summer bummer

Have I mentioned yet this summer how much I hate hot weather? Well, if not, here ya go: I hate it!!!!! Over all this summer has been decent but we get these spells where it's just unbearable. Yesterday was 108, today was close to that. It barely gets below 80 at night, so nothing really cools off. It was so hot last night I didn't fall asleep til almost 3am (the mosquito in my room wasn't helping matters). Bleh! Almost lost one of the big chickens today to the heat. The bantams take it pretty well but the big girls suffer. Luckily I got to her in time and ran cold water all over her until she was able to stand and her expression returned to that of a normal (although hot) chicken. Everything is lethargic, including me! This'll put a damper on my normal "spend the whole day at the fair" plans. Yuck, I'll be lucky to make it til lunchtime before I give up and come home. Oh well, I guess the only requirements are that I get the birds in and have a cinnamon roll! ;-) (Some traditions cannot be messed with).

Anyway, not much to say really. I'm working on experimental stuff with scrimshaw but it's not anything fun to look at, I'm just trying out different inks and paints and learning about drying times and sealants and blah blah. I think I'll order some micarta and see what I think of working on that, so that in the future I can tell people whether or not I like it.

August 28 work in progress

Oops, almost forgot to post these.

(finished!)

title: ?? (help!)
size: 8.5x9 inches
media: colored pencil, graphite, ink, on tan Stonehenge paper
price: $475, not incl tax, frame, shipping


did the blue part today. The drying time makes me impatient, I may switch over to water-miscible oil paints instead to try to shorten that. Otherwise people will have to wait ages for me to do this stuff just because the paint is slow to dry! Again, this one might not work. We'll see.

Dang I'm exhausted.

ramblings, loose ends, and unfinished business

The craziest month of the year is about to start. I haven't gotten word about the Chicken Festival yet, I think I will email them. If I'm in, I need to get crackin. Heck, I need to start prepping for Draft Horse Classic!

I'm really into this scrimshaw stuff now, I think my art biz is going to make a big change in direction.... I posted some work on an engraving forum and got really good responses, and I just posted some work on a knifemakers forum. Keep your fingers crossed. I'm working on the lion-in-color and it's going okay but I'm running into some problems for which I need to find solutions. Putting multiple colors onto one piece is definitely leading to some "color pollution." I had tried to seal off the white layer with a couple coats of paste wax but the sky blue is filling into the white areas a little. I can see that working dark to light would help solve this, but I just don't think in terms of dark to light! So I've been asking around to see what others do and will probably have to do a fair amount of experimenting. Maybe just more layers of wax (it's so thin you'd never know it's there at all).

I got word the other day that the local art club is looking into opening a gallery in town. That's great news but they want a yearlong committment, and I can't take that risk. In the worse case scenario, if nothing sold, I'd be out $1450 over the course of a year. Noooooo. If it was a shorter committment, three months maybe, I'd consider it. Or if I was sure my stuff would sell.. But, I'm just not convinced that my stuff is going to sell locally, I don't think it's the right market. I hope they are able to get the building though and I hope it works out for other people.

I don't know if anyone has noticed that I neved finished up that digital image that I said I was going to do with the Light Brown Leghorn... There are a lot of loose ends. I start series of work but find they don't yield much of anything, and then they fizzle. The Wakeup Call turned out great, that one came pretty easily to me. But the rest of them have not. I love love love love love drawing the chickens, I'm not so thrilled with creating digital backgrounds, it just feels like I'm overworking these somewhat minimalist illustrations, and I have a tough time with that. Plus I don't know what the heck I'm doing in that market, and I think what I'm realizing is that I myself really am not cut out for dealing with the "mass market." I was send off down that path but I don't know where to go from here, and maybe that's not the best place for me. If I want to pursue that, I think the bottom line is that I would need an agent. And that might ultimately be very successful for me.

But lacking knowledge of that side of the business, I backed off, and am barreling into an entirely different world of more "industrial arts" with this overwhelming feeling that I'm heading toward exactly what I'm supposed to be doing. Don't worry, I'll still keep drawing chickens (and horses, and dogs, and anything else anyone wants) ;-D

chickening

I spent much of the morning sorting through all the young roosters. It was time to separate them from the girls, so they don't pick at each other, and also the boys are more mellow if they don't have girls around to fight over! I saw some birds that make me really happy, and also some birds that really disappoint me. There will be another round of culling, but the potentially good cockerels are as follows: 9 BBRed (wow!), 3 Black (that's terrible! That means I will hardly have anything to sell), 4 Brassy Back, 0 Blue Brassy Back (sigh). The Blue Brassies had a lot of color faults... buff coloration in the chest. That's a frequent problem with them, but I am dismayed that none of them turned out good. I knew it was a little dicey this year though since the male I used in the breeding pen was genetically purebred black. Looks like a lot of the Brassy and Blue Brassy Back pullets will be too dark. I AM convinced it's possible to get light-chested females and dark-chested males from the same breeding though.

