This piece reminded me of why I don’t use colored pencils that often. My hands get horrible cramps after about an hour… Next time I’m coloring I’ll bust out my FlyLady timer, and color 15 minutes at a time. And No I’m not an affiliate of Flylady in any way. I find her system of organization super helpful.

Provided I’d had second opinions, and I was sure what the doctor had said was correct. I the first thing I’d probably do was break down and have a good cry, right there in the Doctors office. Then again I might not. I tend to be calm under pressure, and knowing I only had a week to live would be pressure.

It would be hard, to almost the point of feeling like torture, to tell my friends (and relatives) that I was dieing. I hate seeing people upset, no matter the reason. An I know that several of my friends would be upset to the point of tears (lots of my friends are prone to crying.)

One thing I would definitely want to do is to take at least a couple of days to clean out my room. I wouldn’t want my parents to have to deal with everything. I’d want to set things up to where they would know exactly who I would want to give what things. Gifts for friends, things to donate to charity, things that they would definitely want to keep, things that would go to the trash, and so on.

I’ve had to help my parents with both of my grandmother’s houses full of things, as well as several auctions for living relatives. A list of who they wanted to have what would have been a great help, although it would probably have caused even more drama with my relatives. A house full of my stuff is the last thing that I want someone to have to deal with, as well as  a funeral, and so forth.

Funeral, that’s another thing I would want to arrange as much as possible.   Nothing fancy,   just a quick memorial service and get it over with. Those seem to work out best. No wake, or whatever they call the extra day before.  I only have  two relatives that would need to come in from out of state so everything could be done rather quickly.

I don’t own any land, any buildings, cars, or anything like that, so my finances would be easy to deal with.

Other than that I guess I’d just spend time with my parents, my brother, and my pet birds. Friends would probably come over, ones I haven’t seen in ages, and ones that I see every week… I’d talk to them, but mostly I’d want to spend time with my parents, and my brother.  No going to extremes, like going sky diving, or racing…. Pretty dull huh? ;-p

Knitting, and crochet, use algebraic formulas to help you figure out how many stitches you need at certain points.  In sewing it’s figuring out how much to add for seem allowance.  Computer code is basically a series of computations to tell the screen what to show, and the program you’re using what to tell you when it’s done. Those are all examples of the more obvious spots in arts.

Mixing colors is another spot where math comes into play, but it wasn’t as obvious to me at first.  Mixing colors moved into percentages, and ratios.  A similar concept, though slightly more obvious is the classic ‘rule of thirds’ that is used as a classic guideline in composition for paintings, and drawings.

Cooking is another one where math is more obvious. Everything from basic addition, and subtraction, to fractions, percentages, and ratios.

I’m sure that there is a lot of other places that I’m missing where math is involved, these are just the ones I spotted off the top of my head. What are some other examples that y’all can think of where mathematics and art combine?

Another product of my random sketching yesterday. The artist that hosts Scheewe Art Workshop was painting carnations (I think that’s what they were) in glass bottles, and I picked up some of the colors in here.

It’s a drawing that just sort of happened today while I was listening to a podcast. It started with a vague idea of a cartoon tree then evolved into another of my swirl pieces. Colors came from randomly picking pencils from the bottom of my bin.

And for an extra bonus, It helped me come up with an idea for a new watermark.

The good thing that came out of being sick again, was I knocked a bunch of stuff off of my to do list.  The rainbow tam got finished, a rug for the doll house, crocheted another inch on the ripple blanket, cleaned some stuff out of my art desk, and backed up my computer.  An today about 10 to 15 pounds of old CDs got thrown out. I’d saved them to make a CD lamp, but deicded I didn’t have a good place to display it. So, out went the CDs.

