See more: Illustration Friday

A roll of drafting paper. $8. Bought me ten minutes of time to post the previous entry.

This is the newly added little nature corner, a submission for Amanda’s Corners of My Home. I am participating so that I’ll be encouraged to dust and declutter the corners of my home. Actually, this little corner has a little collection of scrambled egg bits under the table that you can’t see in this picture. With clever photography, I was able to conceal it. See? I’m so smart.

Really, though, I don’t think anything can force me to dust and declutter. I was kidding about that. There will be much chaos.

This little nature corner is evolving from a plain white table that was originally intended to be a Little Art Corner. This was before I realized that my boys don’t do art in a little corner, just as they prefer not to pee simply in a toilet; they do it all over: even on the Bella rug. That poor rug.

The table is quickly growing into a little laboratory: here we have blooming shallots, pinto bean sprouts, what used to be a flowering cactus (I need to rotate that out already), a fickle pitcher plant (with button!) and a bowl of fruit that Ford just placed there.

I have big dreams for this little corner. I’m looking for a long but tall aquarium tank for a local stream fauna population (kind of a mini Bull Creek, which is along the hike we take so frequently), a microscope, and a little shelf beside the table for all of our nature books–as if they would all stay on a bookshelf! On the wall: seasonal art. Small shelf for gear: binoculars for a quick peek at the white wing dove, jars for looking at specimens, plant press.

I’ve enjoyed seeing other corners. Go ahead, take a peek!

A perfect fit into this week’s theme for Studio Friday: “PLAYTIME.” Even if it’s posted prematurely.

When I was four.
I remember playing with my dad’s Koh-I-Noor Rapidographs until the points broke off, and pulling bit after sticky bit off his gum erasers. But I never came across his crow quill pens. Where did he hide them, as a medical illustrator?
Ford, also four, loves to dig through and (accidentally) destroy my art supplies, crow quills included. He uses them as wands. I’ve found sewing machine pressure feet discarded on the floor after being used as rocketships, bobbins (previously used as Ty-fighters) under sofas. I never manage to keep it all concealed.

On a Japanese prayer wall, one anonymous child wrote:

It rained. It rained all day, beginning with bright flashes at midnight and ending with a shroud of mist on Sunday. This afternoon, two days after the relieving episode, the grass is still moist. Is our burn ban over? Hopefully not; this morning Ford and Chas followed me outside to the garden, where they leaned over to watch me burn the raffia and summer grass that decorated the rim of Bird’s fishbowl. Quickly, the straw crackled into embers, and died into crumbly strings that we blew into the rosemary, which was still dewey. Before lunch, we had bought a new betta; the new one is named Angie and he is a vigorous red. Funny, I never thought to photograph the morning.

Ford got a new bike on Sunday. Electric blue, like mine, it inspired him to go very fast. We took him to the veloway, where we could ride and skate beside him for three and a half miles. Around the third quarter, his energy began to wane, and after Ford’s excessive whining, Damon reluctantly carried the squat little bike the rest of the way, while I taxied him in the bike trailer. We continued to loop for another half hour, during which I thought about my own famous fallouts. Like the time I showed up for team practice on the first day, claiming I was an intermediate rider, and spent the rest of the evening correcting myself on an overly large, very young thoroughbred who felt like a Ferrari on wet pavement. Although I didn’t quit, I did nearly shit in my pants and I definitely didn’t make Intermediate.

Yesterday, we took the boys to the Children’s Museum, where I found this:

With the grasses outside, glorious from Fall but wet from the rain, I thought we’d make a bunch of these for a wall parade. It didn’t happen today, so we’ll try doing this tomorrow. It may even be a good idea to use them for Christmas tree ornaments next year? I want a whole herd of them…

It rained. It rained all day, beginning with bright flashes at midnight and ending with a shroud of mist on Sunday. This afternoon, two days after the relieving episode, the grass is still moist. Is our burn ban over? Hopefully not; this morning Ford and Chas followed me outside to the garden, where they leaned over to watch me burn the raffia and summer grass that decorated the rim of Bird’s fishbowl. Quickly, the straw crackled into embers, and died into crumbly strings that we blew into the rosemary, which was still dewey. Before lunch, we had bought a new betta; the new one is named Angie and he is a vigorous red. Funny, I never thought to photograph the morning.

