November 15 work in progress

I'm so tired it hurts.

November 14 work in progress

This is REALLY challenging. I am attempting to do this one properly and work dark to light (I tried to do the lion from light to dark, I'm still working on it but it didn't turn out as I had hoped). So this dragon will be in color. And I'm warning you now, it might not work. Color scrim is still new to me. But you get to either watch it turn out really cool or watch it not work. Hopefully not the latter. This is really hugely detailed, going to take a long time!


I met up with my college roomies tonight for dinner. It was great to see them. Funny how the years go by and yet we seem to just pick up where we left off. :-)

interesting things

I haven't done this for a while.

I can log into my website and see what keywords people have put into search engines that brought them to my site(s). Sometimes it's really obvious, like "chicken drawings" or "rosecomb bantams." But sometimes it's pretty darn funny, either because I can't figure out how it leads to my site, or it's just from some totally random thing I said, or why the heck would someone be searching for that anyway??

For example (these are real things put into seach engines that led to some part of katherineplumer.com or rosecomb.com in the last few months):

"half onion" (recipe doesn't call for a whole one?)
"hairy spider" (the shaved ones are just creepy)
"really" (yeah, really)
"how long can chicken stay in the fridge" (!)
"lady cowboys" (I think we call those cowgirls)
"saw horse drawing" (I did too, but she wasn't very good at it)
"buff male" (umm, we talking chickens?)
"katherine of aragorn" (Aragorn from LOTR? Oh yeahhhh, bring it on ;-))
"history motorways too straight" (um, what?)
"other thing that margarine" (umm, butter? crisco?)
"plumers pot" (lol, no!)
"homemade items that sell like hot cakes" (this cracks me up! The answer is little cute things that take a hugely long time to make and you can never get enough money to make your time worth while so don't bother)
"chicken and rant" (some of my favorite things)
"lady horses" (mares or fillies I think would be the more correct terms here)

Streets of Bakersfield

It was another crazy weekend, but the last of the poultry shows for nearly two months (waaahhhh!). JJ and I headed down to Bakersfield on Friday afternoon in her car, me driving.. Wow what a pleasant change from the Taurus. ;-) It was unusual to spend most of the time in the fast lane....

This show seemed really hectic for some reason, I can't quite put my finger on it though. I didn't have anything to do. I didn't take art and I didn't clerk, but it seemed, well, just hectic. I had a good time though, I so enjoy spending time with my "poultry friends" and I met some new people, that's always fun. My birds didn't win anything major this time around, but that's okay. There's always next time.

The banquet was held at a Basque restaurant. It was really good, I did skip the pickled tongue though... Afterwards some of us went to Buck Owens' Crystal Palace. Sadly, it was closed for a reserved event, so we could only look around the lobby. I even wore my super duper western shirt in honor of being in Bakersfield... Here's me with statues of Buck Owens (behind me) and Bob Wills (next to me). Once again no parties, I was bummed.

So now it's back to the same ole. I started a new scrimshaw today. The first step is the transfer the outline onto the ivory. I did that today. It's darn near impossible to see it without the microscope, but it's a dragon.


I also received my order of Tagua Nut slices (aka "vegetable ivory"). It's... different. Looks like I need to polish it more. It'll be interesting. I wish it didn't have the cracked area in the middle. I'll give it a try but I think I'm going to prefer the ivory, just because it looks like a higher quality item, if nothing else.

Gotta go feed critters...

love it when that happens!

I finished something early! Woo hoo! That's a big load off my shoulders. I had two drawings that needed to be done by the end of the day today and I was fairly concerned it would take me that long. But.. I knew I had a gazillion other things to do too so I put in long hours (12 hours on Tuesday!) and finished them LATE Tuesday night (err, Wednesday morning?) Yay! These are two drawings that were done to be used as holiday cards by the client who commissioned the originals.


