A Weekend With Creative Folk

I've just come back from a delightful weekend with two of my most favorite artists... our grandchildren.  

We indulged in a number of activities that didn't include slogging through the rain.  Some of which was video games, either on the computer, iPad or TV, some of which involved clipping pieces of prints of Gustav Klimt paintings, pasting them into drawings that were so not what Gustav Klimt was visualizing originally, some of which involved eye-hand coordination, some involved tickling.  Some of  the creativity was mine (as you can see), with the strategic guidance of four-year-old Shyloh, who was masterful in her ability to select the perfect colored Inktense pencil color for my drawing.  She even deciphered the tiny color names printed on the pencils.  Her proclamation that she would someday be a "Real Artist", proudly, was the high point of my afternoon!

Gilded Wine Bottle Abstract

I've been tearing small squares of 140# hot press Arches Watercolor paper and taping four of them (wet) at a time on my mounting board, then swirling and tipping Daniel Smith primary (as in: red, blue, yellow) watercolors over the surface.  I liked two of the four results, which I think are pretty good odds for spontaneity.  And of course, I can't just leave them alone, so I played a bit with Sennelier soft pastels once they were dry.  Just a touch on the blue and purple edges of this one, to enhance what was already there a bit.  I found a small bottle I'd begged off of my wine-collector husband, dug up a tall, antique liquour glass (heirloom), and did their portrait together with Derwent Inktense pencils in a dark red.  Highlights on the glass were pure, undiluted gouache white, from the tube.  A dear friend had gone through her deceased mother's stuff and found a lovely pad of gold foil from the 1970s and gave it to me, so I tore a bit to adhere on the painting.  I'm glad it scanned well.  One never knows how gilding will show up in a photo on a 2D surface!  It's been years since I've worked with gilding, and I remembered how frustrating it is to use as soon as I let out my first breath while laying it down.  Suddenly, it was snowing gold snowflakes in my studio.  It's hard to see, but there is gilded floral patterns around the tiny glass, which I put on with acrylic paint (I think it was interference gold) mixed with a "bronze" powder.  I so love mixing my media recklessly!  It's like playing, rather than working.  

Dayna's Gift

Thanks for reading my bits and pieces, I hope you are all enjoying them as much as I am writing them.  As always, this is copyrighted material.

"If I tell you this stuff, you've got to promise me you won't decide I'm crazy, okay?  Or that my kid is.  'Cause she's not.  Well, maybe the jury's still out on my sanity." LeAnne smiled weakly.

“Yeah, we’ve been meaning to talk to you about that, Sweetie, but do go on.”  Nettie could hardly contain her curiosity, and Darce settled herself comfortably for a good story.

LeAnne eyed each woman nervously, then proceeded softly.

“Don’t misunderstand me, Dayna’s a good kid.  I don’t mean she spied on anyone.  the things she would say out loud weren’t meant to harm or tease.  She thought she was helping, I’m sure.  But they were alarming for others in that it was often regarding things she shouldn’t have known.”  LeAnne swallowed hard, looking from one puzzled face to the other.  “What I mean is, nobody would’ve known!  And how she knew these things is beyond me, but it was pretty unsettling to others.  Especially Dayna’s teachers.”

Nettie scrutinized LeAnne for a few moments, squinting as though it would bring her words into sharper focus.  Darce’s face only registered blank curiosity.

LeAnne went for broke.  “For instance, one day when she was in second grade, all the kids were practicing spelling words, I think, and the class was quietly working on their papers.  Suddenly, Dayna looked at the little girl in a nearby desk and said aloud, ‘Your dad wants you to look in the big pipe under the driveway.  Buddy Boo is there.’  The little girl burst into tears and ran from the room.”

“I don’t get it,” Darce said, “why was that so upsetting?”

LeAnne looked down at her lap before she went on, “The little girl’s dad had died the previous summer.  Buddy Boo was a stuffed dog the little girl had lost about the time of his death.”

All three women remained silent for a few minutes.  LeAnne feared her companions were busy revising their opinions of her.  She shouldn’t have brought this up, should've kept her mouth shut.  She looked from one face to the other, sadly.

Nettie finally cleared her throat, loudly, and fixed LeAnne in a hard gaze.  "My Dear, your daughter isn't peculiar.  She's gifted."

Collaboration With A Master Doodler

Every time I spend time with my grandchildren, I come away enhanced somehow.  Not only from the pleasure of their loving and sparkly presence, but from unexpected stuff, too.  I found my daughter's Gustav Klimt book on the coffee table while baby-sitting, and grabbed my ever-present sketchbook.  I was inspired by Klimt's female faces.  I stopped short of filling in the body forms, and instead, handed the pages to the kids to finish that part.  When they were done, I put in color.  Above is my grandson's work.  He says he doesn't draw or paint.  He "doodles".  I think he thinks drawing and painting is girl stuff, and at the age of (almost) eight, he's in the midst of figuring out what's boy-stuff and what's girl-stuff.  Sadly, I was unable to get my granddaughter's permission to use her efforts, so you'll have to take my word for it.  That girl can PAINT!!

Not sure what the deal is with the anvil falling on this creature's head, nor the sword piercing her brain. Maybe it's a clever hat pin.  Is that a tombstone over her liver?  

Beer, Paints and Sock Toy

“You seem miles away, my Dear, is there something going on you’d like to share with us?” Nettie asked Darce, who continued to fidget with her pencil sharpener long after her companions had settled into their afternoon tasks.

“Now I can’t say as I’ve heard anyone ask a question of me like that since...oh, elementary school.”  Darce retorted, grimacing, “Teacher, do I hafta?” she squeaked in a child’s whine.

Nettie placed her fists on her hips in mock disapproval, shaking her head.  “You can always stay after school, young lady!”