Ford got a new bike on Sunday. Electric blue, like mine, it inspired him to go very fast. We took him to the veloway, where we could ride and skate beside him for three and a half miles. Around the third quarter, his energy began to wane, and after Ford’s excessive whining, Damon reluctantly carried the squat little bike the rest of the way, while I taxied him in the bike trailer. We continued to loop for another half hour, during which I thought about my own famous fallouts. Like the time I showed up for team practice on the first day, claiming I was an intermediate rider, and spent the rest of the evening correcting myself on an overly large, very young thoroughbred who felt like a Ferrari on wet pavement. Although I didn’t quit, I did nearly shit in my pants and I definitely didn’t make Intermediate.

Yesterday, we took the boys to the Children’s Museum, where I found this:

With the grasses outside, glorious from Fall but wet from the rain, I thought we’d make a bunch of these for a wall parade. It didn’t happen today, so we’ll try doing this tomorrow. It may even be a good idea to use them for Christmas tree ornaments next year? I want a whole herd of them…

It rained. It rained all day, beginning with bright flashes at midnight and ending with a shroud of mist on Sunday. This afternoon, two days after the relieving episode, the grass is still moist. Is our burn ban over? Hopefully not; this morning Ford and Chas followed me outside to the garden, where they leaned over to watch me burn the raffia and summer grass that decorated the rim of Bird’s fishbowl. Quickly, the straw crackled into embers, and died into crumbly strings that we blew into the rosemary, which was still dewey. Before lunch, we had bought a new betta; the new one is named Angie and he is a vigorous red. Funny, I never thought to photograph the morning.

Ford got a new bike on Sunday. Electric blue, like mine, it inspired him to go very fast. We took him to the veloway, where we could ride and skate beside him for three and a half miles. Around the third quarter, his energy began to wane, and after Ford’s excessive whining, Damon reluctantly carried the squat little bike the rest of the way, while I taxied him in the bike trailer. We continued to loop for another half hour, during which I thought about my own famous fallouts. Like the time I showed up for team practice on the first day, claiming I was an intermediate rider, and spent the rest of the evening correcting myself on an overly large, very young thoroughbred who felt like a Ferrari on wet pavement. Although I didn’t quit, I did nearly shit in my pants and I definitely didn’t make Intermediate.

Yesterday, we took the boys to the Children’s Museum, where I found this:

With the grasses outside, glorious from Fall but wet from the rain, I thought we’d make a bunch of these for a wall parade. It didn’t happen today, so we’ll try doing this tomorrow. It may even be a good idea to use them for Christmas tree ornaments next year? I want a whole herd of them…

I am sitting atop a five year-old blue area rug as the timid, gangly librarian greets us with her friend, the fifty year-old once-purple spider puppet. Her eyes are so tiny that I find myself searching for the person beneath them, and out it peeks with a nervous giggle as she shifts her weight in the chair. Awkwardly, I encourage Chas to sing the Itsy Bitsy Spider; it’s surreal to be repeating this same archaic fingerplay with my children. I’m tired of this, and I’ll not reminisce about this moment when I am sixty-four. The Itsy Bitsy Spider has hung around the waterspout way too long, it needs a new venue, to broaden its horizons. I suggest setting sail for the Spanish riviera.

Ford is being patient as I tolerate the spider song. He understands the pain; I think he feels it himself. He tumbles in breakdance acrobatics around the three other mother-child pairs, threatening their two year-oldness with his four year-old rebellion. One mother flinches as Ford jumps in her face. What is he doing?! But wait! This is his method, and it’s difficult being completely objective when reacting so easy. But I call him closer. He jumps back in my direction, clearly to tell me off, and I find myself flinching.

“These songs are not my kind of songs. My kind of songs are…,” his straw-colored curls bounce and his eyes flare, “the White Stripes, and the Strokes, and Beck, and Kings of Leon….,”
Blood flushes to my face, and I find relief when I realize these mothers probably have never heard of Kings of Leon, much less trained their ears to understand the slurred lyrics (not that Ford has),
“…this music is na-nee na-nee BOH-ring…”