COVID19: Sketchy Bernie

By now, y'all have all seen the photo of Bernie Sanders at the Biden-Harris inauguration. He was bundled up in a Burton parka (made in Vermont), hand-knit gloves gifted to him by a school teacher, a disposable blue mask, and regular-looking trousers. 

When he first walked down the steps from inside the Capitol, he carried a large manila envelope, like he had stopped by the office to grab his mail for a look-see while waiting for the big event to get underway. I feel that to my bones because it's exactly the kind of thing I'd do during the pre-game for a wintry hoedown and needed to keep mind off how freaking cold my ears are getting.

I use the word delightful a bit much, but it most accurately expresses how I felt the first time I saw #comfyBernie was trending on Twitter along with the photo.

For the sake of history and to practice my figure sketching a bit, I added this quick doodle to my little green sketchbook of current/events politics. I decided I needed a separate book for things that might distract or detract from the chill vibe of my regular sketchbook.

COVID19: Early Vote

Jack and I voted Thursday afternoon.

We normally vote on election day at the Keltonburg Community Center and visit with Miss Linda and Miss Iva Dell, who always work the polls, for a few minutes. Miss Linda mentions the time she and Coach saw us eating with chopsticks at the Chinese restaurant ten years ago, and Miss Iva Dell asks how Sis' girls are doing and wants to see photos. Both women are retired elementary school teachers and worked with Dad at Smithville Elementary. Miss Iva Dell was my fourth grade home room teacher and graduated from high school with Uncle Billy, and Miss Linda's son, Rocky, and I went through school together and were in the same graduating class. Her husband, Coach, also taught at Smithville Elementary after a notorious career with the boys' basketball program at DeKalb County High School, including the years I attended. The roots run deep, and we always find plenty to talk about when we go vote. 

This time is different. With the dual threat of COVID19 and potential intimidation from the president's goons on election day, we took advantage of the opportunity to early vote at the courthouse. 

I thought voting was supposed to start at 1:00, so we arrived almost an hour early to find a group of people already waiting outside the locked doors of the courthouse basement. The line, as it were, was a dozen or so people scattered around the entrance area. The first person in line was a maskless man wearing a big, straw cowboy hat who sat in a lawn chair with an umbrella attached as a sunshade. He talked loudly to another maskless man who had also brought a chair from home and nodded as the man with the hat gave assurances of Trump's re-election and explained how "they're gonna target WalMart distribution centers and Amazon warehouses and burn'em all down when the results are announced. They hate white people that much."

The other man admitted that he sometimes watches a few minutes of CNN "just so see what they're up to."

I pilfered my giant handbag for the sketchbook and pencils I'd brought in case we needed to kill time, settling on a concrete bench to wait it out while Jack nervously took census of the other people waiting for voting to start. As I flipped to the drawing of a little block building I'd sketched-out the previous night and started adding trees behind it, Jack twitched and huffed yet another ragged sigh into his mask. He wanted to leave and didn't have to say it, and I admit I'd lost track of how many folks were crowding into the space nearby. 

I whispered some angry words about abandoning our spaces near the front of the line - we're so rarely early for things, and Jack whispered some angry words about dying of COVID19, then we stomped off to the car.

Forty minutes later, we put on our masks and joined the line. Groups and clusters of people, some wearing masks but most riding bareback, wrapped around the "Union Planters corner" to "across from Cantrell's Jewelry." 

A lot of visiting and laughing happened, and a toddler in orange pants gave hugs to the older women her mother knew. A man with a giant Trump flag and a tiny American flag mounted on a fishing pole shouted random admonishments from the sidewalk beyond the 100 ft. polling place boundary near the bank's drive-thru. The pod of folks immediately in front of us was a pair of elderly couples and a little man who was thankfully wearing a mask, because he talked a blue streak the whole time. He wasn't spinning conspiracy yarns. He talked about his garden and his cousin's garden, a truck he had fixed at Mark's Body Shop, all the tobacco his mama's people used to grow, taking a load of goats to the sale barn, every lawyer who's represented him in the last twenty years, going night fishing at Holmes Creek, and how he usually waits to vote on election day.

I eavesdropped, shifted myself away from folks, and shuffled forward almost to the courthouse doors. The check-in table was within sight. The closer we got, though, the more the couple behind us and the people in line behind them pressed toward us, and our progress stalled. Suddenly, one of the election officials appeared in the doorway and instructed everyone to spread out. She waved toward the "stand here" stickers placed at safe intervals on the interior floor and then asked us all to move aside, explaining that a voter had passed out and was unresponsive. She moved up and down the line to see if anyone knew the woman, but no one spoke up. The ambulance arrived, and the crew quickly packed up their patient and headed to the hospital with her. 

A half hour later, votes cast, we headed home. The lingering irritation I had about abandoning our place near the head of the line was misplaced because that situation was less safe than standing in line, and after all, we've waited four years for this, what's an extra hour and a half? 

Here's the guy with the flags. We know his name, because the former chairperson of the local Republican party had to remind him where he was supposed to stand. 

COVID19: Sketchbook

I'm writing a couple of different things to post, but neither of them are within "finishing distance" today, so here are some things I've added to my sketchbook recently. My nightly routine will always include pencil and paper, but the DNC convention is going on, and I've been tuned in to that, and I've also been baking like the world's running out of bagels. I'll have to share some photos of my baking projects, too, but that's for another day.

Monday, Monday: Down on the Farm

On Monday, Jack and I did farm things.

When Dad works cattle, he generally gets Jack to help him out with the them, but this time, I also provided assistance. There were forty-two calves of assorted sizes - all needed vaccinations, the bulls needed banding to convert them into steers, and the larger heifers calves got ear tags so they can be identified in the herd in the future. 

We had a lot going on.

Dad already had everyone pretty much rounded-up by the time Jack and I arrived, so we got to work right away and easily fell into a routine. Dad separated each calf from the group he'd corralled in the barn and walked it down the shoot to the "head catcher," which was manned by Jack, who operated the levers to secure the animals for long enough to be vaccinated and either tagged or banded. 

My job was to have everything ready for each calf - syringes of medications, the banding device, the ear tags - and coordinate getting the bander to Dad and the vaccinations to Jack based on what was needed. I've done this part of the job before and it's been awhile, but everything came back to me like riding a bicycle.

After the first few calves, we fine-tuned our process a bit, and before long, we were rolling like a well-oiled machine. There were a couple of glitches - one calf took down the fence and another escaped before we were quite finished with him, but all-in-all, we couldn't have asked for the day to go more smoothly.

We finished with everything by mid-afternoon, and while we probably didn't break any records, we did a good job staying on track and doing timely work.

Jack and I were both exhausted, but as we've discussed several times after we got home, the feelings were "good tired," and despite the sweat, dust, and cow-poop, we had a glorious day.

Last night's sketch practice was inspired by our day on the farm and comes with a joke, courtesy of my friend Nina's son, D. --

How do you figure out how many cattle are in your herd?

Answer: Use a cowculator

Armadillos in the 'Hood

As Jack and I headed out for a short visit with Mom and Dad yesterday afternoon, two buzzards were in the middle of the road, feasting on the remains of a smashed armadillo. We didn't have to slow down or look twice to know what it was - the pieces of upturned shell and prehistoric-looking tail require only a glance to anyone who has ever seen a dead armadillo. 

I've never taken a photo of an armadillo, so here's my take on an illustration of one.

We knew they were coming. Like fire ants, what once was a resident of the bottom half of the southern tier of the United States has been steadily moving north over the last decade, and now Middle Tennessee is officially "armadillo country." 

While we haven't seen a live one, we've spotted roadkill "possum on the half shell" in this region for a few years now. The first one was thirty miles southwest of here, but since then, we've seen them in the Smithville city limits and as close to home as the Shiny Rock community. This one was fifty feet from the corner of our yard. 

I don't know much about armadillos other than that they carry leprosy and can do more damage to a garden than a family of machete-wielding raccoons. Considering what kind of havoc the raccoons and squirrels have caused in Lucia and Beatrice's little garden at the farm, I shudder to think what will happen when large, armored marsupials (are armadillos marsupials? I must google...) move into the neighborhood.

Hopefully the population will stay manageable, and local gardeners won't have to resort to spending their nights on backyard stake-outs with armadillo guns in hand.

The clip is from the movie "Bernie," starring Jack Black, Shirley MacLaine, and Matthew McConahghey. It's available streaming from Netflix and is one of the funniest movies I've ever seen. 

More Art

I've continued my nightly art/relaxation time since my post about Art Inspiration and thought I'd share some of my recent sketches and drawings.

I still have a long way to go in understanding technique, perspective, how to use shadows effectively and how not to make a huge mess when I'm using charcoal crayons, but I am getting better.

After all these years of trying, I can finally draw a horse!!

Jeff and Betsy's dog, Chloe.

Blue Heron from a photo Jack took a few years ago. I'm going to add color when I figure out how best to do it

Ten strokes with a piece of charcoal and a bunch of smudging with my fingers.

Diva

I sketched this cat with Conte crayons and a drawing pencil.

Boston Terrier pencil sketch.

Art Inspiration

Back in the spring, Lucia was selected to represent her school's whole first grade in an art show at The Factory in Franklin. The annual event highlights music and the arts throughout the Williamson County School System, and according to Sis and what I saw from checking out the website, it is a big deal.

Sis explained that every first grader was given the same assignment - creating a "royal" self portrait, which was completed over the course of several art classes. Once the works were finished, the best ones from each class was presented to a jury of teachers who selected the piece to be exhibited at the show.

Lucia was ecstatic.

I wasn't that surprised to hear that she'd won, because Lu is, as Sis once described her, "fearlessly creative." She has never been afraid to cut, paint, draw, glue, fold, tape, and get way outside the box in her pursuit of art. And even though she's only a little girl, she really is good at it.

Her painting is beautiful - bright and bold, and her attention to detail is obvious. I love it.

She says she wants to be an artist/veterinarian/farmer when she grows up, and if she keeps being this fierce with pen and paint, she has a great shot at acing the first one.

In thinking about "Creative Lucia," I was reminded of a fun day she and I spent together a couple of years ago. We spent hours playing in her art box. We cut random shapes from construction paper and glued them into collages. We made jewelry from chunky Lucite beads, and I almost remembered how to fold an origami crane. 

Since then, I haven't given much thought to being creative aside from my sewing pursuits, but something about hearing Lu talk about her art and seeing her painting from the school exhibit inspired me. I was reminded of how much I loved art when I was her age. When I was elementary school age, Mom's boss, Bettie Jo, sat me down with a piece of charcoal and a big sheet of newsprint and showed me how to draw a simple still-life - an apple, a banana, and a bottle - and add shadows in the right places. 

I took more lessons from her over the next several years - Mom did, too. I learned a little bit about using pastels and paints, and after she retired, I took weekly pastel lessons from another lady in town. Judy, my second art teacher, was cool. There were maybe five of us in the class, and if we wanted to draw cats or horses or motorcycles or people, she was OK with it. Bettie Jo always stuck with tablescapes or copying pictures of classic paintings and was quite unwavering in her approach to "art." 

After Judy and her husband divorced, she moved away, and by that time, I had a full plate of extracurricular activities, so I rarely picked up my art supplies unless a project from school required it. 

I never abandoned my love of drawing. Years upon years of meeting and class notes have been adorned with doodles and sketches, and I've periodically picked up a sketchbook and pencils or a box of crayons to explore my creative side. The little girls gave me a beautiful adult coloring book for Christmas, and I used the gift card Sis and Chris included with it to Amazon myself a nice set of high quality coloring pencils. I enjoy the relaxation and meditative rhythm of coloring - I always have, whether it's Barbies or the intricate designs included in the book I received - but it's a completely different thing.

A few weeks ago, I dug around in the closet and found TWO old sketch books with more than half the pages blank. I looked back through cats and flowers and koi and peaches I drew in the early 90's and thought, "Those aren't half bad."

I pilfered my stash of office supplies for sharp, dark mechanical pencils and soft, mellow Dixon Ticonderogas. I discovered all kinds of stuff in drawers and boxes - a couple of kneaded erasers, a full set of colored Sharpies, glitter crayons, a China white stick, and almost a whole ream of black card stock leftover from Mom and Dad's 50th Anniversary reception.

Since then, I've found all kinds of interesting drawing and sketching tutorials online and am making a genuine effort to draw faces and figures and improve some of the skills I already had.

Last week I splurged on a set of "recommended for you" oil pastels ($3.38 - ha!!) and a couple of other artsy things when I ordered cat litter from Amazon, and I'm having a ball with my "new" old hobby.

Nothing comes close to Lucia's gorgeous Royal Self Portrait, but I'm trying.

Female Cardinal (colored pencils)

Tomato (semi-hard pastels)

Josie (oil pastels)

Coneflower (oil pastels)

Started out as Beatrice (oil pastels)

Avocado (oil pastels)

Trumpet Vine (oil pastels)

Hummingbird and Trumpet Vine (#2 Pencil)