Lucks VanJeet is THE LOCH NEST MONSTER

the daily snippet

noreply@blogger.com (lucks vanjeet) — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 04:53:00 +0000

Down the road at the snow-zoo, Mr. Wilson has been at it again. One day he had smushed all the dying/melting animal carcasses together and the day after that this dragon appeared!

On the homefront, since none the Penguins knocked on my door and asked to sign their autographs on my All Stars/Starr Skates painting, I went ahead and filled the page in with some other hockey-related stuff.

And lately I've been on a Buster Keaton kick. I'd never seen any of his "talkies" and found one at the library called "Free and Easy". I won't get into the whole MGM/Keaton tragedy here except to say MGM misused his talent for sure. Still, there were a few great Buster-moments in the film.

Today when I went for a walk I saw this sticker right outside my building. I'm not sure if it's newly placed or if I just noticed it now because I have a fresh association with the phrase "Free & Easy"...

Anyway, it made me think I should share this little snippet of Buster. The song n' dance starts at about 1:30:

"Start out breezy... if you pleasy."

From there you can go on your own little busta-link-fest. Enjoy!

more ice time

noreply@blogger.com (lucks vanjeet) — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 16:17:00 +0000

Continuing with the ice-theme, I wanted to see if I could replicate this idea from Andy Goldsworthy (though I'm sure he probably did it with ice picked our of a lake or something).

It took a couple of tries (and very cold hands) but eventually it worked.

I forgot to set up a good background (important when trying to get a decent picture of ice) but still a fun little project completed over a lazy Sunday breakfast.

Photo credits to Husbo.

I'm not sure that the project/image below is by Goldsworthy but I like the concept - whatever you think the legacy is that you're building, it will disappear over time...

And click here to go to some really cool iceberg pictures:
http://blog.2modern.com/2010/08/ice-ice-baby.html

Chill.

Snow Zoo - An Ongoing Saga

noreply@blogger.com (lucks vanjeet) — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 18:51:00 +0000

A thing I really enjoy about my street this winter is the "snow zoo" that one of my neighbours is building. I've never met the person responsible for it but I admire their snow-skills.

It all started with just one bear - which was fantastic enough. I thought this was the best variation of a snowman I'd ever seen. My mind was already blown at this point...

And then one day, suddenly, the lonely bear had a bunch of new friends!!

I took this picture while going by in the car. You can't see all the brilliant details so I'll list some of the finer points:

The dog in the background has a big tail, front legs, and big ears all separate from the main structure... (like, not just "packed on" to the body),
The kangaroo actually has a little joey in its pouch, and it isn't "stuck onto" the mama, it's a fully-fledged little sculpture, separate from her body.
The detail of the hair in the lion's mane, face, and paws.

More recently a gorilla and a baby elephant were added to the zoo (or is it a circus?)... however I wasn't quick enough to go by with my camera and, unfortunately, the warm weather really took a toll on the sculptures.

So, this used to be an awesome gorilla...

And this used to be a cool, little elephant...

(Sidenote: the elephant is on the front lawn of the neighbour's house - the zoo is expanding!)

At this point, due to the thaw and the traffic, the bear is starting to look pretty gnarly but you can still see the profile of the gorilla really well in this picture...

I walk or drive down my street pretty often so I'm fairly amazed that I've never caught the creator in the act... but yesterday the local newspaper featured a picture of the zoo (in better days, before the gorilla and the thaw) and I found out the name of the creator!

So...

Dear Roger Wilson,

Well done and keep it up! Your work has warmed my heart this winter, especially on the dreary days! Thank you for being awesome and sharing your zoo with the neighbourhood!

An admirer,

ice ice lady

noreply@blogger.com (lucks vanjeet) — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 16:20:00 +0000

Judging by my POD (Picture Of the Day) progress over on Tumblr (click here to see) I've got an obsession with ice these days...