"Winter Window #1" (Buff Cochin)
6x8 inches
colored pencil and graphite on gray paper


"Winter Window #2" (American Game)
6x8 inches
colored pencil and graphite on gray paper

And in other news, well there was my own Christmas card (which y'all need to order, hint hint!) and washing chickens and more cleaning around here and starting the next scrimshaw image. It's going to be a Chinese dragon, in color. If it turns out half as cool as I think it might, well that'll be darn cool.

Oh geez, I gotta go to bed!

Christmas Cards!!!!!!!!! Hurry LIMITED TIME OFFER!!!!!!

At laaaaaast! Some people have been pestering me for years, so here it is, voila, a holiday card!


"December on the Farm"
digital mixed media based on original colored pencil drawing

The catch is that it's a VERY limited time offer, I need to have all orders in by 5pm November 19th. So don't wait, get it while you can! All info and order form HERE.

Please tell your friends, cross-post, etc. Help me get these cards out there. Thanks! :-)

upcoming stuff

Okay, I am trying *really* hard to finish up a Christmas/holiday/end-of-year card that I can market and sell for this season. Granted, it's way late to be doing this but I'm trying... If I can get that done this weekend, then I will be releasing ONE card image this year for sale (a chicken in a winter barn scene, no this is not the same image(s) that I am doing for the commissioned stuff if anyone who's in on that is reading this). OMG, talk about time crunch.

This is the next pendant up for scrimshaw:

It's 1-1/8 by 1-5/8 inches at its widest points, and 1/8 to 1/4 inch thick (it tapers). So it's a chunky one. The front side is flat. The back side is the outer part of the tusk, so it's curved and stained and scratched, but polished smooth. Very cool little piece. Pre-ban elephant ivory. Do I need to explain what that means? It means it's from a tusk that was imported before the 1972 ban. This does not harm any elephants that are in existance now.

If anyone's up for a custom image do let me know right away. Most images will be somewhere in the $200-$300 range (this includes sterling silver bail and chain, sorry no gold for this one). Extremely dark images will be more. If nobody urgently wants this done custom it's probably going to have a dragon on it, maybe even in color, hmmmm.

Okay, stay tuned for Christmas cards, I hope. I'm tryin....

wolf scrimshaw necklace pendant

*Finally* finished today. Dang skippy, that took a lot longer than I anticipated.... The price will increase on this if someone doesn't snag it right away. Remember, a scrimshaw piece is a one of a kind item, entirely created by hand by making thousands of dots or lines in the ivory and filling those lines with pigment (in this case it's etching ink, and this is entirely stippled..dots, no lines.). Incredibly time consuming and eyeball straining. I can't even begin to explain how much work that background was!


white wolf scrimshaw
18x25mm pre-ban elephant ivory cabochon
back is inscribed "original scrimshaw by Katherine Plumer 2007"
$185 + $10 shipping/insurance
+ 7.75% sales tax (CA residents)
INCLUDES your choice of sterling silver or gold filled mount, and your choice of sterling silver chain, 14/20 gold filled chain, or black leather cord

It felt weird not to pack up and leave today. This is the first weekend since late August that I haven't had a show or some other thing going on. It's kind of nice, but of course it means I have gobs of work to do. I have to finish two drawings by the end of next week. Eek!

I am taking the last of the cull chickens to auction this weekend.

Gotta go draw...

another show!

Woo hoo, I'm going to Bakersfield! Not that Bakersfield is all that exciting in and of itself, but it's a poultry show bwahahahaha! Glee! Thank you JJ for agreeing to let me drag you down there. Truth is I probably wouldn't be going otherwise. ;-) I'm not taking an art booth there, just the birds, for a nice pleasant relaxing weekend!

I talked to the guy in charge of the game fowl thing today and he is urging me to go...sounds like a really nice guy. Hmmmmm.... Probably I will but gosh darn my weekends are getting all filled up again.

