Roz Wound Up

I Just Posted the Transcript of My 2013 Fake Journal

Left: Sketch that didn't make it into the 2013 fake journal. Pentel Pocket Brush pen on Strathmore toned (tan) paper, stuck together with washi tape, and collaged on Stonehenge (page 8.5 x 11 inches) that has been pre-decorated with rubberstamping and stenciling. Click on the image to view an enlargement.

I finally had a moment to type a typescript of the entire 2013 fake journal I made this year. You can see the transcript here.

You can see the video flip through of my 2013 fake journal here or on YouTube.

If you watch the video you can read along with the transcript and see what the character was thinking about when she was making those images, or living that day. 

Don't expect it to answer any of your questions as she isn't an explanation kind of gal. But her comments will give you a better sense of who she is.

Next to holding the thing in your hands (it weighs a ton with all that pasted on stuff) this is the next best thing to going through it in person.

Brush Pens: Another Look at the Pentel Aquash Brush Pen Filled with Light Black Ink

Left: 8 x 10 inch page; Richeson Recycled watercolor paper. Pentel's Aquash Brush filled with light black ink. Click on the image to view an enlargement.

Today's post is really for my current journaling students (it's an ink class that spans several months). I was writing to them this morning about brush pens and then afterwards I thought of this sketch I did a couple days ago and so I'm putting it up here so you can see it too.

This sketch was done with the Pentel Aquash Brush Pen Filled with Light Black Pigment Ink. 

Yeah, why don't they just give it a name that we can write? The labeling on the package says something like that. 

I first wrote about this pen in September 2011. You can see the pen packaging there as well as other info about the pen.

I wanted to post it today so that people could see how you can build up layers of darkeness with this pen. Each layer of "light black" builds up as you work. Also the ink is waterproof when it dries so you can paint over it, and for some people painting over light black ink might be easier and more felicitous than painting over the dark, rich black of the Pentel Pocket Brush Pen.

You can buy refills for this pen (an entire replacement barrell). (I get my pens and replacements at Wet Paint in St. Paul.)

There's a lot to recommend this pen. Some days when I'm using the PPBP and everything just seems so strident and in my face, and every line seems to vie for attention, or I've created a mass of black from which there is no return, then I know it's time to pick up the Aquash with light black ink and give myself some breathing room, a little bit more of an oportunity to restate. (For instance I don't find my first go at Mike's forehead nearly as distracting here as I would have if I'd been sketching with rich black lines from the PPBP. That's Mike from the TV show "Oddities" about his shop in NYC which sells, of course, oddities.)

It's just another tool for another day. But if you are new to working with brush pens in ink it might be a gateway pen. (The layering qualities will be different on different papers because of the paper sizing, so be sure to try the pen out on a variety of papers to see which works best for you.)

If you want a project to help you get used to this pen you can use the same directions I give in my 5-part series on getting used to the Pentel Pocket Brush Pen, which starts at this link.

Spring in Minneapolis

Left: Twenty-minute watercolor Brush Pen sketch of the life model in gesture class. I drew directly with the blue brush and then washed out and diluted the color with a size 10 round that I kept in my hand. I was out of half sheets of Richeson recycled watercolor paper and wanted to work larger than a quarter sheet so I used duct tape (usually used to mark the model's feet placement for after break) to hold these two pieces together. (15 x 22 inches.) Click on the image to view an enlargement. 

Today's image has nothing to do with today's post. I just thought it was a fun image I could show you. You can read about the Bienfang Watercolor Brush Pens in this review post I wrote in March.

The model is very "art deco" in her look which you would see if I'd sketched her whole body, but by the time we get to the longer poses at the end of the class all I want to do is focus on the face. And Christine lets me do this. It's my time to experiment. And time to have a live model sit for me who actually holds a pose—such a luxury in a life filled with sketches made in stolen minutes in waiting rooms and on park benches.

What I really wanted to write briefly about today was spring and cycling.

Last week I got to ride outside five days, with no snow (which this spring is actually an oddity). It has been great to get out on the road again. Rain at the end of the week pushed me inside on Saturday to ride while watching DVDs.

But today, in the morning, the rain stopped and it wasn't horribly muggy. I got out for 17 miles of battling the wind. At first I told myself it wasn't that bad. "It's a crosswind," I kept repeating to myself as I tried to keep my speed around 16 mph even when gusts of wind threatened to knock me sideways.

On the return home I barrelled up the Sabo bridge at 15 mph (my routes are pretty flat so this is my "hill"). I crested the bridge, and turned, with the curve of the downward slope of the bridge, right into the wind! I was peddling as hard as I could while going down hill, and I was going 13 miles per hour. (Usually I go down this slope at about 26 mph.) (The wind was listed on the weather as 18 mph with gusts at 27 mph.)