In the process of trying to make an ice sculpture (not yet successful) I became a bit fascinated with the actual formation of the ice in the yogurt containers I was using: from the top down, in razor-thin sheets, made up of cross-hatched crystals.

Here are some pictures* (you can click on them to see them bigger):

* These are up-side-down, taken out of the yogurt containers they were in while only partially frozen.

"catchy title"

noreply@blogger.com (lucks vanjeet) — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 15:53:00 +0000

I didn't know this was Mental Health Awareness Week when I posted my "List" (the last post). I've been slightly uncomfortable about leaving it up these past few days, like I committed a major over-share... but now I'm considering it my small contribution to raising awareness about Depression. I'm not going any further into the topic right now though - except to say that the sun has been shining the past few days (literally) and this has helped brighten my mood. Talking, going outside, getting exercise, taking small steps...

Sidenote, Clara Hughes is awesome.

Anyway, here is an "alchemical" painting I had started a few days ago and is as "done" as it's going to get. It's about Putrefication but isn't (personally or metaphorically) as ominous as it sounds or looks. It's another in the "In-Betweener" series.

Next, a little framing project I just did yesterday. Some nice signage/type and a trip down memory lane...

These are all old pictures (6-8 years old from when I still used my non-digital-point-n-click). I found them in an old tin.

Except for the "State Theater" marquee (which was in Michigan, taken on my honeymoon) they are all from Nova Scotia (mostly Truro) and we (my husband and me) actually stayed in 3 of the 4 motels. The 4th was on the way to a friend's hunt camp - where the old stove with "Merit" was found.

I think I will let the Husbo take it to work to hang in his rather bare-walled office... since Nova Scotia is where all his higher-higher-education happened... which is why he is now in the bare-walled office...

A nice touch that you probably can't see in these photos of photos is that the State marquee was featuring "Spellbound" and "Together" while the Acadia was showing something called "Wilby Wonderful". This made for a serendipitous, romantic statement:

"Spellbound, together we'll be wonderful."

(awwww...)

Lastly, since I had the framing stuff out anyway, I matted this little poem-thing that came out of a cool, old frame that I wanted for another use. Something to hang up when guests come by.

I'm getting pretty handy with the mat-cutter and sprucing up old frames. Maybe I should hire myself out as a discount framer...

Thanks for checking this out!

List (depressing and self-indulgent)

noreply@blogger.com (lucks vanjeet) — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 19:24:00 +0000

New hopes.
New doubts.
Still-young-enough.
Past-my-prime.
I'm great.
I'm lame.
Mothering.
Smothering.
Unmotherly.
Unlovely.
Too soft.
Too hardened.
(too judgemental and way too cynical)
Ripe for a break-down.
On the cusp of something potentially great.
Fear of failure.
Bigger fear of success.
Stagnant.
Stanky.
In-a-rut.
In-the-mire.
Hopeless.
Afraid of new hope.
Too heartbreaking.
but heart is already broke.
Too broken?
I'm pretty lucky
so why do I feel so fucked?

Unproductive.
Unreproductive.
Empty.
Barren.
Void.
Useless.
Invisible.
Repellent.
.

flippin' a V-bird

noreply@blogger.com (lucks vanjeet) — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 02:34:00 +0000

Just painting on this crazy little hummingbird tonight.

Excited to add colour... maybe something... crazy!

(Too lazy to give all the bibliographical/copy-cat information right now. I will when it's done.)

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.
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sabbath day for ultra orthodox canadians

noreply@blogger.com (lucks vanjeet) — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 20:21:00 +0000

It's All-Star Weekend here in Ottawa. The holy grail is in town along with the rich athletes who chase it down year after year.

Despite my love of hockey-lore, I'm not planning to have much to do with All-Star Weekend. I've been to the hockey-hall-of-fame so I don't think the Fan Fair would provide me with $15 worth of value. The big-tickets were sold out ages ago (and too expensive anyway). The weather stinks for venturing outside...