Darce cupped her hand next to her mouth, sticking her tongue out at Nettie in such a way only LeAnne could see it.  LeAnne pointed accusingly at Darce and scolded, “Umm! I’m gonna tell!”

“Don’t make me come smack you, now, Darce,”  Nettie scowled, wagging her finger in warning.

Darce nodded, slowly, narrowed her eyes, a sly smile crept over her face, “You wanna piece o’ me?  You come and get it, Lady.  Make my day!” Her hands beckoned Nettie, playfully, who looked dutifully shocked.  

“Why, I never,” she gasped indignantly, “After all I’ve done to share the pearls of my wisdom with you girls, and this is the thanks I get!”  She turned her shoulder and looked away, doing her best to act hurt and offended, until Archibald’s sock toy hit her on the back of the head.  Nettie whirled around, only to see Darce and LeAnne both pointing innocently at Archibald, who seemed to be feigning sleep so well, her lips and eyebrows were twitching.

LeAnne's Egg

Another chapter snippet:

One of the birds shot into her arms and clung there a moment, panting and cocking it’s head to peer up at her.  Strangely, it had a miniature woman’s face, much like Nettie’s, but without her characteristic smile.  LeAnne felt it was trying to convey a message to her that she was too dense to understand.  To LeAnne’s dismay, a hole burst open in the bird’s soft chest, but the blood that exploded forth bloomed into a large, red rose.  In an instant, the bird had dissolved like melted butter, leaving LeAnne gripping the rose in her hand, as she plummeted to the highway below.  

Dayna squinted up at her mother as she descended.  In her hands were several small blue eggs, like those from a Robin’s nest.  “Mom,” she barked at her mother, “You’ll be late!”

LeAnne, startled by her daughter’s words, flailed frantically, to prevent the inevitable collision with the asphalt.  I can’t fly!  This is how I die, isn’t it?

“You need to get up!”  

LeAnne sat up with a gasp, her damp nightshirt clinging to her body.  Dayna was leaning into LeAnne’s bedroom doorway, chewing a bite of toast from the slice in her hand.  “Your alarm’s been chiming for about 15 minutes, can I turn it off?” She marched over to LeAnne’s nightstand in her yellow knee socks and flipped the clock’s alarm switch, probably leaving jam on it for LeAnne to discover that night, and trudged back out, the ancient sweatshirt she used for a nightgown hanging off one shoulder. 

Another Bit

Some more bookwork:

Finding a table big enough for five or six people suited LeAnne just fine.  Nothing too intimate.  She didn’t want Will staring her down with those cold, judgmental eyes.  Laying her purse and cup down, she slid into her chair.  A burst of laughter across the room amongst a cluster of couches drew her attention to a group of women who all seemed to be in various stages of knitting something.  Someone had shared a good joke.  LeAnne envied their light-hearted banter.  Then her gaze fell upon an older gentleman at a small table the other side of the pillar from them, and her heart flipped when she realized it was her father.  He was looking back at her, his hands wrapped around a cup of coffee.  Clumsily, she grabbed her purse, dropped it, picked it up, banged her elbow on the underside of the table, sloshing her chai.  Get a grip, LeAnne, calm down.  She flicked a meek smile toward her father, took a deep breath and moved slowly, casually, to his table.  As she slid into the chair opposite his, he quietly offered up his napkin.

“Thanks,” LeAnne said, wiping her wet fingers, “Hi, Dad.”

“Hello, LeAnne,” Will tugged one side of his mouth up slightly, snugging it around a toothpick.  This was a characteristic gesture she knew well from childhood.  He would talk around it, she remembered, moving it from one side of his mouth to the other with his tongue.  More communication could be conveyed with that animated stick of wood between his teeth than ever came out in actual words.  Sometimes she could read his thoughts entirely by watching the angle and progress of the toothpick.

“Sorry I’m late, Dad,” LeAnne stammered, “traffic was really...”

Will cut her off in mid-sentence with a voice so low and soft, she almost didn’t recognize it as his.  “It’s okay, LeAnne,” he began, “I needed the time to sort things out in my head.”  His hands rotated his coffee cup around and around slowly as he talked, like a gear wheel in an old clock, carefully marking the progress of the minutes of his life.  “I hope this is okay,” he said, glancing over his shoulder and around the room, “I mean, it’s kinda noisy, but close to where you can get home to Dayna when you need to...”

LeAnne reassured Will this was one of her favorite spots, it would do just fine.  Her heart was pounding so hard he must’ve been able to hear it, she thought.  Damn, she wished he wasn’t being so polite, it really was making her tense.  But then, Dad never was one to come off as anything but polite.  Mostly.  It was the toothpick that usually spoke volumes, wasn’t it?  Tooth pick semaphore, sending coded intentions.

“Well, let me just jump right into it, then,” Will continued.  “As I told you on the phone, there’s a bit of a medical concern.  Been having some pains for awhile, now, and my doc’s been pushing me to have a colonoscopy.  I hate those things.  Last one, five years ago, I swore would be my last.  Anyway, I did, and they found something I guess they didn’t like the looks of.  Snipped some and now we’re waiting for the lab results.  Won’t know til Friday.”  Will looked at his fingers, and they looked back at him.  The toothpick flicked from one side of his mouth to the other, then back again in rapid succession.  

LeAnne saw such a lost vulnerability in his eyes, such loneliness in the face of his unknown future.  Her heart began to ache for this man who raised her, but seemed so foreign to what she remembered of him.  His years hung heavily upon the lines of his face, the age spots on his balding scalp, the callouses and scars on his knuckles.  When Will lifted his eyebrows, there were now so many creases in his forehead, LeAnne observed, he probably could’ve screwed his hat on.