Dragon Journal October 8, 2009

First of all, I want to apologize for my serious lack of posting. I have been struggling with depression, or rather, since I’m no pyscologist, despondency. Each day has been hard to get through and at the end, I had nothing left with which to post. Not that I didn’t have things to say. I simply lacked the emotional strength to put them onto paper…as it were.

Anyway, I have TONS of pictures to post. I am going to start with the most fun ones. The ones that are easiest to get motivated to do.

A number of months ago, I signed up for a “Dragon Journal” swap. The instructions were to decorate a journal with the theme of dragons. This was what I came up with:

Cover

Bookmark inside front cover

Page 1

Page 2

Page 3

Page 4

Page 5

Pages 6 & 7 -- closed

Pages 6 & 7 -- open

Page 8

Page 9

Page 10

Page 11

Page 12

Page 13

Page 14

Page 15

Page 16

Page 17

Page 18 -- closed

Page 18 -- open

Inside back cover

Back cover

And there you go. That’s my dragon journal. Which cost me $30 to send to England. Kind of sucked but I hope my partner liked it even though it was a month late.

Art, art, art April 4, 2009

This blog was not started as an art blog but due to my current interest, that’s what it seems to be becoming. Of course, since art is the main thing I’m doing right now, it remains an update of my life blog.

I’ve done a lot of little things since I last blogged (sorry, Lisa). I’ve done too many to show them all, though I am working on getting all the photos over to Flickr so that I can showcase the best here and link to the rest over there. But it’s not happened yet. But here’s some of the better things I’ve done of late.

Contrast Study of Vin Diesel as Xander Cage, sans tatoos

I wanted to work on drawing tone. I have a hard time seeing the value of colors and hues. So I decided to start black and white with a high contrast photo. Oh, and I wanted to try out my new ebony black pencil. It’s neat but I’m not sure it’s that much better than plane graphite and charcoal. Oh well.

I’m also working on a couple of journals. One is just little stories about me, like the time my bra broke during gym class, during the jump rope portion of the physical fitness test. The other is for a swap. It’s a Journal with a Twist. Each entry has to have an “extra” with it. An ATC, a recipe, a photo, a painting, a candybar like the one you ate that day. Whatever. Here’s my favorite page so far. And the extra for this one is a print out of the original The New York Times article on Alia Muhammad Baker.

The Librarian of Basra, a true story from Iraq

Here are two ATC’s I did for a swap titled “Good vs. Evil.” We had to make two ATC’s, one showing Good and one showing Evil.

Evil ATC from Good vs Evil

Good ATC from Good vs Evil

Next is an ATC from the Butterfly ATC swap. I glued wrappers from Dove Dark Chocolate Eggs onto a piece of cardstock and then cut out the openings in the butterflies wings. I glued it down and then used water color crayons for the background. Then I drew around it with a Sharpie. Oh, and I used color pencils for the body of the butterfly. Pretty cool, eh?

Dove Dark Butterfly for Butterfly ATC swap

Ohne Dich and ATC’s February 24, 2009

I’ve got lots of pictures of my projects to post but today I’m just going to post a couple. I’ve got to spread these things out, you know. First is a postcard I painted for Israel. “Ohne dich” is German for “without you” and this is pretty much how everything appears when Israel’s not here.

"Ohne dich" in watercolor on watercolor postcard

These next two are my first attempts at making ATC’s with photos. I wish I had some oil paints to play with but I made do with what I’ve got. The pictures I used were all pictures that didn’t make the cut for my “some day to be completed scrapbook” and I decided to see if I could have fun cutting them up rather than leaving them molding in a box.

Basic Relief

"Missed you, Daddy"

Frankfurt Fears…no more February 23, 2009

I love it when I leave cliff hanger blogs and then don’t post for a couple of days. “Did they make it to Frankfurt and back?” “Did Israel’s plane make it to the States?” “Were there pastries involved?”

Friday night, my friend Sheri called and offered to ride to Frankfurt with us so I wouldn’t have to drive back alone. Bless her heart. She agreed to come with us at 5am. She has endeared herself to us forever. We all piled into our little Panda and headed to Frankfurt. It was a pretty good drive though my stomach was in knots. For some reason, this TDY scares me more. After much reflection and much talking about it with Israel, the conclusion I’ve reached is this: Israel has never been so far before. He’s across a frickin’ ocean! Seven time zones away! There is much more work involved in him getting back to us if the world screaches to a halt. When he was in California and we were in Kansas City, he could have walked to us. It would have taken a while but it was a physical possibility. This isn’t Civilazation III, he can’t just go down (or up) to the poles and walk around the world to Europe. And that’s scary. Worst case senario has to involve many more things.