However, one concession to my general lack of interest in this event was to paint up an ol' timey hockey player from an old Starr Skates ad. I'm going to carry it around in case I bump into any Penguins. I'm not really going out to look for them but if I happen to see them, I'll be ready! Pretty dorky eh?

Every now and then I strangely morph into an autograph-hound*... so I had this in my backpack when I went skating yesterday. True story.

To kick-off ASW, they skated all the NHL trophies down the canal yesterday. Since it was the first day the whole canal was open and the weather was nice, I went out to see. (Good thing I took advantage of that because the whole canal is closed again today due to bad weather.)

To make it extra-cute they had all the little Timbits players holding the trophies and skating around. Here's the Art Ross.

Hey! It's the dude who protects Lord Stanley!! He even has his little white gloves on!

In retrospect, I totally should have gotten HIS autograph!! I really dropped the ~~ball~~ ~~puck~~ ball on that one.

There it is! The trophy that's been fought over for more than 100 years. Apparently the last time it was on the canal was in 1905 - when it was unceremoniously punted off a bridge by a drunken hockey player.

Best outfit award. She really brightened the place up.

There is some art hanging under the Bank St. bridge. Old white dudes and Native Canadians (but only the ones that sided with the British**).

Lastly, me at the end of my 10k skate.

I geeked out with the Canadiana***: Hudson Bay coat, CBC pin, You've Changed pin (a Canadian record label), listening to The Sadies and The Tragically Hip the whole way... I did not however, eat a Beavertail - which would have been the perfect "communion" on this high-holy day of Canadianism... but I had no one to share it with.

* What is it with autographs? I don't really understand why sometimes I'm suddenly compelled to try to get one. Normally I'm not into that. Maybe, for me, it's a way to generate a story/memory around something that is too "outside of my realm" to otherwise feel a part of? Maybe I hope some greatness will rub off on me? I'm still formulating this thought...

** Just kidding. I didn't stop to read the signs.

*** Contrary to how it might appear, I'm not actually super-nationalistic. I just like the stuff of history wherever I happen to be... and mostly I'm in Canada.

loosey goosey

noreply@blogger.com (lucks vanjeet) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 14:58:00 +0000

Two more drawings/paintings in my little book.

I was trying to be fast and loose with both of these and tried to do things with the inks that I hadn't tried yet. They are just practice really but I'm keeping them as records of progress/learning*.

***

This one was originally based on a couple of pictures from the Sailor Jerry, American Tattoo Master book (pg. 53) but I after I messed up a bunch of lines I decided just to throw colours around, layer them, wash them off, etc. It felt liberating so I put it in the book. I like some stuff that happened in the top left quarter.

This one had very little initial drawing/planning and I painted with only brushes (normally I've been using a nib pen). Everything is copied out of the little Taschen book of tattoos. More specifically the tiger and lady-head are by Tattoo-Jack from Copenhagen (1951), most of the filler is either generic doodling or else copied from Ole Hansen, also of Copenhagen (1952)... oh... except that little dog which is Joseph Hartley, Great Britain (1930s).

Cheerio.

*I guess every piece you start should be considered "practice"... you never start a thing thinking it's going to stand as your ultimate, amazing masterpiece right? Or at least you probably shouldn't... too much pressure... I digress.

Couch Rehab

noreply@blogger.com (lucks vanjeet) — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 15:21:00 +0000

Now for a slew of before and after shots of a couch I recovered last week.

The back story: this was the family couch when I was a young child. I believe that my family got it used so it probably dates to the late 60s or early 70s. There are no brand markings on it. My guess is that it's a Canadian-made take on the mid-century-Scando-style. I think several of my siblings (at least 2 for sure) have taken turns hosting it in their homes. So, with a little "reinforcement" (metal brackets added by my Dad), it has been sturdy enough to last through 35-40 years of abuse in big families with lots of kids jumping on it. Most recently it was in the basement of my sister's house where drunk teenagers played video games and crashed on it. As you'll be able to see in the pictures, at least 2 previous attempts at covering the lovely floral pattern have been attempted.

