2004-02-10 � Dogged

Rolling with It


O, look! It's Finny the Snoot...captured in a pose I've been after forever! At some point during our afternoon, Finn and I enjoy a good wiggle and roll atop my freshly made bed, one that ensures the bed never looks to primly kept or inhospitable. She rolls on her back and bats at my face and arms with her paws, chews my sleeves, raises and lowers her ball in and out of her mouth with a kinda creepy finesse, looking decidely wild eyed and manic with joy all the while. I've tried unsuccessfully to capture the look, several times. but it ain't easy!

Almost invariably, she moves just as I have her lined up in the lens, or bats my hand so the camera jiggles, or the light is too dim or my thumb is in the way or something so all I capture is a black Finn shaped blob or blur of tongue and snoot. This is the best one so far, but I will persist in my pursuit of the perfect bed roll portrait.

O man. Crunching through the deep snow these days is really working my glutes, let me tell you. My bum just aches and throbs. Actually, a whole lot of me is aching and throbbing today. Woke up in the middle of the night with my brain attempting to e-sss-splode through my ears and nostrils. Copious amounts of asprin have since dimmed the headache, but it's still pulsing underneath. I think it must be the low pressure system hovering over the lakeshore. Ow. Okay, enough of that. The only thing more excruciating than a headache is listening to someone moan on and on about one.

I've been bustling about trying to be all creative and stuff since I updated last. Friday afternoon, I picked up the February/March issue of Mary Englebreit's Home Companion. Normally, it's a little too country frou-frou for my tastes, but this issue has a feature on artist's studios, including Hilary Knight, illustrious illustrator of Eloise and the Arts and Crafts inspired home of Chris Van Allsburg, illustrator and author of the Caledecott winning Polar Express, Jumanji, and one of my all time favourites, an alphabet book rendered all in graphite The Z Was Zapped. Nothng quite thrills me, or fuels my material longings and desire to be unquestionably wealthy, as much as a peek into an artist's work space. Years ago, I saw a feature on Jamie Wyeth's lighthouse studio in some home decor magazine and it still inhabits my dreams . I can't even begin to express how much i coveted, still covet, that space.

This led to a sudden desire to revamp my own work space, which is about the size of your average bathroom drawer. Friday night found me scrambling about madly, rearranging and stuffing stuff here there and everywhere. It is somewhat more orderly than before, I guess, but now I can't find anything. The sketchbook and biography of Jim Henson that I had no trouble locating when buried amongst the coffee cups, reams of paper, pens and various computer cords on Thursday, took me an hour to locate on Friday. Oy vey. But someday soon, i'll post photos of my workspace. Nothing would thrill me more than if you posted a photo of yours. Okay, not entirely true. There are any number of things that would thrill me more... a million dollars or two, the aforementioned lighthouse studio of my dreams, being able to recall the title or author of this book I had when I was a kid about a squat little witch who baked a towering, tottering, multi-layered cake for the country fair and attempted to win by gleefully sabotaging all the other entries...I think about this book constantly, but have no hope of finding it until i can remember something more specific about it... am considering hypnosis to solve this mystery.... all that would probably thrill me more. But still... show me yer snaps. I'll be most appreciative and effusive in my enthusiasm.

Continuing with the creative theme, I spent Saturday afternoon painting my version of a Group of Seven painting. I slaved over the thing, but abandoned it Sunday when i realized I hated it with a purple passion. Oh well. Then I tried to do a small, monochromatic painting, an ode to romantic love. But it ended up looking rather disturbing, Distressing really, like the swooning couple where actually freshly unearthed corpses, grieving deeply. Not at all the mood I was after. sigh.But at least I got out my paints again, right? It's a start. I also filled five pages on my new sketchbook, producing two quite lovely figure drawings, and three unfortunate ones. Again, it's a start, right?

That's pretty much all the excitement for now. I must go suck down more asprin and get back to the dinosaurs. Ciao, baby!

O, if you're looking for the list of favourite enteries, it's in the column to the right there, under "The Essential Wee".

On My Playlist: "Mrs.Potter" by Counting Crows

Munching On: Danone Orange Cream "la Creme" Yogurt Mousse... ooo, swoon on a spoon.

Currently Reading: "The Little Friend" by Donna Tartt


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