The scrimshaw wolf is going really well, but it brings to mind three things:
1) solid dark areas = AAAAARRRRGH!!!!! (whacks head on desk)
2) prices will absolutely go UP, in fact even now if someone wants an image with a lot of solid dark areas it'll exceed the quoted range of prices... but that's okay, because I said "most images will be..." Not all. It's taking FOREVER.
3) I need an ipod! When I'm in my studio here I just play itunes or CDs or the radio but over there in the barn there's only the sound of the flourescent lights. Today I brought my ancient walkman (ha! remember those? I think this one is from the mid 90s.) It only works in certain directions. Better than nothing though.

Anyway, it should be done tomorrow if all goes as planned. I'm also working on two drawings for Christmas cards, and have JC's horses, KG's dogs, and BM's chickens "in the wings" so to speak. And more scrimshaw. Bring it on!

Ventura Venture

As if I hadn't seen enough of the south-of-Sacramento stretch of I-5 in recent weeks, I drove down to Ventura this weekend. That's about 390 miles southwest, on the coast. It was, as you can surely guess, for a poultry show. ;-) Up until just a week or so ago I hadn't been planning on going, but I hated to miss out on it since they were featuring the rose comb class, and I decided I'd turn it into a business trip and bring along all the artwork...the chicken art anyway.

It was a hazy day to begin with even up in northern CA, but by the time I was approaching the grapevine it was noticeable smoky outside. I couldn't see the mountains until I was practically right there.

In Ventura itself it was foggy too, so the outdoors was gray and gloomy. I got down there around 5 and cooped in all the birds and set up the walls and table for the art display.

In an attempt to save some money, since the host hotel was enormously expensive, I stayed with my aunt and uncle in a nearby town about 20 minutes from the fairgrounds. My friend S.S. went with me, since she needed a place to stay too. It was fun to see my relatives and so nice of them to let us crash there. My uncle even came to the show on Saturday, that was cool.

Since I was pretty much chained to the art booth I feel like I didn't get to see much of the show itself. It took a while to set up, and then a few hours later I had to take it all down. I didn't even make it out to the beach (a stone's throw from the show hall, just ran out of time, oh well). I really wanted to see more of the game fowl show but I only caught the tail end of it, thinking they would be around longer. Those birds are so gorgeous. I actually wouldn't mind having one, as long it's friendly to me! I'm kinda partial to birds with big tails and flashy feathers and I think these guys are great.


Even though it was a pain in the butt to have the art stuff down there I did pretty well with it, paid for all expenses and then some. Even covered the expenses of framing "Green Legged Hatch" and getting some new stuff printed. So that's not bad at all. Stupidly, I forgot to take a picture of my booth. Oops!

I got Reserve RCCL with one of my black Rosecomb pullets (not the same one from the Paso Robles show).


Somehow I managed to do something awful to my right wrist on Saturday night, probably while reaching behind me while driving to shove something out of my way in the rear view mirror. By the time I went to bed it was excruciatingly painful and I could hardly move it, and I woke up a lot during the night. It was a little better in the morning but I was still pretty freaked out that something awful was happening to me. I need my right hand! It's almost all better now, so I guess maybe I pinched a nerve or something. Egads, that was scary.


So it seemed like a really fast weekend. Definitely not relaxing. Fun though (no party on Saturday, everyone pooped out and went to bed). I hope to go next year too. As far as it is, the drive really isn't that bad. I guess I am just so used to driving all over the place that it doesn't bother me anymore. Plus I took the minivan instead of my car, and it's faster and I don't worry about it dying. ;-)

Next up is Bakersfield. I am still iffy on going for the usual reasons of 1) *really* trying hard to conserve money 2) worry about car 3) I've been gone 26 days in the last two months and I'm so far behind already. I want to go... I have to decide in the next day or two. There is also a game fowl convention down in Visalia a week after that and I'm really debating whether that would be worth attending with some prints and a portfolio. Hmmmm. I need to call the guy in charge and see how that would work.

I am starting a new scrimshaw pendant tomorrow. It's a wolf. Will be on the higher end of the price scale (~$175 probably) since it has a lot of dark areas... is for sale.

This evening there was thunder and lightning and rain. My attempts to photograph the lightning were completely unsuccessful but here are some pretty leaves instead, the light was interesting for a while: