happy belated thanksgiving!

In the spirit of gratitude, here are 2 mugs - definitely empty, but waiting to be filled. Drawn with some beautifully sumptuous watersoluble graphite, pressed into my hand to try by Marla.

my studio

I spend a lot of time at this cute little piano with cracks in its soundboard...

and with this violin, peeking here from under its blanket...

and looking across the room at this little cupboard.

skull

In the place where Ansel and I lift weights (his mother's basement, adjacent to her pottery studio, full of treasures), this skull is hanging. It is beautiful, and strange. I have been wanting to draw it for a while, and finally I did, today during a break. Later I asked Marla about it. Apparently he was a gift from a friend in New Mexico, something Marla wanted because of her love for Georgia O'Keefe. Yes. It all makes sense!

Done with Stockmar beeswax block crayons again, proving to be lots of fun.

He is so beautiful, there may be more drawings, in different mediums.

happy international fountain pen day!

I peacefully coexist with at least 10 fountain pens. I don't know how it happened; it just did. There was the Waterman. Then, finally, the Pelikan.  3 "vintage" ones of my mom's. And then Ansel got a Kaweco, and a Rotring.

All in all we get along great. A long time ago, there was an incident with a bottle of royal blue Pelikan ink, my backpack, and a cement floor in front of my locker in high school...but no one remembers that. Oh yes, and the parent of a girl I babysat who called me over and met me at the door with the old Sheaffer fountain pen I'd given his daughter, safely housed in a plastic ziplock bag. "I don't know what you meant, giving her this, but please take it back, we don't want it in the house." 

Okay. Not for everyone. But definitely for me! Hooray for fountain pens, dangerous, messy, unpredictable, beautiful, small and mighty.

Featured here: Pelikan fountain pen with Pelikan turquoise ink; Pilot Petit-1 fountain pen with J. Herbin mostly Lierre sauvage and a little Vert pré green ink; Pilot Cavalier fountain pen with J. Herbin mostly Gris nuage and a little Perle noire ink, Waterman fountain pen with a different mix of J. Herbin Vert pré and Lierre sauvage (ne jamais mélanger deux encres différentes notwithstanding)

shrews

Some animals are not as cute as their stylized depictions. Not so shrews! They are super-cute. They are turbo-charged cute. They are unbearably, cringingly cute.

Look them up!

PS this drawing was done with Stockmar Waldorf-approved crayons. I did not use them in a Waldorf-approved way. Because I'm just a rebel, what can I do?