I cast on (read: started) another scarf today. It’s the Binary scarf by Christine Dumoulin featured over at knitty.com. I’m a bit worried that the needle size might be to big, but I’ll try it for a couple of inches and see how it looks.  I really should have swatched it instead of diving right in… I’ll remember to do it before I start a piece, one of these days. Probably after I have a panel done for a sweater and have to rip out the whole thing.  :-/

Tomorrow’s plans? Knitting, cleaning, and coloring. I have a drawing ready for colored pencils. It’s just fan art, since I haven’t touched my colored pencils in over a year, I felt it was better to start with something relatively simple. So I can work my way back up again.  I have the itch to do another swirls type piece as well… Perhaps one centered around snow?

What do y’all have planned to do over the next couple of days?

Cooking cakes from scratch is quite a bit simpler than I thought it would be. Similar to cooking my favorite brownie recipe from scratch. It’s just a matter of getting everything together in the correct order . The tricky part of this was the room temperature butter. I’ve only had to deal with that when making pie crusts, and that was several years ago. I ended up mashing the butter up with a fork then mixing it into the eggs…. After all it wasn’t the time to be googleing the correct way to combine it in.

I’ve made pineapple upsidedown cakes before so the topping, or bottom, wasn’t a big deal. The jam was actually quicker than fishing cherries out of the jar, and added plus. Then I scooped the cake batter on top, like Dick recommended. Even though the pineapple rings where packed in tight, They still tried to move around a bit.

It was fun! I think I may try a chocolate cake from scratch next. I’m trying to move away from cake mix because the kind that I used to use was full of Hydrogenated oils.  Not good for you, no matter how good it tastes.  It didn’t take me any longer to make the cake from scratch, than it does to make one from a mix. Which saving time was the whole point in using the mix,  for me, in the first place.

On to more cooking experiments in the future… Right after we finish this cake though

Yea, not very original but hey, she is a fan character after all.   It was fun to play with her design, though I think her hair would really be better a bit longer next time. She’s about 20 years old here, in the suit she wears to business meetings.  The coat is green, not sure if she’ll have purple, or orange cuffs and collar. The skirt is printed with the clan McDuck’s Tartan.  Not a true kilt, because wool is too hot for DuckBurg’s summers. Catlin had several hundred yards of a knit printed up with the tartan on it.

I haven’t come up with a first name for her yet… I was thinking of sticking with a C name.  Catlin following Scrooges idea of using the $ as a logo uses ¢ as hers when she has some business she’s playing with.

Then again Scrooge doesn’t really use the $ on anything accept his bin in the comics. Everything is just McDuck (insert type of business here)…. Ah well, something to ponder whenever I get back around to it.

I’ve yet to be disappointed by any of the wishbone series of books. This one is my favorite so far. It start’s out with them working on a student run play, when accidents begin happening. While the overall plot is fairly predictable, the saboteur wasn’t. It makes for a quick and fun read.

Title: The Good Dog
Author: AVI
Genre: Adventure, Fantasy.
Source: Purchased at a Charity Shop
Rating: 4 out of 5

What struck me the most is that it doesn’t feel like a fantasy book. It feels exactly like something that could happen in real life, up until almost the end.

Definitely not your usual dog book. It’s a fun, quick, easy read, and all without a depressing ending. The personalities seem to fit the breeds that they’re written for, without getting clique. This is definitely going on my recommend list of dog stories.

I was reading The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck, and got to thinking about her again. The outfit is a take off of Scrooge’s from The Buckaroo of the Badlands. I figured that if they were traveling together, they’d probably end up wearing about the same type clothes. Catlin isn’t fond of ‘frilly finery’, as she puts it (her mom kept her in dresses most of her early life). Though she could  She wouldn’t have long hair except Scrooge won’t let her cut it.

That’s about all that I remember about her at the moment, I have a really old drawing of her around somewhere in a ballgown… Why I drew her in a ball gown is still a mystery to me. Maybe she had to attend some party? I ought to post that up here someday when I find it.

As for the O’Quacky … I just stuck in an Irish sounding name…. Suggestions for a better one are welcome.