But we got him to the airport fine and left him standing in a long line 2 hours before his flight. I cried, which I don’t think I’ve ever done when he was leaving before. Of course, I was much more naive then and had no idea what two weeks with no husband or father for my daughter was like. But we said our good-bye’s, kissed our good-byes, while scandalizing onlookers — hey, the course is an elective — and Jael and I and Sheri walked away.

We only got onto one wrong road. It was the right road, just heading the wrong direction. After getting turned around, we drove straight home…with many potty breaks. It’s about a 3 hour drive for us in our little car. We drove Sheri home, had pancakes at her house for lunch and hung out for about three hours. Then, as my yawns increased in frequency I figured Jael and I should head home. We drove to Speicher and as we neared the center of town, we saw a police car, blocking the road. Uh oh, I thought. Yup. Big uh oh. There was some sort of carnival in the middle of the road. I’m sure it was fun. I’m sure it was worth blocking of the MAIN road through town but my sleep deprived and husband deprived brain freaked out. Which of course means so did my thinking brain. So instead of cutting back to the roundabout that goes to Trier, taking the road that goes by the fancy kitchen store and the meat market we’ve never been to (yes, that’s really how directions are in Germany. I am a classic, road names only please, no landmarks, kind of girl and yet…this is what I’ve got to work with) and coming out on the other side of the carnival, I completely forgot that part of town exsisted and instead went all the way to Bitburg to  come in the back way past the train station. But of course, I didn’t do this in a straight shot. I tried two shortcuts, both brought me back to the wrong side of town. Then I got turned the wrong way on B51 in Bitburg and had to drive for some kilometers before finally pulling a U-turn on an empty stretch of highway. But then we got home fine.

And even though I was exhausted and had been up since 4am that morning, I was unable to convince myself that I should be in bed and instead, stayed up late perusing the Internet, making ATC’s, and various other things which I can’t even remember now. I will post pictures soon. Due to not having a USB to camera cable anymore (it broke), uploading pictures is…intersting. I have to take the card out of the camera and put it into the Ubuntu computer (a desktop model) or the Linux laptop (a tiny, tiny Acer running Limpus Light for it’s OS) and then upload the pictures to that computer. Then I have to load them onto a photo sharing site, usually Shutterfly now that I’ve figured out the gliches between Ubuntu and their upload software. Then I got into the living room and using the Mac, either download the pictures from Shutterfly onto the harddrive or I simply use the Mac to post pictures onto WordPress or whatever else it is I want to do with them. And if the desktop computer wasn’t sitting on an endtable in the hallway, with the safe in front as a seat and I didn’t have to balance the keyboard and mouse on my knees, I would do the whole thing from Ubuntu.

I love Ubuntu. We have had Windows and we hated it. We switched to Ubuntu and loved it but there were some issues. Then we got a Mac, and while we don’t hate it, we don’t love it. We love the hardware. I love not having to have a tower and a monitor and speakers and a subwoofer. The lack of wires spilling everywhere is wonderful but the Mac OS is not that great. I prefer Ubuntu. MUCH prefer Ubuntu. I think everyone should switch to Ubuntu. It’s absolutely wonderful. Of course, I totally depend on Israel to figure all the details out. Maybe I wouldn’t love it so much if I had to do that. But Israel loves it too so maybe it’s just that great.

Anywho…I’ll post pictures later today or tomorrow as I have class tonight and should really spend some time studying, seeing as how I missed the last class.

Completed Female with Babe February 16, 2009

Female nude with babe; charcoal on sketching paper

This is the head I started a couple of days ago. Jael wanted to know why she was naked…because I don’t really know how to draw clothes. And I didn’t have a nude model either but skin is easier to guess at than clothing. Anyway. This was my big project for the day…after pushing our car up the hill.

Detail of Female with babe

Valentine’s Sunrise…well, maybe just a landscape February 15, 2009

Landscape in pencil

This was my project for the day. I bought a bag of Dove Valentine Hearts. As usual, the wrappers have a small message printed on the inside. I decided Jael and my art project for the day would be to illustrate our message. Mine was “Watch a sunrise together” and I thought I would draw a sunrise and give it to Israel for Valentines day, along with the wrapper. All went well until I realized I’d out the light source coming from the left, of page and the place I’d intended for the sun (between the hills) was the exact opposite of the light source. Oh well. It still turned out really well.

