'm noticing that just the way I handle the materials is different, things like more frequent use of graphite to "outline" things. This pair of illustrations are white birds. I think white is the most difficult color to draw, trying to get the shadows believable. With other colors, the drawing it much more saturated and the lines are pretty sharp, but white tends to look soft and blurry, so without even really thinking about it I've been putting a bit of a line around certain edges. I think it looks good. Dang I can't wait to show all those drawings on my website!

It's a wrap!

Well, the Christmas gifts are done and wrapped, with days to spare! I think that may be some sort of record for me.

I shipped out the Large Black Tailed Red Leghorn and Bantam Mottled Cornish drawings today (the Bantam Rose Comb White Leghorns left last week). I tend to get rather attached to the drawings when I have them around for a while, but it's good that they are finally being sent to the sponsors.

I've been thinking a lot about next year, and life-after-Standard, etc. Things need to change... a lot, or I'm not going to make it in this business. I'm starting to work on revamping the price list. It's really quite daunting. I really have to kick myself or I feel like I ought to be apologizing for raising prices, I worry that they are too high, or too low (well, too high for buyers, too low for me!). I know roughly the kind of hours I spend, and I know roughly how much I need to be making, and it's a pretty simple calculation that comes out with a pretty large number. But why should it not be so? My work is worth that. I deserve that. Repeat, repeat, repeat.

It's hard to imagine life-after-Standard. It really has been life-altering. I must admit I am looking forward to being done, and yet I'm sort of scared to be done. What then? More chickens? (Yes! But not right away!) I have things in mind I want to work on--horse art for upcoming shows, a few commissions waiting for me to finish up all these chickens. To tell you the truth I have quite a lot of chicken art in mind that I would like to do, a series of something, but I don't want to get into that yet, and I'm not sure how well it would do. I am not even sure who to market this stuff too. The show crowd wants "perfect" birds, and only in their own particular breeds. Would the general public have an appreciation for the different breeds and varieties? Or, to the non chicken person, does one chicken pretty much look like any other? I suppose the only thing to do will be to just try it, and whoever likes it will buy it. I hate that it sometimes comes down to money, but I'm afraid that the more time goes by and the older I get, that is becoming much more of a motivation (hence the "things need to change"). You know I think I might like to do...actually cut back a bit on commissioned work, and do more things that I can put in galleries (not sure I can pull that off, commissions are sort of the bread and butter...). Or put the originals up for auction somewhere (ebay?) Decide my minimum price and let it go from there. Of course I'd really have to "have a name" in order to pull that off, and I don't...yet. The poultry show crowd will know me when the Standard work is done, but how do people get known to the rest of the world? And could I even handle that sort of thing? Do I really want that? Aaaack!! Kind of scary to think about!

Well, I am in a rambly mood today and could probably just keep writing all night, but, I do need to sleep and don't want to get into a long drawing project tonight either.

But, in closing, I leave you with a random pretty picture, a closeup of a mutt rooster (half Dominique, half BBRed Rosecomb, he's sort of almost Crele colored. I sold him last week).

It's cold!

There is nothing like starting the morning with a large pile of fresh cat barf right inside my bedroom door. Lovely. Though perhaps there is nothing worse than being in the bathroom when it happens, completely unable to do anything about the unmistakable sound of impending puke happening 12 feet down the hallway. Just lovely. Thanks Homer...

I *finally* went to see the newest Harry Potter movie today. I'm ready to see the next one now! I love those movies. It did not seem to be nearly as long as it really was, I was ready for more.

I am not ready for Christmas yet. Can't reveal my plans too much here but let's just say I still have quite a bit of work to do.

Things are going okay with the chicken drawings, just the usual problems. I'm working on a couple of breeds for which there will likely be some disagreement about how they are supposed to look, so that's always a little daunting when I know I'm getting into something like that. I'm looking forward to be done with all the sketches (that's the initial pencil outline to show breed type). Those are what cause a lot of...angst, shall we say, so once they are all approved I'll just be working on the color drawings. I run into some questions about color pattern, but it's a little easier going once the sketch is approved.

That's about all the news for now.

I am approaching my 100th post, guess I ought to think of something good to mark the occasion. Any suggestions?

late nights in the studio

I can't believe it's December. I am not ready for this!!

It's been another one of those busy weeks. I'm really making good progress on the chicken illustrations, but still have a whole lot of work ahead of me. It's practically time to start getting ready for the PPBA show. Time is flying...

We got over an inch of rain here yesterday (was that just yesterday?!) so hopefully the pasture grass will start to grow now. Everything has turned to mud, the horses won't be clean again until, oh...April or so. :-)

I got interviewed a couple days ago by a reporter for the Tampa (FL) Tribune. Wow, how cool is that?! He saw my foil sculptures on my website and wanted to talk to me about then for a "humorous" article about what to do with leftover foil (it's for the food section).

I ordered a bunch of frames yesterday for various art pieces. I am *finally* able to send out some of the chicken illustrations, and worked out arrangements with a few sponsors for me to custom frame them, and I gotta say, they are going to look SOOO good. It takes me a very long time to pick out frames and mats at the shop. You can make or break artwork by what you do with the frame and mat, so it's important to pick just the right thing. Framing can be a tough sell. It's expensive, and has really gone up a lot in just the last few years. People who don't buy much artwork don't tend to realize how much it costs, and sometimes it's hard to convince people that is really is worth the expense to get a personalized frame job using the absolute best materials. I'm trying though. I want my Standard drawings to last forever, and I'm more concerned that they look good and are well-preserved than I am about making much income on framing (and yet I wonder why I don't have much money...sheesh). ;-)

I've been spending a lot of late nights drawing. The mornings of course suffer because of this, but I've decided that's okay, it just shifts the day sort of later than "normal hours." I just bundle up at night and turn on the portable heater and I'm good to go. Of course it can get pretty rowdy in here late at night, me and my "co-workers" running around wild. I thought I'd share some pics to show you these crazy co-workers of mine:


Fuzzby toasting her buns by the heater. I don't know how she can handle that. Its gets REALLY HOT that close to that heater. Maybe she's just so darn old she doesn't notice. That's her new favorite spot...


