it’s friday. a 48 hour furlough from the kinder nest.
we sing the hokey pokey every day at 2:05.
in a circle.
and dance.
i’m going to try not to sing little bunny foo foo or the scissor song until monday.
see the 2 lines in the sketch above that descend into his shirt? that’s the red string of the jade necklace he wears around his neck everyday.
before i added color in photoshop with the paint bucket…
quick studies from photos i took for the bulletin board.
more sketchbookery from the week.
reading, writing, sketching are my tonics.
also sinking into the softness of the bed and watching the curtain billow over me. an old embroidered linen something-or-other i brought home in my suitcase from a paris flea market once upon a time.
the air is turning cooler at night.
i wish i could push a button at night and my roof would slide open. i want to sleep under a ceiling of stars. not the stick-on kind.
when it gets cold i’ll pile on the soft quilts & cats.
this bloomed while i was at school.
probably while i was singing a backpack song.
that i made up.
at sundown i watched a big flock of 30 or so parrots flying formations in the sky outside the windows of moss cottage. they are louder than you can imagine and like to chatter and call to each other while they fly. very social birds. looking for a nice big tree to settle down for the night.
it’s friday as i’ve said, and i can barely glue 2 thoughts together to form cohesive sentences.
just wanted to send out a little smoke signal. say hi.
it’s dark now.
i hope you can see it drifting towards you.
Look how your sketching looks so real! Love your self-portraits!
Happy Weekend from Sheila in Denver!
Your words and sentences are as beautiful a gift as your painting. Thank you!
Hi Mary Ann,
I really like your blog—your writing is soothing and makes me feel happy to be among a kindred spirit making (and doing) creative things in the world. I love your Oh My Gouache class and I spent a blissful morning preparing my Gouache Palette and color card. I really look forward to doing more of the exercises. Last week I made an artichoke. I like painting artichokes way better than I like eating them, or growing them for that matter. I am an ornamental gardener. Maybe I’ll grow artichokes just to wait them. Thanks for doing your blog and classes. They’re fun!
WHAT HAVE YOU DONE???? I didn’t know what little bunny froo froo was, so youtubed it. Made me laugh and laugh and laugh and now I am tidying up the house with the tune in my head!!!!!!! Making the bed, la la la la la laaaaah, picking up the washing, la la la la la laaaaaah, unloading the dishwasher, la la la la la laaaaaah – it’s AWFUL. It’s usually christmas carols at inappropriate times in the year that do that to me, but now it’s this little number in my ear going round and round and round. I think you need a health warning on your blog 🙂
I think you glued the thoughts together pretty well. Enough to share a lovely slice of your life in a delightful way.
HIBISCUS! That’s the flower I was trying to think of on your last post. It opened up beautifully! I love your wonderful portraits, and especially the one of your own little self. Nice job! For some reason I have the song “Starry Starry Night on my mind. Oh yeah…everyone is talking about stars. I love how you did Thomas’s (? Punctuation) hair. Black hair has bluish streaks, for sure.
Yesterday my brother and his wife and I went to the Seattle Art Museum (SAM) and after we looked at all of the beautiful art, we went into the gift shop where I found a little gift for you. Just a little token, but I think you will be amused. Before that though, Ann and I leaned in a little too close scrutinizing a painting on wood, and security came and sternly scolded us. Leave it to me! I didn’t touch anything, not even with my nose! Sheesh. We are so uncouth. We also went to The Crab Pot and had the feast of seafood where they just dump the whole thing on the table. Three kinds of crab, mussels, clams, sausage, shrimp, corn on the cob and red potatoes. And the BEST Bloody Mary ever! We ate til our eyes bugged out. I only tell you this because I rarely get out to do anything fun, so it was extra special. Also, they are from Montana where you can’t get fresh seafood, so they were quite impressed with the whole thing.