It's way too soon to say what I have for sale, if anyone is interested. I won't sell males til they are fully feathered out (in case they don't grow a full tail.. it happens).

I sold the Cuckoos a couple of weeks ago. I don't miss them. Sometimes I'm tempted to only work with the BBReds... but I can't do it.

I took some pics today.

Anyone need a single combed Brown Red? Minimal chest coloration, will not have a mulberry face:

Cute single combed pullet:

Short legged pullet (half black, half cuckoo). Darkest face I've seen ever on one of my birds (why?):

The first short legged pullet I noticed. Sister to the one above. This one has a bend/lump in one tibiotarsus:

I hate it when sebrights do that weird neck posture with their head so far back their neck will twitch. I hate it more when a Rosecomb does it. Yuck, ugly! Plus I think his head stopped growing a little too soon...:

Young Brassy Back males (and one black, and a Brown Red older male):

Kinda small perch doncha think? (Brassy Back pullet):

The yearling Duckwing male (in the back) with his sons, Golden Duckwing (left) and Birchen (Golden Birchen??) on the right:

Crappy pic of the Golden Duckwing pullet:

Somebody must need this bird. He's actually my favorite, because he's GORGEOUS. Great color, flawless ear lobes, nice 6-pointed comb (for anyone who isn't a chicken person, this bird has totally the wrong comb type for the breed but dang I like him!):

August 24 work in progress

I am going to post this WIP with a warning... "it might not work." I am not following instructions here... It's sort of like how I tend not to follow recipes, which sometimes turns out really good, and sometimes turns out as something that the chickens get to eat. Normally these are supposed to be done from dark to light but I REALLY want to try going light to dark, so I am... knowing it might fail. But hey, it's a practice piece, nothing lost! Today's hours were spent on the border (I like this better than the deep cut line border around the woman) and a few blips of white area (which really don't show up in the scan, other than the lion's chin). Yes, this is the lion again. I have to wait a couple days in between each color, to let it dry so I can try varnishing it to keep the colors from mixing. Highly experimental! :-)

But on a related note, I am taking commissions for b/w scrimshaw (or any single color image). I do not have the tools to slab ivory or do extensive polishing, but I can purchase ivory blanks for jewelry, buckles, etc. Contact me for details, and I'll be putting info on the main site soon.

Tail not done, whole thing not done...getting there:

$475 pre-sale (if bought before I finish it, may go up, may not)
does not include tax, shipping, or frame
custom framing available

August 23 work in progress

Finished!


scrimshaw on pre-ban elephant ivory (piano key)
7/8 x 1-7/8 inches

This is a practice piece I did so I could see exactly how long this takes. I chose an image fairly mid-range in tone with a bit of background to cover the whole surface. I will now do the same image in full color, in order to see how much longer that takes (so that I'll know how to price color work).

August 22 work in progress

La dee da....

August 21 work in progress

Scrim time got cut a bit short today because the electricity went out... makes it hard to see what I'm doing when the room goes pitch black! By the time it came back on it was time to head back home anyway.

If you wonder about the penny, it's just a handy way to show scale, and sort of a traditional way to photograph things like engravings. Well this isn't photographed, it's scanned, but you get the idea. :-)

August 20 work in progress

not yet titled
8x8.5 inches
colored pencil, graphite, ink
price on completion
(the wing is not done! still a few layers of color to go!)


OMG, it's such a slow process!
scrimshaw on ivory piano key

I am going to do this same image in color on another key (this one is black only). I want to see what the time difference is so that I will know how to price stuff (so I can start getting commissions!)

ride, art show, etc

This morning was the "grand finale" ride out at JJ's. Shylah is coming home tomorrow. It was a long ride and a good time! I'm pleased with how Shylah has done in her time there out on the trails, she's a good horse. :-)


(so obviously the short horse should have been photographed closest to the camera...lol). On the left is me and Shylah. Middle is Neva and Dusty. Right is Wendy and Blue Top. (I know, sometimes I use initials and sometimes I don't, there's really no rhyme or reason to it).

So, onward with the rest of the day.. I had a few hours to get some stuff done around here and then it was off for a wedding reception for a friend I have known since high school (junior high?) I wish I could have stayed longer, but I had to rush outta there shortly after dinner for the Chicken Art Show....

...which was very nicely presented. I didn't know anyone and nobody I knew came to visit. I didn't realize it was going to be judged. Best in Show! Woo hoo yeah! That was with the Light Brown Leghorn drawing. Second place with the Silver Phoenix lithograph. So I made enough $ to cover the entry fees with a couple bucks leftover. I forgot to bring a camera. I also forgot to bring the wedding gift. I would forget my head if it wasn't attached.