art update

things are good these days, except for a lack of art supplies. Being low on cash lately I’ve been using colored pencils until they are too short to sharpen. I was treated to a little shopping spree a weekend ago – new pencils, in colors I wanted. I may be repeating myself (or I’ve told you this in person repeatedly) but I don’t care . . . I bought a 12 pack of prismacolors a week or so ago and when I opened them I was shocked at the lousy selection of colors. I’m sure some people would’ve loved the selection, but they weren’t colors I could really get into. I think it was a 12 pack of a specific pallette (one that I generally don’t use). There were three variations of beige for crying out loud, they were more like uncolored pencils. So, after shopping and swapping pencils I’m feeling much better.
I have a mural to work on coming up soon. I’m quite excited about that. It’ll be in a private residence on the living room wall. I learned a lot during the last mural I did (at Pitzer College)…namely that it takes a long freaking time to put the amount of details into them that I want. The large scale of a mural means the details can be incredibly small (compared to the overall image).
And someone is commissioning four drawings soon. The commissioned drawings will start with an art supply shopping trip, which I’m looking forward to. I do want to buy a large pad of drawing paper, haven’t been drawing much larger than 8×10.
I’ve been tending to my backyard a lot lately, gardening, feeding birds and squirrels, etc. There’s more life appearing everyday. For a long time there was just one squirrel, who I call Mr. Wiggles, who came around. He finally got to the point where he doesn’t run when I walk in the gate. Instead he now stops what he’s doing (usually eating sunflower seeds I put out for him), watches me as I pretend to ignore him and as soon as I’m past him he’ll resume nibbling away. Yesterday, however, there was Mr. Wiggles and another squirrel in the garden when I came home. I thought Mr. Wiggles was just greedy and wanted to keep all the seeds for himself, but maybe he’s just unpopular – he is a little scrawny and his tail is a bit messy. So, I’m not sure what to think. Maybe Mr. Wiggles has a squirrel-friend. Awwww.