I hope you are getting into your school routine enough to relax, and then enough to do out of the box stuff, you creative creature, you. Thank you for the delightful post, per usual!
Excellent dispatch. I’ve been thinking about my friends going back to school. I remember Labor Day weekend (3 days! yipee!) being a lifesaver after running full tilt on the classroom treadmill for a couple of weeks. Enjoy yourself. Smoke signal received in Ixtlahuacan de los Membrillos. I can even smell it. Or wait. That might be the neighbors burning trash.
ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!!!!!
hey! how’m i supposed to visit you in lxtlahuacan DLM if there’s not blog link to follow?
Smoke signal sighted, called in and received.
This is such a beautifully descriptive post visually and verbally that I will read this many days to come, right now over and over.
Maybe you should go with that and go back to November 2007 and resurrect the Lemon Cream martini recipe this weekend. And then if you like I can teach you the “Monkey See, Monkey Do” song.
i’m circling back to that post out of curiosity….
lemon cream martini’s sound vaguely deliciously familiar!
“Not the stick on kind” !!!!!!!!
I know what kind you mean, the kind we saw at night on the Grand Tour of California. Those were THE most amazing stars ever.
Beautiful renderings, I especially love Thomas, and the thought of a little jade necklace. Your linen piece, turned curtain, looks magical.
Smoke signal received in Texas, where I do sleep under a ceiling of stars, alas, the stick on kind. It’s too humid here to open the roof. Seemed like such a silly idea years ago, but I’ve enjoyed my glowing stars. Some nights I fall asleep humming “deep in the Heart”.
lucky for me, your smoke signals drifted all the way to Michigan, so far!
You are so creative in your teaching strategies and just your life in general.
The photo of curtain made dream of seeing Paris one day, too.
You have amazing plants, that flower is gorgeous. And I had no idea that flocks of parrots even existed in California. How fun!
I always see your smoke signals, day and night.
Always a treat to open my email and find your dispatches. I am so taken with your portraits of the children and the self portrait. You capture the personalities without being fussy. I took a try at doing Eleanor Roosevelt in my OMG sketchbook, but she looks like a wonky stranger. I put her quote on the page anyway. I will keep trying. Thanks for the way you communicate, encourage and teach. Keep those smoke signals rising, I will be scanning the horizon!
Yes, Mary Ann, it is very exhausting working with little kids as much as you have been doing. Good thing you have your tonics!
Singing and dancing sound just right. Glorious joyful, and silly alternatives to letters and sounds that can’t yet be excavated out of natural language. Playing with language alongside of blocks and dough can lead them. Subversive silliness will save you and them.
That French curtain pic is a photo, I realized at last. The hem had me thinking it was another watercolor with extraordinary texture (did you add a filter to it? Wonderfully evocative)
Thanks for your smoke signals…I always look forward to your posts. I know that the way you find beauty in everything inspires your little ones as well as your lucky readers. Hope your weekend is restful and restorative.
What a great teacher you are! Being with the little ones can be such a joy, but definitely hard work when done right. Your hibiscus is so luscious, like a fancy party dress! Rest, relax, enjoy your weekend…soon enough the wheels on the bus will go ’round and ’round.
Hi MAM!
It is 3 a.m. as I write this. I tossed and turned and finally just sat up, grabbed my iPad and started reading. I’m having trouble turning off my noggin’ tonight so I figured if I was going to be using my brain, it might as well be for something fun like reading. I couldn’t help but relate to your comments about barely being able to string a sentence together. I have been retired for a while but I still remember the feeling of coming home and thinking to myself…I just want to sit here and go buzzzz! LOL
Enjoy your weekend and recharge your batteries. Monday will get here soon enough. Your little ones need you and after a break, you will be ready to inspire and guide them again. Keep those smoke signals coming. Some of can even detect them in the dark of night….
I can feel where you are, as I have been there and visit it again when I work too late at night, like now. Just sayin’.
I love your posts. And I got your smoke signal too.