It feels great to get so much done!

Very productive day today! And not just in creative work. Erik and I took Lyapa to the vet. I did two loads of laundry (including my new fabrics… some of which I’m now sure were not meant to go through the washer, but now I’ve learned this about tightly woven fabrics), tended to the plants, cooked hot cereal for the week, sorted mail, and talked to Mommy and Jackie on the phone. Also, I catalogued my new fabrics by drawing them, tore out some more pages for collage-clipping, sketched plants outside, and made two drawings:

This one is based on what I learned from sketching plant pots out on the deck. I got lazy and didn’t feel like dealing with plants, so I added a little fillip of a fake-looking flower to the shadow instead.

And then there’s this one, which was fun to do but is embarrassing because it’s so high-school-looking.

I had sketched our mask flowers (alonsoa meridionalis) and wanted to play around with drawing them, so I made a vaguely medieval pattern with the flowers and fakey twining stems, and then decided I needed to add a romantic-looking girl. I had clipped an ad featuring Lucy Liu during my earlier magazine-culling session, so I based this girl on her facial structure and posture. Her left cheekbone is weird-looking, but I’m pleased that I managed to create facial structure with shading. This is definitely the most subtle colored pencil shading I’ve managed, to date.

This is the most productive creative day I’ve had in ages. Perhaps it’s because I didn’t get any work done over the weekend, and I wanted to. Usually taking Lyapa to the vet in the morning would have thrown me off, but this time it didn’t impede my flow at all. Or perhaps being on the go all weekend helped me get used to doing lots of things in a day, or perhaps LA’s energy bolstered my own. Anyway, I’m very grateful.

I’m also intensely grateful to Jackie, who inquired about my artistic pursuits over the phone in the most delicate way. She understood perfectly that fledgling creative work needs to be babied, and she was supportive without needing to know details. I love her and am so thankful for her sensitivity!