And Olin of course is always the life of any party. We got these new beds for the dogs, and they are still in the front room here where they were unpacked (haven't actually put them into the dog house yet) but Olin has decided they make super great cat beds. They're sized for large dogs, but no matter, they'll do! And I must say, the "composition" in which he is sleeping is incredible! Look at how his front leg and tail and like mirror images! Wow! If you squint your eyes and tilt your head about 45 degrees to the right he's almost perfectly symmetrical!

blah blah, same ole

It is 73 days til the start of the PPBA Show/APA National/ABA National. So let's see, how many drawings per day do I have to do now... AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACK!!! I feel like I am working a bazillion hours but not making a dent, and I don't really understand that. Maybe my time estimate is off a little. I remember years ago I used to keep really good track of the hours I spent on drawings (I have a rough idea now but it's a little too depressing to figure it out for certain) and I used to sit down and work for up to 4 hours at a time. FOUR HOURS! That incredible. After an hour now I'm in dire need of a break. I don't understand why that has changed--if it has to do with subject matter and deadlines (in which case you'd think it would be the opposite) or maybe I've just gotten cranky and more fidgety with age?? :-) Or maybe it's just that there are too many distractions here--the birds, the horses, the endless stream of email that goes "purrrt!" when it arrives in my inbox and gets my hopes up that it might be something good and then turns out to be ads for pharmaceutical products that I really don't need... Then again all those same distractions were here back then too, so, huh, I dunno... I just really need to focus.

Oh yeah, and my left eyelid is twitching again. This'll go on for days at a time sometimes. It's not really noticeable to anyone else but it drives me BONKERS. And then there's the major knot in my back from drawing... (no, really, it is! I know another artist who gets the same problem!) I really can't think of a truly ergonomic way to draw though, at least not the little detailed fiddly stuff that I am doing. Oh well, at I'm not on my back on a scaffolding working on a fresco, right!?

And yes, I would like some cheese to go with all this whine. :-D

November already?!

Criminy! Time is flying, this is just ridiculous! Less than two months til Christmas! Less than three months til my "deadline." OMG, there's something to really stress about. I will not have all the work done by then, but I've known that for quite some time now. I still have to get as much done by then as I can though. I may need to stop sleeping... I drew til 11pm last night. I work weird hours.

I read in the paper today that Michelangelo started work on "David" when he was 26 (hmm, kinda puts things in perspective...). I'm sure I learned that in art history too, but I've forgotten most of what I learned in those classes.

another Sunday night

Whoa there, what happened to the weekend? Been busy I guess. I think I finished the Spangled Cornish drawings today. I say "I think" because the committee could tell me otherwise, but in my mind they are done. If you felt a strong breeze this evening that could have been my sigh of relief. That has been a VERY tough color to draw, it's soooo intricate. I am looking forward to something solid-colored for the next pair of drawings. :-) Anyway hopefully these will be accepted, I think they are pretty cool. I am almost a third done with the project now (that's actually rather depressing...)

The ducks are flying now, and will soon be gone. I guess I should explain that, for anyone who doesn't know the duck story. Almost every year for the past..hmm...at least 15 years, probably more (?) we have raised wild Mallards. The eggs come from hay fields that are being cut. Once the nest has been mowed over, the hen won't come back to incubate the eggs. So we know a couple of hay guys, and they bring the eggs to me. Used to be that I would raise them in a brooder like I do with the chicks, but ducks are really rather disgusting creatures that delight in taking water out of the waterer. Not that they drink it all, they just sort of fling it around until everything is soggy and smells awful. And of course being wild ducks they are insane. So several years ago I realized if I gave the newly hatched ducklings to a broody (sitting on a nest) chicken, they ducklings will bond with the mother chicken (and vice versa, to an extent) and that works out just beautifully. Then they can be raised outdoors in the garden and I don't have to deal with them turning everything they touch into mud (they still do, but if it's not in a small enclosed space it's not nearly as offensive). So anyway, they grow up and then when they are about 2 months old they are able to fly. It starts with just short flights out into the yard, and then they go a little farther out into the pasture (cracks me up that they FLY away, and WALK back home...). Then they start circling the property, going farther away for longer periods of time. And then one day they don't come back. And so ends my time with the ducks. I love it. Everyone thinks that must be so sad to see them leave, but it's really a beautiful thing. I love to see them fly away. And that's not to say I don't enjoy having them here. They are cute and amusing, but they are wild birds and it's a really cool thing to see them return to the wild. So this years ducks will be gone within a few days. In fact I'm not sure they are here now, but they may be back in the morning. Or they might not be. :-)

In other news, I am finally going to have a round pen soon! Boy has this been a saga. I had to save up for ages to afford one, they aren't cheap! But I have found that I really need one, considering I have a two-year-old filly who I plan to start riding within the next year...and therefore I have LOTS of training to do. So I have had the panels themselves since April. They are just sitting by the barn. A friend came over with his tractor today and scraped the area of the pasture where the pen will be set up (just to make it flatter and get rid of the weeds). The sand will be delivered (and spread, yay!) on Thursday, and then I'm not sure yet when we'll get the panels up. Possibly over the weekend, though it just depends when various people are available to help. I can't wait to finally have use of a round pen!!