When I turned on the flat a team rider decked out in his sponsor-splashed jersey and shorts pulled up along side of me and we peddled together for a bit—"I forget every year," he said, making conversation, "that we only have two seasons in Minnesota—Winter and Windy." We looked at each other and laughed with open mouths as the wind slammed right into us.

Despite the wind, I have had enough outside miles that I was able to shave 2 minutes off my time. So it was a good ride, even if it was hot (75-80) and humid (85 percent). 

But speaking of spring and outside miles, another little factoid: On May 12th I had ridden 219 miles outside. Last year on May 12th I had already ridden 727 miles! Snow and ice storms kept me from riding as much this year in April and May. There were probably about 5 days or 100 miles more that I could have put on this year if a family crisis hadn't kept me from riding, but that's still only 319 miles which is less than half of what I did by this time last year. Just saying…California looks pretty good, even with earthquakes.

Today I turned over at 300 miles and I'm grateful for every second of outdoor riding time; it's just a little strange to wear tights one day and shorts the next. We may have skipped spring to go right to summer, but I'm outside and that's what I'm excited about.

I hope you are all getting out to enjoy spring (or fall if you're in another hemisphere). And if you have to deal with a wall of wind, may a friendly soul swing by to cheer you on. You can always be that for someone else.

MCBA Visual Journal Collective May 20, 2013 Meeting: Your Favorite Art Tool

Don't forget that tomorrow, Monday, May 20, 2013, is the next meeting of the MCBA Visual Journal Collective. We are all bringing our 3 favorite tools to show and tell. (We'll even make a little video.) Besides your favorite tool bring a journal in which you used the tool, to show us a sample.)

It will be a great evening of sharing and inspiration.

So join us Monday night at 7 p.m. (meeting runs until 9 p.m.) at MCBA (see their website for directions).

The meeting is free and open to all adult journal keepers.

Hope to see you then.

A Video Flip Through of My 2013 Fake Journal Is Finally Up

I was finally able to shoot a video flip through of my 2013 fake journal. I've embedded it here for folks who don't read the Official International Fake Journal Blog.

My 2013 fake journal represents 19 days of journaling and a few days more of prepainting those backgrounds so it was the piece of creative work I did mostly from March 31 through April 18. 

I would love for you to see the video so I've embedded it here as well as on the other blog. If you are interested in the contest connected with the video you can read about it in the original post—but do so before Sunday evening because the contest is only lasting 48 hours from the posting of that post.

I had great fun selecting royalty free music from Kevin MacLeod's incompetech.com. If you aren't familiar with his site be sure to visit it and look around.  

At the end of May I'm going to have some photos taken of the pages of this journal. I should be able to post some detail shots of various elements of the journal. All that, and more about my character for 2013, will happen over on the Official International Fake Journal Blog. I hope you'll stop by and check it out now and then.

Also, in a couple days when I've compiled it, I'll have a list of links to various other artists who have done an end-of-project write up about their participation in IFJM 2013. They share some thoughts about how the project went for them. (Right now on that blog there is a list of participants in the right-hand column so you can go visit their work.)

This is the craziest thing I've ever tried to do during all my years of fake journaling—the tightest deadlines, the most intense production, and a character who is only superficially similar to me—it's that nearness that almost made my head explode. But it's also a journal from which I've taken a lot of energy and joy back to my regular journal. It has planted new seeds of thought in my mind and made me think anew about something so indelibly a part of me. It was worth all the almost sleepless nights.

Catch Up—Why I Haven't Been Posting

Left: All of today's sketches are 8.5 x 11 inches and made with the Pentel Pocket Brush Pen. The first two images and the fourth image are on coquille paper. The third image is on Richeson Recycled Watercolor paper. You can click on any image and view an enlargement.

 

It has been a killer week as I sort through Phyllis and Dick's home of 59 years (they've been together 64 years or so). All my time has been spent on this process and blogging has taken a back seat. So today I've put up a couple face sketches, all of which were done early in January while practicing for the Portrait Party. All of today's sketches were drawn while I was watching episodes of Perry Mason (which sadly I haven't had time to do in the past several weeks).

But I did manage yesterday before going to meet the packers, to post about the Gelli Arts Printing Plate process I used in my 2013 Fake Journal. You might want to go over there this morning and check it out. It might be something you'll want to try in your real journal.

If you scroll back through past posts on the Official International Fake Journal Blog you'll find other posts I've been making there this April about the tools and materials I used in my 2013 fake journal. (DaVinci Gouache, inexpensive acrylic paints, rubberstamps, rubberstamp inks, pens, stencils, collage, etc.)

The fake journal is so huge and unwieldy that I can't scan the pages and haven't had a moment to record a video flip through. However, I hope to do that soon so that people can see the finished encrusted pages.