I'm happy with how it turned out. It's a bit of a hack job in that I don't really know what I'm doing and I didn't feel like dismantling it to do a totally "proper" job... so I had to fudge the fabric around some tricky corners.

I considered having it professionally reupholstered but given that the wood is in rough condition (mostly on the back thank goodness), that it's not a high-end/namebrand piece, how expensive reupholstering is, and that I have time on my hands, I opted to do it on the cheapside by myself.

Fabric, I learned, is VERY EXPENSIVE (some of the stuff I liked was $35/meter!!! And I needed about 7 meters!!) I managed to find this "suit" fabric on sale for $5/meter. I don't know how long it will last but it is good for a first attempt anyway.

(I put a lot of blankets around to protect things from the cat's claws and fur... plus, it feels cozy...)

So, without further adieu, the pictures (you can click on them to see them bigger):

the planning stage

reconditioned wood (top), bottom is the arm of the matching chair (which is the next project)

I'm not sure I like my fix on the left. It's paint over wood-filler but it looks too much like black tape. I can always change it later if I think of a better idea. I moved the visible metal brackets added by my Dad (right) to the inside of the couch, making them invisible during normal use.

I really love the lines of this couch. I'm happy I could bring it out of the basement and resurrect it

Cute as a button.

The matching chair. It will be the next project... although, the floral fabric is kind of growing on me and it's in better shape than the couch... so I'm in no hurry.

The payment for my work: it's true, spare change really does fall into the crack of the couch.

Thanks for looking at my couch rehabilitation project.

BTW, tumblr POD

noreply@blogger.com (lucks vanjeet) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 02:32:00 +0000

I'm doing a "Picture-Of-the-Day" Project (or "POD" for short) this year.

I did this before back in 2008 and it was a fun creative outlet... so I thought I'd revive the magic. Last time I posted them in Facebook but this year I'm posting them in Tumblr.

Here is the link:

Rosy Croix * (a.k.a. http://vanderlucks.tumblr.com/)

It will sometimes overlap with what I put here...
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* I forget what I meant when I named it Rosy Croix - it related to some esoteric thing that I was momentarily fascinated with at the time I created the Tumblr... so don't ask me about that...

Dress-Like-Your-House... again!

noreply@blogger.com (lucks vanjeet) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 02:14:00 +0000

Happy Hudson-Bay-Day!

Yeah...I made that up... Just another excuse to do another "dress-like-your-house" photo because I acquired another Hudson Bay coat today ($15 at a local thrift store!!) and it happens to match another Hud-Bay blanket I have.

Admittedly, it's starting to look like The Bay circa 1964 up in here.
But it's winter and it's cozy and it's part of our (canadian) heritage so I'm going with it.

***

sans chats:

avec chats:

***

For context, here's the first time I did this with my other coat and another blanket (my friend gave me this coat because it was too big for her):

Here's the stylist-shot of the new/old coat:

(I got the thrift store lady to throw in the cool hanger!)

(For the record, until I took this picture I had totally been reading it as "Unicorn Record" - which is why I wanted it... but "Union Record" is also neat. (I am maybe slightly dyslexic?))

And lastly, some outtakes from the photo shoot starring Pinkerton-The-Ever-Present:

G'night!

Stay Inside, The Weather Sucks

noreply@blogger.com (lucks vanjeet) — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 23:00:00 +0000

There's freezing rain and general grossness in the out-of-doors so I stayed cozy in my nest all day (which, honestly, isn't very different from most days, but today I had a good excuse).

I think I'm having some post-holidays/wintertime blues or something. All I really want to do is nap, eat cookies, and read books... and then nap again.

Here are a few shots of the in-of-doors that I took today while battling the blahs:

1. Cat facing off with the Bold-Ass-Starlings that have recently joined forces with the Party-Pigeons on my ledge,

2. The current state of the sideboard: deChristmasified but still winterized,

3. Oh. And another cat shot (they never cease to amuse me and this is my blog sooooo...)

This is a new spot for Pearl. I guess she wanted to curl up and sleep in the company of a lot of other black, circular things...

Gawd, I hope the weather and my mood improve soon...

I guess I can sort of control one of those things eh?

Norm!!

noreply@blogger.com (lucks vanjeet) — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 22:34:00 +0000

Remember in that show Cheers how everyone yelled Norm's name when he entered the bar? I always wanted to be like that - but without having to be a fat bar-fly...

Oh boy. I haven't even started and already I digress...

This coming Saturday (Jan. 14th) would be the 101st birthday of Norm Collins (a.k.a. Sailor Jerry) if he had lived so long. So today I painted a sailor-gal based on a tattoo of his... well... part of a tattoo of his.

I feel really out-of-practice since the holiday season (when I did nothing but visit relatives and eat). The FW Inks are giving me troubles. This feels way too messy... but at least today I completed something (I've had a bunch of false starts lately).

Anyway, I really liked the red-background-curly-cue-thing... how it rotates around the face.

Here she is before colour.

In a frame I have kicking around, waiting for the right image to compliment the anchor (which is cut out of the mat)... this is not the right image but I thought I'd check... just in case it was...

With the picture I took her from (in Sailor Jerry Collins - American Tattoo Master)

Below is one of my "false starts". Too many blobby lines to continue with it. Shouldn't have used that rusty, old nib! I'll try doing some pretty flowers again soon though as I haven't done too many flowers yet... and they are pretty...

Well, there she is, "in the can" so to speak... with apologies and birthday greetings to the late, great, (horribly right-wing but we'll let it pass) Sailor Jerry!

Thanks for looking!

The White Elephant Game

noreply@blogger.com (lucks vanjeet) — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 02:50:00 +0000

Oh yeah. I have a blog...

Well.

Here is what Husbo and I created and contributed to my family's "White Elephant" Christmas game this year. I'm proud to say they were very sought and fought for.

We painted them at one of those paint-yer-own-ceramics places. We meant to do two owls but they only had one owl-mug left so Husbo (a.k.a. Robert Bateman) painted the owl and I had to freestyle on a plain mug - but I knew if we picked trendy animals at least the teenagers in the crowd would want them... so a fox and an owl were the natural choices.

Overall I'm really pleased with how these turned out and I think I might start making and giving more as gifts.

OH!

and...

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Post-traumatic Portfilio Review (15 years later)

noreply@blogger.com (lucks vanjeet) — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 15:11:00 +0000

Getting older, for me, seems to be largely an exercise in accepting my "average-ness" and trying to enjoy life anyway.

Recently my Dad played a new move on our on-going battle of "childhood-stuff-removal*" by bringing a portfolio of very old artwork to me at my house (instead of asking me to take it while I was at his house). I tried to ignore the thing for several days but I finally had to confront the beast.

Afterwards I was traumatized for several days, wondering how and why any adult ever encouraged the young me towards a career in visual art... or allowed me into art school (NOT my parents btw - they thought I should be an engineer or a lawyer).

Only now am I starting to feel more at peace with the fact that I was not the artistic genius I thought I was... nor, given my track record, am I likely to achieve true greatness. (But being a minor-middleweight ain't so bad...)

I now present a brief history of my late-teenage-art for your entertainment (I couldn't bear to post the truly horrible stuff, so what you see here is still a glossier, white-washed version of what really was...)

***

There it is, the portfolio-beast, mocking me from my kitchen counter. The scattered tape holding it together might as well spell "doom"...

Inside, I was pretty impressed by one sketch pad of drawings. It displayed fairly competent line work and confident shading. The choice of subject matter showed that its creator was clearly among the fore-runners of everything that became hipster-cool in the last 5 years.

But the drawings didn't feel very familiar to me...

Then I realized that they belonged to my older step-brother (who studied something architectural around the same time - I guess his stuff just got mixed in with my stuff)...

Oh, here we are. My stuff.
This was pretty 90s-cool... Also a complete and total rip-off of an older,cooler, actually artistic student at my school.

Somehow I convinced the powers-that-were at that school to let me do a mural in honour of the ongoing-history of art. (In the center there was supposed to a frame where they would hang student work.)

This thing was actually pretty huge, covering a whole wall of the cafeteria. I have NO pictures of the actual mural. This is the sketch.

I think I drew these skinheads for a history class... chunky feet and a big heads were de rigueur.

Now then! Here are three masterpieces from first year university drawing class.

The MO of that class was to tear down everything you thought you knew about drawing and develop your "unique" mark-making skills (which looked like everyone else's unique mark-making by the end).

I felt like I learned a lot in this class and became a genius. Everyone cried in this class at least once.

(There was also a crazy guy, a gun, and a restraining order associated with this class - which may be why it lives so clearly in my memory. In retrospect, the crazy guy was also the most gifted artist in the class...)

Unfortunately now, over a decade from graduating, I feel like I left university without ever gaining any classical training/techniques in painting or figure drawing and still struggle to learn this on my own (which is a good struggle... I guess...)**

Wow.
Pure genius.
(...and, may I remind you, this was "the good stuff"...
The bad stuff was too embarrassing... the good stuff is bad enough!)

Back to the present, my new art-hobby is painting traditional tattoo flash. It's a fun way to learn some new skills and it's relaxing to not worry about making challenging content. It's satisfying to make something that simply looks nice. There's nothing "to get"... I just like doing it. Simple.

Here is the latest. I feel good about it.

I try not to waste time regretting the path I've taken... but I do feel like I've "wasted" a lot of my life thinking I was pretty decent at making art (and then watching TV) when I really should have been working much harder at developing skills.

I've only ever been half-hearted about being in the art-world because I have never truly believed I could make a living there (even as I AM making one!) I've always been so sensitive to the nay-sayers in "real" world and kept one foot out of the "art" world to make everyone less nervous. I think it is time to either get in with both feet or get out completely...

The end.

* My dad wants it all my childhood stuff out of his large house. I don't necessarily want to throw it out but I don't really want it in my small apartment either... I am trying to leave a solitary box of stuffed animals in his house as I reminder that I once lived there...

** My personal theory is that it is way more fun to do weirdo/abstract/non-figurative artwork if, in the back of your mind, you know that you CAN to do realistic/figurative/classical things but choose not to.

breakfast spiral

noreply@blogger.com (lucks vanjeet) — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 14:26:00 +0000

my grapefruit made for a nice picture this morning...

Merry Thriftmas! (to me!)

noreply@blogger.com (lucks vanjeet) — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 03:52:00 +0000

Here's a secret: when I need more than a few grocery items and have to take the car instead of walking, I go to a farther-away grocery store that is right near a thrift store... then I can "get my thrift on" while ostensibly "running errands".

That is what I did today... here are the results.

*****

Picked up this jolly ol' fellow real cheap ($2). I think he's pretty cool.
(He is slightly less creepy than either of these pictures indicates.)

What a difference a lighting makes!

*****

I normally steer away from the novelty spoon section but today I succumbed to its siren-call and found this rad SKI-DOO spoon! Worth it!

I also found a Bonhomme de Carnaval spoon - which I bought because the creepy little dude looks like he's sporting a creepy little bonhomme de pantaloon... if ya know what I mean... Why did that make me buy it? I guess because I'm kind of creepy too.

*****

And lastly, some catholic trinkets. No, I'm not catholic - but they have some of the best trinkets...

*****

My groceries were much less interesting so I didn't take pictures of them.

Folky Flowers

noreply@blogger.com (lucks vanjeet) — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 03:08:00 +0000

Whoa. WTF? Blogger is TOTALLY different alladasudden!! This will take some getting used to...

Anyway, just throwing up a little painting my brain threw up about a week ago - inspired by looking at a bunch of Pennsylvania Dutch "Fraktur" paintings. I seem to go back and drink from that well quite a bit...

I drew and inked the lines of this at a painting night with a friend. I did the colouring while in transit last week. To make it fit better in the little book I've been compiling, I cut it out and stuck it on another sheet.

It's been a looooong time since I let my pencil just wander around without a plan like I did here. It was a nice little journey.

Here's what it was like without colour - which I like. I wish I'd done a scan of it at this stage and could try different colours in the computer... ah well. It's in the can now (not the garbage can... just "finished").

And just for fun, here's an Amund Dietzel fish from my sketch book.

Thanks for checking it out!

.

Thrive Road Trip and Miscellany

noreply@blogger.com (lucks vanjeet) — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 03:20:00 +0000

Generally I try to find an awesome tattooer that I get along with in my own town and give them all my business for as long as I live there... but last weekend I traveled specifically for a tattoo for the first time.

I guess I'm getting to be a bit of a "collector" as there are several far-flung people on my list now that I would love to get tattooed by someday...

Actually, I always meant to go to this place when I lived closer but never quite made it...

So, the place is Thrive Studio in Cambridge, ON. I got tattooed by Chris Anthon whilst my lovely niece got tattooed by Bryan Simms. Except for all the pain and cursing under my breath, it was a totally great time. Andy Gibson, their apprentice, was there too and they pretty much did an improv-comedy show while tattooing. How our tattoos aren't a big mess from all the laughing, I'm not sure.

Here's a peek - but I'm bruised and scabby right now so no point in showing off the whole thing yet. You can already tell how awesome it is from this shot though...

My niece got the Stoney St. Clair mermaid (that I re-painted and wrote about earlier here) but I don't have a picture of it.

Originally we were both going to get the mermaid but two things happened: 1) I saw this seahorse flash that Chris painted on his FB and I immediately fell in love with it and knew I had to have it, and 2) I got to thinking about mermaids and how what a mermaid does is be extremely pretty, sing beautifully (I can't sing and am only borderline feminine), and lure poor sailors to their deaths*... and that's just not what I aspire to in life.

So, despite the fantastic tits, I opted out of the mermaid. I was mostly into the tail and scales anyway - and the seahorse has both.

(Also, I was born in the year of the horse - which doesn't really mean anything to me at all except that it makes me have a certain fondness for horses that I wouldn't have otherwise because I wasn't raised around "horse-people".)

(And I like to swim.)

***

This is a random picture of a fence near Thrive. I liked the acorns.

This is my little collection of old letterpress letters. I don't have a letterpress but I just use these like stamps sometimes. Why did I post this picture?

Because I used these stamps on the tab of this thank-you-card I made for Chris Anthon.

The creature (demon? monster?) is based, but not copied exactly, from Amund Dietzel.

And if you pull his tongue...

He says, "U R RAD!"

... which I thought was pretty awesome...

Unfortunately I get so nervous and awkward about giving people stuff like this that I have no memory of whether it appeared that the recipient liked my offering...

..but I enjoyed making it and I think it must be obvious that it was heart-felt... and that's good enough for me.

***

OK. Time for bed.

***

* My niece is young and good-looking in a way I never was and has a killer voice to boot - so the mermaid goes better on her. I'm not saying she aspires to kill sailors or anything - the mermaid just works on her in the same way I think the seahorse works on me.

deck the walls

noreply@blogger.com (lucks vanjeet) — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 16:33:00 +0000

My "hall" (hallway) is pretty dark and and narrow so I decked my walls instead... mostly over the Sideboard/Hutch (which I haven't changed up in quite awhile - so it was overdue for a new look).

This is my favourite, vintage ornament.

I use to have some others but they are so fragile...

Not going to be around these parts for most of the holidays - so I decorated my Aloe plant instead of killing a tree...

