Okay, I admit it, I am wandering away from the journal for the moment. We found a phone message today from Slim (our favorite cowboy and grazing tenant) that he is heading this way from Colorado tomorrow and will bunk in with us. TWO visitors in the same month?! Yeowee! He'll flip when he sees that he gets a real bed this time instead of an old canvas army cot. In the meantime, the clean-up and food planning thoughts along with some symptoms of a possible cold/flu ailment coming on have thrown me off track with the blog so I am posting some terrible scans of old pen and inks that I had done quite some time ago. I came across them tonight while looking for something else.
I have been looking at these mesas lately with a growing desire to consign them to black on white paper someday. Goddess' comment about her things to do "Before I die" list has stirred up these inclinations. I remember my mother mentioning her wish that I would take up the pen and brush again. This was just a day before she died unexpectedly and so her comment bore a very permanent weight to it.
I had worked from my own photographs propped on my cherry and butternut art table back then since I always felt too conspicuous and too shy to ever sketch and ink on site. Now even that art table is gone for good after this last move. It had survived my many relocations for almost 30 years. I wish I could rant and vent some angst here but I won't.
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You should see FOUR drawings. If you don't, hit "Reload" or "Refresh". It's just the usual Blogger quirks.
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This was a photo taken near the Thames. A group of schoolboys in kilts heading home in the afternoon. What stuck me so deeply was the cheerful man trying very hard to console a young boy about something which had brought him to sobbing tears. What? I will always wonder. c.'77.
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Of course I had to capture the defiant Boudica in her chariot below Big Ben. c.'77.
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The portrait of an old New England barn for a neighbor's friend. c.'80.
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Despite my eyes already starting to fail, I was able to provide another building portrait 20 years later. This was my last pen and ink. c.'97Will my eyes still allow me to take up the tiny pen again? I don't know but it's high on my "Before I die" wish list. In the meantime, we will have a year or two of work left on this homestead which will eventually include a place for me to work on what I enjoy once more.
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