In the meantime I have a series of posts coming up on that other blog which will show some of the steps and stages of the process as well as photos of finished pages that I managed to take before life got so very, very busy. I find that fake journals always teach me something about my regular journaling process. You might find some ideas to take into your own regular journaling process there.

I am also continuing to draw Phyl and Dick in darkened rooms when they nap—but none of those new images have been scanned either. It is an interesting time for my artwork outlets.

I did escape one day to go sketching at the zoo with my friend Bill. I'll share images from that trip when I get them scanned. 

In the meantime I ask myself daily, "WWPDD?" and move quickly and decisively forward. I hope you are all doing the same.

Sketching Folks on Project Runway

Left: Faber-Castell Pitt Artist's Calligraphy pen sketch with gouache. 8.5 x 11 inches, Richeson Recycled watercolor paper. Click on the image to view an enlargement.

SPOILER ALERT: I write about which designer won season 11 of Project Runway, so if you haven't watched the finale, you've been warned.

While I seem to be forever attired in T-shirts and khakis (and sometimes Gramiccis) I have to admit that I really enjoy watching "Project Runway" to see what people come up with in a limited time frame. (Sometimes the contestants annoy me, but this season [11th] which just wrapped up last week didn't seem as bad.)

Michelle won and I have to say, if I didn't have a "uniform" I would wear clothes that she makes—I loved them all. But then I would just wear them forever even after they went out of fashion, which doesn't matter to me. I enjoyed her clothing vibe. In fact she made a pair of pants and a top one week that I could wear in different colors everyday of my life. I'm glad she won. I hope she has some success. (If you click on the link I made to her name you'll see an overview of her clothing in a short video and at 1 min. and 53 seconds or so you'll see the top and pants I could wear every day.)

While Stanley didn't win he was the designer who was the most fun to sketch. So today here are two sketches of Stanley, and then a page of gesture sketches. 

Left: A Pentel Pocket Brush Pen sketch on sumi paper, with a background added with a Montana acrylic marker (15 mm wide nib). Also 8.5 x 11 inches. The moisture from the marker warped the paper, hence the wrinkles when I scanned it. Click on the image to view an enlargement.

When sketching both versions of Stanley I actually stopped the program on the DVR. When I was working on the page of gestures I let the program run and tried to carry details in my memory.

 

 

Left: Designers on Project Runway season 11. Top Left—Michelle who actually won the season. These gesture sketches were made after quick looks, relying on my memory. Click on the image to view an enlargement.

Adventures in the Temporary Care Unit

R: Stand up tall. Great job. Walk right into the walker.

I motion with my hands for CR to close the distance between his body and his walker.

R: The more you stand within the walker the better your posture, the better your balance. The more you're working on your balance, the sooner you're done with the walker.

I reach out and push the large automated door button on the hallway wall. Heavy fire doors swing slowly open in time for CR to glide through with his walker. I've just pushed Phyl's wheelchair through the various spaces of this large complex with CR in tow. Physical Therapy had him outside working on curbs and uneven surfaces earlier and he wants to walk more. Now Phyl is taking a nap and I'm escorting him back to his room. I'm constantly watching for lapses in stamina.

R: Stand tall. Get your spine straight. I'm not saying all this just to bitch at you about random things.

He self corrects in one small motion, walking more upright, concentration animating his face. He's thinking hard about his place in space.

CR: I would never mistake anything you say as random.

I take a step behind him and double over laughing. A belly laugh that echoes through the hall. 

R: In all these years [I pause for more laughing] that's the nicest thing you've ever said to me. 

CR stops. He's laughing now too; balancing, barely holding the walker. Standing tall.

We laugh together hard for another minute.

No matter how old you are it is great to be really seen.

Sketching in the Dark

Above: Two sketches made in low light conditions, watching Phyl sleep. Nideggen journal I made that's 7 x 7 inches, Staedtler Pigment Liner. The image on the recto page was first then I did the verso page. Click on the image to view an enlargement.

Sometimes when someone finally settles in and starts to rest, and even falls asleep, you don't want to get up and move to turn on the light. If you're already holding your journal (and why aren't you?) or it's sitting nearby, I recommend you just pick it up and start sketching. You won't have a model fee…

This is Phyl, Dick's 92-year-old mother. She's been a real mother to me as well. And a great template for how to manifest bossiness in the world. Effective bossiness.

A couple of years ago she announced at a family dinner that "Roz is in charge now." Sadly not everyone has paid attention to that. But I just laugh. I know, and have always known, that Phyl recognized in me her bossy but effective heir, just as decades ago Emma, my wonderful Malamute bitch, recognized that Phyl (who hated dogs because she'd once been severely bitten) was a true alpha bitch. Emma showed her total respect. (Phyl reciprocated by making room for both our dogs in her life.)