Stockings hung with care. Someone made Husbo's when he was little. I made mine about 7 years ago to sort of match his...

The big "B" + Santa = "be santa"...

The framed calligraphy I just picked up about a week ago from a thrift store. It took a LONG time of me staring dumbly to figure out what it said... but once I did I thought it was the perfect thing to put up for the festive season. Also, it is hand-lettered by some patient soul and that's the kind of thing I find hard to pass up at thrift stores... Can you read it?

The little ceramic Santa is an old one from Husbo's Granny...

I love my oblong, vintage, glass ornaments but having no tree I had to display them differently...

Festival flags purchased in San Antonio, plus little nativity scenes (one in a gourd) that I got in Peru (though you can find them all over the place...)

That's pretty much it for the decking of this place.. there are few other little things but I kept it pretty low-key this year.

overcoming blog neglect with double craft post

noreply@blogger.com (lucks vanjeet) — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 15:21:00 +0000

what did i do yesterday while the rest of the world was hard at work?

well... after recovering the homestead from the weekend's festivities, doing laundry, baking some bread, and various other acts of domestic goddess-ish-ness, i treated myself to some pure, ol' fashioned craft time!

i made a pillow from a cross-stitched basset hound picture (from thrift store). i just added the border then sewed it on to an already existing pillowcase.

(this is for a friend who has basset hounds and was recently admiring a cross-stitched pillow in my house (below, on left, found at a garage sale in San Antonio)... i wonder if she'll see this post before i give the pillow to her?)

... and then i finished up this embroidery of some Daniel Higgs flash that i saw here and fell in love with. (Coincidentally, it was tattooed by Zach Nelligan - whom I blogged about before.)

i'm probably going to overcompensate for my lack of posting by posting a WHOLE BUNCH of stuff today... thanks for looking... whoever you are out there that looks at this stuff!

.

more swazis

noreply@blogger.com (lucks vanjeet) — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 21:01:00 +0000

Shane Swift posted these gems on his tumblr today (his tumblr is nice and mostly full of actual paintings he's done - so check it out).

...which reminded me I hadn't yet posted this recent embroidery I did...

This is part of a "sampler" quilt-like-thing that I've been working on VERY SLOWLY for about a year (mostly stalled for many moons but I'm getting back to it...). Anyway, now and then I try out a new technique on this old bed sheet I had around.

I'm not very into doing embroidery because it's really slow and hurts my wrist a bit... but I do like how it looks and it will be neat to work away on this thing for years (or a lifetime) and have a "diary" of images I was interested in at various times...

Below are the previous "entries" in the diary (obviously I've a looooong way to go):

And lastly, these are various swastikas that I found around San Antonio while I was there last month:

(The blurry white jade on black background is actually Chinese jade from the 16 or 1700s. It was in an area of the SA Art Museum that you weren't supposed to take pictures of.)

* Related note, this looks like an interesting book - first published in 1896! Haven't read it yet but thanks to Chris Hold for pointing me in its direction.

* And lastly, here is a post about Pre-WWII roadsigns in Arizona:

http://arizona100.blogspot.com/2010/09/arizona-once-revered-swastika-eighty.html

nesting

noreply@blogger.com (lucks vanjeet) — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 16:41:00 +0000

I hope the little bird that made this nest doesn't come back next year to find it GONE. We (Husbo & me) accidentally knocked it over with a van while working at his research site... so I decided to take it home...

I'm not sure what exactly to do with it but I want to make some kind of art...

Sketched it this morning...

Then I put in under a bell jar...

What to do?

What.

to.

do....

hearts and rope

noreply@blogger.com (lucks vanjeet) — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 16:14:00 +0000

Here's a cute little flashy flash painting. I opted to not add colour just because I thought it looked cooler on my shelf that way.

And here's a gratuitous cat picture because those little toes sticking out while the cat watched the sunset was irresistible to my camera.