Memorial Day is over..., Whale Skull, Yo!Detta

Well, Memorial Day is over for another year....

"It’s Memorial Day in America
Everybody’s on the road
Let’s remember our fallen heroes
Y’all be sure and drive slow."

~James McMurtry

We got home from visiting my in-laws around 12:30 p.m. We had had a good time. Brian & his dad watched the Indianapolis 500 (the cars go so fast now that the race was only 2 hours long - used to be five hours long. Thank goodness they go so fast now!).

Whale Skull sketch

His mom read the paper & I drew a whale's skull from a photograph Brian took in the Outer Banks last year.

Then his mom and I started drinking White Russians. They were very good. I drank more than she did, but it was ok cuz I was the guest -

in my in-laws' home -

it WAS OK!
I PROMISE you it was...

(cuz we took the ingredients - hurhurhur).

Back to the drawing board, fer real, literally:
I had taken my light table*, but had forgotten the cord for it, so had to sketch freehand; but then I remembered WINDOWS and SUNLIGHT - and put the photo and paper against the window to trace it.

It's all good.

Last night I painted the skull - and it turned out ok.

Georgia O'Keefe has nothing to fear from ME! But it was amazingly fun to paint this skull - the contrast between shaping with the pale gray and the black of shadows was (insert hyperbole here - I've done run out, what with "fun" and "amazingly").
I really need to do something about the lighting and the conditions under which I paint:

1. The light is over my left shoulder and is yellowish in tone. Plus, it's just a lamp. Watercolorists are supposed to be looking INTO the light because of the glare off the water. And Natural Light is much better for painting.
   

   

   Completed Whale Skull

   Oh well...
2. Moggie insists on being on my lap while I paint. I could kick her off, but she'd just come back. It's ok once she's settled, but it's really hard to paint when she's moving around. Plus she tries to drink my water - both from the drinking water glass and from the paint water. Grrrrr!
3. I have a perfect room upstairs that could be converted into a studio. Ha! Right now I'm just too lazy. One of these days I'll have the gumption....
   The truth is - it all works just fine for me right now. Hey! It's not like I'm painting masterpieces! I'm just a student!

So that was Memorial Day for us: A good breakfast at a diner (I had a Belgian waffle with strawberries, blueberries, banananas and whipped cream; Brian had biscuits & sausage gravy [not as good as that further south - no heat to it at all, at all]; the in-laws had eggs benedict]), a drive home (listening to Blue Collar Radio - I got Button #6 fixed), and painting a Whale Skull with a Moggie on my lap.

It was a fine Memorial Day.

And I'm lucky - I don't have a specific person to remember on Memorial Day - all my soldiers and sailors have come home in one piece.

"...Let’s remember our fallen heroes
Y’all be sure and drive slow."

~~~

Yo!Detta! - I admit to having been a little worried about leaving Yodetta alone overnight with only Moggie as company, but she did fine...

 ...they both did fine.

When I opened the back door, Yodie** came popping out of Binky's Window - the one in the living room with the blind up 6" so he could bask in the sun and see what was happening on the street.

She's totally taking over where Binky left off.
It's ok.

Today, I take her to the veterinarian for her Well Kitten Check-up. I'm sure she has worms - not the good kind, either.

I just hope the rest of us don't have worms as well, after this...

I just like earthworms.

Intestinal parasites are NOT COOL.

Mary Jo

* I'm not crazy about sketching, but love to paint, so bought a light table and trace my drawings (ha! and you thought my sketching abilities were that good!).
**Her name seems to be settling down to YodieOdieOdie.