Real bitches always recognize real bitches. It's one part in the engine of life.

An Update on What's Been Happening Lately…

Left: a 7 x 7 inch (approx.) sketch on Gutenberg paper, stuck in my last journal. It was easier to sketch on loose scraps than to whip out the journal in the emergency room. Staedtler Pigment Liner. Click on the image to view an enlargement.

I seem to have a pretty good track record on predicting when the other shoe will drop. On January 17 when I got ill I told myself it was going to fall in April. I was off by 7 days.

In March after being sick myself for over two months at the start of the year I was just recovering when Dick fell ill. I had been thinking that I shouldn't make too many plans because "something didn't feel right." And that was fed by the vague unease I always have over Dick's father CR caring for Phyllis—two 91 year-olds, frail and "frailer."

On Saturday March 23, I came home from the second outing with friends since my illness (there had been some emergency friend meetings before this but this was the first week in 2013 that I'd gone out with no constraints), to learn that CR was in the emergency room at North Memorial. Dick's sister in California had called the service we use for parttime nursing help for Phyllis and arranged for a full-time temporary caregiver to stay with Phyllis. (CR and Phyllis already lived in assisted living but the facility offered no nursing care and no fulltime companionship, which is what Phyl needs.) 

I rushed over to the hospital where I stayed for most of the next 4 days until CR was released to a recovery unit. We don't know what caused his collapse (he couldn't walk for 2 days) but tests showed his carotid artery was 90 percent blocked. He opted for surgery in 10 days. That stretched to almost 2 weeks, or maybe it was three. Time doesn't have much meaning to me right now.

In the interim I moved CR's belongings from the assisted living apartment he was in with Phyllis into a new studio apartment connected with the care facility he was recovering in. (It's a really nice space at Iris Commons, and I can recommend the Minneapolis Two Men and a Truck who sent 3 young men and a truck to move stuff with less than 24 hours notice!) 

Dick and his sister Lisa arranged for Phyllis to go into long-term nursing care in the same facility through a series of phone calls. I then turned around and moved her from the old assisted living apartment to a temporary room in the new facility. Lisa flew into town to be with her father for his surgery. She was able to help her mom move into her permanent nursing care room, which became available during Lisa's visit. Lisa also got movers to take the rest of their furniture (that won't be used) at their previous apartment back to their house, which will soon be sold.

Left: I turned my journal on its side to paint on the recto page of a spread in this 7 x 9 inch journal (so it's 9 inches wide by 7 inches tall here). CR's forehead got a bit elongated, but you get the general idea. Staedtler Pigment Liner. Magnani Annigoni Designo. While sitting bedside in the transitional care facility. Click on the image to view an enlargement.

The best news of all, CR had his operation on Friday and he's making a good recovery. There's some vascular damage that we knew would be permanent but he looks better already and he's working hard in physical therapy to get back to walking strongly. He won't be able to take care of Phyllis going forward, but he will be able to share meals and days with her, and be rested and enjoy the company of the new friends he's already met at the new facility.

I had a few moments to sit and think about everything this week. (We had another snow storm so running errands wasn't possible on Thursday, or rather it wasn't prudent so after an appointment of my own I stayed put.) There's a long recovery yet to happen, but I feel like we are all breathing again.

I'm a pretty stubborn person (if you've been a regular reader you've already noticed that). During this time I threw myself into my 2013 fake journal (because International Fake Journal Month is April). Sketching CR during our hospital time and rehab time kept the real Roz calm (actually in emergencies I'm so calm you might almost think I'm asleep, except that all sorts of shit gets done—I have really low blood pressure). Working on my IFJM fake journal in "character" while all this was going on pushed me right to the edge of insanity—which is exactly where I needed to be to stay sane.

Think about it the next time you're in a stressful situation. I'm writing about this today so you'll understand that all my pre-written blog posts are exhausted (I usually have two week's worth in the can). There won't be a lot of posts on this blog until after IFJM ends (because I'm using what little free time I have to post over there this month). But I'm also writing about these personal events to remind you not to forget that in times of stress you need to hang on to the things that center and ground you (and if that sounds new agey, well OK). 

I also wanted to tell you the following: walk all the time, get lots of aerobic exercise, get your heart rate up, take care of your joints, work on your upper body strength, do balance enhancing exercises, eat right, don't smoke, drink plenty of water, plan how you want to spend your extreme old age, and act in your current life like you really want to get there.

And surround yourself with friends who can make you laugh and don't offer up banal little platitudes. People who don't mind literally pitching in and wiping someone else's ass. 

Shit is going to get really messy, a lot sooner than you thought.