April Resolution

In April my resolution was to go ice skating. I signed up for Learn to Skate and went every week. I did ankle strengthening and I learned to do a two foot turn, and skate a little better backward.

 The Snowflake Arizona postmark bled through, and it got stamped over in Phoenix, but I still love it! Arizona has great town names. I have one more postcard going to AZ and I'll use the new Arizona stamps for it.

The Best Day!

Yesterday I happened to be in Santa Cruz when I learned that UCSC Open Studios was going on. I was so excited! Casey drove us up to campus and I got to see all the art. A lot of it was really gorgeous. I brought my camera but didn't bring my sd card. I saw a giant roll of 'film', a surprising number of great 3d oil paintings, and beautiful steel sculptures. I have had a hard year since I graduated and I've been very nostalgic for the days when I just had to get myself to campus and paint and I could study at the beach all the time. But, seeing the open studios made me realize that's not the right place for me anymore; new students are retreading the pieces I've made and seen made. It also seemed more insular than I remember. But I will always miss that metal shop. 

Since I didn't have my camera, the only thing I have to show is some extinction trading cards from Public Art 2. 

I took a bunch of these! These ones say "Passenger Pigeon. Deceased: 1914 AD Cause: Man," "Coal. Created: C. 300,000,000 BC," and "The Corporation. Invented: c. 1602 AD."

The Colors!

At Daiso (the Japanese $1.50 store) I saw a set of oil pastels. For $1.50! But I've never been able to coax anything pretty onto a page with oil pastels so I didn't buy them. But when I saw the same set at Casey's house I noticed the colors were all labeled in Japanese and I got really excited because I can only name 9 colors. So I copied down all the names and Casey's sister let me use her awesome watercolors to fill them in. (the two blank shapes on the left are going to be gold and silver but the one in the middle is white/shiro)

When I was little I would put pressed flowers and carefully blended rainbows into my sketchbooks so I would always have them to look at. I guess I still like that.

I'm planning to do watercolor sketches on postcards to document my upcoming road trip. I liked the koi colors but I plan to just add individual tubes to what I've got. I tried to pick a neutral red and neutral yellow, with a warm blue and a cool blue, but my watercolors all come out looking the same.

 I don't really know what to add. Gray? Brick red? Lemon yellow? One time I got a guoache set in my Easter Basket that was the cmyk colors. I think those would set off the colors I have really well.

razr redux

I don't remember why I got a Samsung Impression two years ago; the razr I got in 2007 certainly still worked. The Impression won't take a charge anymore, and I went back to my reliable old razr.

In 2006 the razr was my favorite phone, but I considered it too fancy to want. A friend of the family happened to get one for me, and I was thrilled. It was pink when it was new-to-me. When it got some scratches I painted it blue with tiny yellow horns. After a couple of years of use it got pretty beat up.  It's embarrassing to use a shabby customized phone in public so when I used it to replace my Impression I built bigger horns and painted it gold. I painted the charger too so I won't lose it. When the charger is plugged in, the tentacles make a little rack for the phone.

The razr was a good phone in 2006, and it is a good phone now. If the iphone was affordable I would consider wanting one (my compass doesn't really work when it's in a car), but nearly the whole surface is a screen- I can't paint that.

I tried to set the razr to Japanese for extra practice. But it only has French, English, Spanish, and Portuguese, so I set it to Spanish. It takes me extra time to borrar my mensajes and such but I like it. I did manage to set my ipod to Japanese, though, and it took me a bunch of hours with a dictionary to sort of figure out what it says. That's why I'm really glad I didn't set my phone to Japanese, because my phone has to be usable right away when I have to save a contact or something.

May Party

 This weekend I went to Clear Lake for the May Party for the maiden voyage of the Red Couch. We all camped right on the water. I took this photo from my bedroll. In between eating and going on the water and playing on the zome, I just knit, because the party was too much fun. But, I appreciated the live music drifting over the water while I lounged different places with my sock.

 It was very hot. The first hour after sunrise it was just bright, and then it got hot. Everyone was hanging out in the shade of some old trees, which meant I couldn't go there if I wanted to be able to follow the chart for my lace.

There was a beautiful nearly full moon (full tonight), so bright that I could sort of knit by its light, very slowly. The sock is knitty's Interlocking Leaves, so it is much fancier than any I have knit before and pretty challenging.

A Gentleman Naturalist.

My gentleman naturalist persona got a boost this week.

I've been designing a vest that will hold my compass, x-acto knife, fountain pen, and so on. But a vest is fitted and structured, and without a sewing machine or a pattern it is beyond me. But Casey passed along this awesome classy vest. Actually it is so classy and fits so poorly that I might have him try it on to see if a small alteration would make it wearable for him. If not, I will cut it all up and fill it with pockets and wear it everywhere and be the fanciest naturalist. 

I gathered these in Vermont. The green one is serpentine, I think the white one is quartz, and I don't know what the black one is so I have to hang up my naturalist hat. We thought it might be mica because it sparkles. I was thinking I could have a rock collection sorted by region, and then when I go places I could bring back a rock for my rock album. 

 At the San Francisco airport there is an exhibit about microscopes through the ages. I liked them since they were brass and lenses, but I was extremely excited to see the way these specimens were displayed. Each wooden strip is like a glass microscope slide except it's for opaque things. The sign said the specimens include dolphin scale, seeds, thistles, mosses, corals, and minerals. Wooden slides like that will be super easy to make the next time I have drill press access. I could gather specimens when I go letterboxing or traveling, and keep track of them in a little leather log book.

Marlboro Graduation

I went to Marlboro, VT, with my boyfriend's family for his graduation. We flew to the East Coast then drove to Vermont. Vermont is the nicest! 

 I went there for the first time in Fall and thought it was such a perfect fall place, with jack o lanterns and forests full of color changing trees. So I was surprised to see that it pulled off springtime beautifully. (In my part of the world we have rainy, dry and fresh, hot with intermittent hot spells, then dry and dusty. We have orange leaves in fall and snowflakes in winter because children cut them out of paper. So I am familiar with seasons in theory only.)

 Right away after the sweet graduation everyone had to move out of campus housing. This little guy turned up when Cottage 2 cleared out their freezer.

 There are sugar shacks all over. A sugar shack makes maple syrup out of maple sap. This one is in someone's yard and it works on the honor system.

We weren't close to this Norman Rockwell Exhibition/Sugar Shack (and our days were very packed) so we didn't go, but I imagine it is sweet as anything. 

I took this little narwhal along. He's really at home anywhere.

I don't have a particular reason to go to Vermont again, since Casey has moved back to California (yay!!) but it is very green and comfortable and lovely.