And for those who care to know, this is pretty close to what the view out our kitchen window looks like. Our landlords have a raised bed vegetable garden made from stones, much like the stone walls on the right of my picture. Our hard has four trees and not two and there is another field between our yard and the forests. Our yard also has birdhouses and a well/fountain and various other landscaping stuff. But other than that, this is what I get to look at every day. And the light source really does come from that direction so I drew accurately what I see but just not what I was seeing in my mind.

Oh, and this is the scarf I’m knitting Israel. It’s probably about 3/4 finished. I’m enjoying it but I’m also ready to move on to other projects. With German taking up two hours of free time I don’t have nearly the time for knitting that I had a couple of months ago. But I try to knit a few rows every day and hopefully it’ll be finished before we leave Germany.

Israel's rainbow scarf - in "Traveling Ribs" pattern

Sleepless Nights and Jazz February 14, 2009

The other night, in an attempt to settle Jael down with some quiet activities, as both Israel and I were sporting severe headaches, Israel put on some jazz and instructed us to draw what the music made us see in our minds. I closed my eyes, leaned back against our wonderful couch and let the music flow through my head. And this is the picture it made:

Jazz; in colored pencil and charcoal

Last night as I fell asleep, I was thinking of a picture I’d like to draw and paint. I’d bought a few things at Micados, watercolor paper, water colors, and a new sketchpad, and I wanted to try them out. So while trying to pin down something to paint my mind slipped off to another thought. German. I began running through the German phrases we are working on in class and remembering vocabulary words (or trying to remember). I began to count as high as I could before falling asleep when the following picture popped into my mind and I knew it was what I would draw and paint. I call it, “Danke schön, Herr Trost, for all my sleepless nights.”

Danke schön, Herr Trost, for all my sleepless nights; watercolor and felt tip marker

These are the pencil drawings I did first. They are pretty cool in their own right.

Sleepless Nights; pencil

Sleepless nights, detail; pencil

That’s what I’ve been up to. That and having dreams which made me realize afresh that I am committed to always being the best Becky Walker I can be, wherever I am, whatever life situation I am in. The dream involved an old crush and you know how dream emotions are. When you wake up, you still kind of feel them. So as I tried to fall back asleep (which I was unable to do) I thought about what might have happened between this crush and I if my life situation had been different when we met (I was married). Then I wondered what might happen between us if something were to happen to Israel (which I in no way want but it’s always a possibility. Death grabs many people by surprise.). I felt a stab of guilt before I realized that there should be no shame in living life to the fullest. When we first met, I was very happily married and so there could be nothing beyond friendship. I would not trade what I have with Israel for anything. However, if something were to remove Israel from my life, I would not have any guilt about living my new life to the fullest. Each life situation has it’s advantages and disadvantages.

As a single person, all I wanted to do was get married. I missed out on a lot of things that a married person simply can’t do, like take off across the country on a whim, bungee jump, sky dive, things like that. I could have had an art room and really pursued various interests with no expectation put upon me. I love my family and again, would not trade them for anything, but having a family does put limitations on a person, as does being single. When I was single, I did not have a husband to spoon with at night. I didn’t have the stability of eating three square meals a day. I didn’t have the accountability of sleeping well. Of course, I had the option of staying up late and being crabby in the morning. I don’t have that option when I have a child to care for. There are advantages to both sides and I wish I would have taken advantage of those more when I was single.

I am incredibly happy that I’m living my married life to the fullest. There are so many things that are wonderful about being married. Fifty percent of my college tuition is paid for because of my husband’s job. I am living in Germany because of my husband’s job. I have one of the most amazing children in the world, who I could not have had without Israel. I have an expectation placed on me of cooking healthy meals, three times a day, which at first glance seems like a disadvantage but for my health, it’s an advantage. I have an expectation put upon me of being responsible with our money which results in me having better money skills and more money to spend. I have an expectation put upon me of not wasting our resources, which means I’m getting out walking more than I would if I were single. So beyond the obvious advantages of being married (I don’t have to go to work and I’ve got a built in bed warmer) the things that would appear as disadvantages are advantages if looked at through the right lens of living life to be the best you can be.

I love life.

I love where I am in life right now and I hope that whatever tomorrow brings, I will love that too. Life sometimes throws us curve balls that are truly horrible but I hope that no matter what I will live each moment as the best Becky Walker I can be. If life throws me tragedy, I hope I can be the best depressed artist/writer/blogger/crafter that Becky Walker can be.

Life is good.