Drawing 17.

Everywhere you look...


I couldn't remember the twins names! It's Alex and Nicky. I did try to portray accurate fashions, with Danny in a turtle neck and Uncle Jesse in a not-all-the-way-buttoned button-down. Seemed like the kind of thing he'd do. Also apparently the kind of thing he'd do:


Weird. Whoever had the idea for this promotional photo is weird. My guess is that it's the same guy who decided SkyMall should sell butt implants.


I didn't draw Kimmy or Steve because they didn't live in the house. Not that full. Also, how could I forget about vests?

Tell that to my bladder.

I am not a fan of having my picture taken, but I'm told it's good to document important events - marriages, graduations, pregnancies, finishing that 32 oz. steak...*


So here I am at 28 weeks and five days.


And here I am pretending to do a warrior two pose. I wouldn't know because there aren't any mirrors in the yoga studio, but I'm *sure* I look way better in class. In any case, it's good to look silly anytime you can because if you ever plan on having kids it's best to just own it when you pretend to be a horsey. The only thing worse than pretending to be a horsey is pretending to be a horsey and looking mortified about it. That's just pathetic.


I asked hubs to take a picture of me depicting the pain I feel. I get daily comments on how tiny I am. Tell that to my bladder, bowels, ribs, hips, diaphragm, and solar plexus. I look tiny on the outside, but on the inside there's a dance party going on and given the swift sweeping movements that have been visible for several weeks now I'm pretty sure he's got turn tables in there. And possibly fly girls. I love it - but that doesn't mean I won't complain about it.


* Is there even such a thing as a 32 oz. steak?

Craft! Craft while you still can!

This is what the voices tell me. There are just 12 weeks left.

Which reminds me - I went shopping for clothes and found A LOT of deals so I ended up in the dressing room for like an hour and somewhere in there I noticed that I'm really pregnant. Our little $15 dorm room mirror at home has not done me justice, but the store had huge mirrors unblemished with areas of distortion and cripes am I big. Not as big as I will be, but I still had to take a moment. Will I ever look like this again? Will I remember this when I'm old and have no idea what day it is? Do I fully appreciate the quiet calm of having an inside-baby?

Um, anyways. As expected, most of what I've been doing is in the drawing book because it indulges the crafty side and the lazy side. But I need to make curtains, I've started a stuffed giraffe, I'd like to start knitting a skirt for Laura's birthday, and I have made several thank-you notes to be used later on. They kind of follow the theme and colors of the baby room.


I love paper crafts. I love the smell of paper. So cards are some of my favorite things to make - especially because they are uber expensive to buy and I've already amassed a stockpile of supplies.

On the other hand, designing these things can take a lot of tries and it can still get expensive depending on embellishments. This is why I don't plan on making scrapbooks for this child or possibly for anything other than to add to books I've already started. Instead I plan on ordering custom digital books, which might not take any less time but will be less expensive. And they'll have that delicious paper and ink smell.

I'm making curtains. I *might* have gotten myself into a pickle.

I need help. Not the pill kind; I already have that covered. My visionary skills, while lacking severely on the spacial front, are usually pretty good with colors n' stuff. But most of my projects don't involve the amount of math and thinking and general importance of this project.


I'm going to have to look at these curtains every day, so my main concern at this point is not messing them up. Later my concern that my two old and decrepit sewing machines might fail me will come into play. For now I'm pretty comfortable with my measurements and basic design - covering an area just larger than the window, the main portion will be vertical grey stripe with a smaller portion of solid green, separated by black grosgrain ribbon. But here's the question: does the green go on top or on bottom?

Please, please sparse friends, what do you think?

Drawings 13, 14, 15, and 16.

I'm guessing it won't happen very often that I get to draw something that is a real, one-of-a-kind thing in my own little sphere of existence.


I have spoken many times about "the cabin." It's a magical place that I have almost no trouble drawing from memory. I'm too lazy to dig up one of our infamous check-out day family portraits out front, but rest assured this is the same cabin. The photo is from the lake side of the cabin, but if you were to walk around the corner to the right your eyes would fall upon my drawing.

-=-=-=-

I drew young shrubs.


The caption on this photo was "It's a shrubbery!" I thought "shrubbery" was plural or something, but this caption has me all confused. Are "shrubbery" and "shrubs" interchangeable? Shouldn't it just be "It's a shrub!"? Oh God, do I put the question mark inside the quotes as usual or does that just change the caption from an excited statement to an expletive query? GRAMMAR YOU ARE A WORTHY FOE!*

-=-=-=-

I especially like the mushroom on the right because it really depicts those tiny underside gills that make you feel like you're eating centipede legs.


Apparently this photo is of one variety of "magic" mushrooms."** I disagree. They probably still have centipede legs and there's nothing magical about that so now we're faced with a philosophical question: Do magic mushrooms exist?

-=-=-=-

Thank God this book doesn't give any instructions. That convenient fact has prevented me from literally desecrating a rather attractive and talented man.


Ok, the scrappy beard isn't the best thing that ever happened.




* Nerd.
** Pretty sure there has never been so many quotes in one blog post.

I wish I made this.

There's a "Peeps Show" diorama contest every year and I wish I would remember to enter. Who doesn't love making dioramas? Ok, the Auschwitz one Megan and I made in junior high wasn't so much *fun* as it was *devastating.*


But then there's this. It's my favorite of the finalists. ANIMAL!!! Now taking suggestions for next year's entry.

Drawings 10, 11, and 12.

Bam! Corkscrew. It's one of the teaser drawings on the cover of the book, so I had a teensy bit of help. I just couldn't figure out how the arms attach to the body.

Aaaaand then there's the fire escape. In the first 11 pages of Google Images, there is not one fire pole and now that I really think of it I guess they are not at all the same thing. But for whatever reason - maybe the intensity of my *awesome* corkscrew - my heart began to palpitate as I thought of drawing dozens and dozens of stairs against a charming building covered in hundreds and hundreds of bricks and I desperately latched onto the idea that a person could simply slide down a pole in a fire situation and that would be that.

Moving on...
Question A. What is a plankton?
Question B. How the hell do you draw luminescence?


Answer A. Guess.
Answer B. You don't. You draw superhero jazz around it and use editing software to apply a color to the whole page.


I could be wrong about this (if so, it has *nothing* to do with shoddy research and I curse Google Images for not being a reliable source!) but there seems to be a variety of plankton. So I chose a picture of one kind of close to mine. Ok, mine looks a little....um, like a sperm. But it's also more cuddly-looking. Like you wouldn't immediately shriek and pee yourself if you found one on your leg one day at the beach. I'm actually fairly certain that my luminescent, cuddly, superhero sperm-plankton is what Sugarhill Gang wrote Rapper's Delight about.

Drawing 9.

The string quartet really did me in. Even giving myself 24 hours to recuperate, I could only manage this:


You can't see them, but there are buttons on the top. And it opens for blanket storage. And the fabric is real velour. It's actually way nicer than this one:




633 drawings left.

Drawing 8.

Have I ever mentioned how awesome Google Images is? I'm finding that almost every time I go to look up "the real thing" to compare my drawings to, something wonderfully ridiculous greets me.


When I say ridiculous, I mean no disrespect to The Soldier String Quartet. After all, this photo was taken in 1989, and I feel confident in saying that we all regret something about 1989. I was only eight so I don't really remember regretting anything, but I'm sure it's there. Probably my thick, blunt-cut bangs.

I could only manage to do the one drawing for this post because it's rather involved and, as I've mentioned, people - with their annoyingly detail-heavy faces and impossible proportions - are not my thing.


A normal string quartet is a cello, a viola, and two violins. BORING! I celebrate the lost art of the hand harp.

Drawings 4,5,6, and 7.

Bear with me, I had a very productive drawing day. Not necessarily successful, but certainly productive.

Ok, this was *kind of* successful, in a sort of surrealist way. Do I get credit for pulling out an antiquated style (thanks, grandma's estate sale!)? We have a chair similar to this one at our letter desk:



The skunk. Skunks are not attractive creatures, except for their cute button noses. Which is ironic.




You'll very soon see that if my illustrative skills have a downfall, it is the human form. Van Gogh's ear is just a teaser. It may also prove that my concept of lighting is slightly awry.



Just photoshop my drawing in and VOILA! Not really. But I did guess the correct ear. Although apparently Van Gogh did not chop off his own ear - the deed was done by a frenemy during a fencing match.

And now, just because it's creepy and true, here's a picture of a human ear scientists grew on the back of a naked mouse.




I actually consider this last one to be such a success that it's doesn't need an explanatory photo. You know how you always want what you can't have? That's how sandwiches are to pregnant people who tend towards paranoia.