New Art -> New Tools

 I collect hobbies. It's both bad and good, but I can't help it. My good friend, Liz, owns a ceramics teaching studio in Moab. Seeing her with her passion has me curious as to what it's all about. A local ceramics studio in Topeka, The Mud Room, has classes so I signed up. The first time they offered them I had time conflicts with the six classes, but this recent offering was perfect. Mostly hand building: pinch pot, coil and slab. 

I found out I really LOVE it. Making all kinds of things. Now I have a pen holder for the two fountain pens I keep loaded on any given day, and another holder for pencil and ball point pen, all at my little desk off of the kitchen. Then a tilted slab that holds my planner, and a couple small spice bowls, and on and on.

If I kept all the work in their studio I wouldn't NEED to buy tools. However, I WANT to do some hand building at home. The studio is about 15 miles in to town and has certain hours of operation. If I could do it at home, too, I could set my own time and have better control over the drying process. 

I'm in.

YouTube Bingeing

 Until now I have successfully avoided binge watching any particular YouTube content provider. But then I found Matt's Off Road Recovery. I have tasted the sweet nectar of 4x4 off roading in Colorado many moons ago and I liked it. However, I didn't like risking our family vehicle just for fun, so I stopped. I've been interested in the use of line and pulleys to gain mechanical advantage to move heavy objects. I love watching mechanics build vehicles to meet specific performance objectives. I love wilderness scenery and appreciate good cinematography and videos of real people in real off road work. Thus I hit pay dirt when I found this YouTube family. 

Matt's heavy wrecker is a work of practical art and I love watching it do its' thing. Their home base is southwest Utah, high desert country. However, they will just about drive anywhere in the western US to retrieve stuck or broken vehicles. He claims this is the worlds largest off road wrecker and that now job is impossible. Maybe hubris but I haven't found him wrong yet.

I snapped a picture from the TV to work from. This wrecker never stands still for long. I also departed from my ink-only approach and did some light pencil layout to be a little less wonky. Then on with permanent markers and watercolor pencil/waterbrush. 

Old Soldier

Just had my regular eye checkup. While waiting in the exam chair, waiting for the doctor and for the eye drops to do their magic, I noticed this plain-Jane instrument to the side. It won't be required for my visit but it piques my interest. Doc is a very thorough doctor who keeps up to date on the medicinal art and equipment used in the care of the eyes. He keeps updating his equipment and it's not rare to see a new piece show up between visits. This simple black instrument looks to have quite a few years on it. The style of the knobs, the color and aesthetic, etc.  So, this old soldier must do something better than it's newer counterparts.

So I ask, and, sure enough, this old soldier does a better job measuring the curvature of the anterior surface of the cornea. It's a manual keratometer. He feels it does this job better than the newer automatic versions. 

I can't help but see this as a metaphor that growing old may show some out-of-date visual style, yet when it comes down to function, we may still be superior in some ways.

Coffee Shop Time

 A friend and I took a lunch break at a local coffee shop. We talk a lot and sketch some. This time I HAD to get some sketching done. The year is wrapping up and I didn't realize until now that I haven't sketched in December. Oops. I like the sound of having a sketch-every-day goal (as Koosje Koene suggests), it doesn't work for me. However, a month is WAY to long of a lapse.

So, we sit down. What to sketch? It's not exciting but I liked this potato chip bag. I love the yellow/red color choice. I also had a new pen to try out. In a recent post by Vicky Williamson I noticed she used a short fat fountain pen. I left a message to find out what it was and she told me a Majohn Little Fat Man with fude nib. I suffer from a common ailment of art supply envy. I HAD to have one, so I got online and bought one. Just got it. Had to use it. This is the first sketch with it. It won't be my favorite but does have a fun factor when using it.

Outdated (Continued)

 These have been around the house a few months waiting for me to sketch them before I threw them away. As software and technology marches on, in it's wake are many devices destined for the landfill. 

This radio console was part of our PC home network and I could stream Internet radio stations. Pretty cool for ten years. Then they stopped updating the software . . . death. 

These two trail cameras were used by the Kansas Trail Council and our Kanza Rail Trails Conservancy for trail user counting. When the cell towers switched from G3 to G5, these stopped working . . . death.

In their day these were gee-wiz technology. Now they are has bens with absolutely no salvage value. Once I post this, they will be in the trash can for Monday's trash service. 

Becoming Outdated

 Since family camping trips when I was a child I remember Dad firing up the Coleman 2-burner white gas stove and Mom, then, cooking up breakfast. The hissing, the fire, the smell. So when Wilma and I married, on our gift list was a stove for us. That one lasted 45 years and time to retire it. I've overhauled it but it's still getting temperamental. My quest begins to replace it, in kind. 

However, white gas is getting harder to find. Retail stores are phasing out these stoves, too, for the convenient green bottle stoves, which cost about a third as much. Finally was able to order one online for around $200. I tried to light it and it created a huge fireball. Got so hot that the paint on the stove caught fire. Enough pooled up gas to burn for a few minutes. 

Exchanged it for another and had the same result, which I sketched here. Raw gas spewed into the bottom of the stove. HUGE fireball 6' high. I've lit these for 55 years and know how to do it. The feed tube and shut-off valve do their job, so it's the manifold. Design or construction problem I don't know. Coleman is producing TRASH! I just created two crispy critters. 

I'll start looking on eBay for a used older one. White gas, Coleman 2-burner stoves and I are all becoming outdated.

A Higher Calling

 I was in Ottawa the other day looking at bicycles at Ottawa Bike & Trail. This little town is at the junction of the Flint Hills Trail and the Prairie Spirit Trail, both rail-to-trails in the care of Kansas Dept.of Wildlife and Parks. This store is fueling a nice movement to trail riding, specializing in gravel bikes. Seems like a more nimble bike is in order for me as compared to my Surly Long Haul Trucker, which is designed as a beast of burden for loaded touring. Time for lunch. Next to the restaurant a local church is having some refurbishing done to a steeple. They are using a telescoping manlift to access it. Striking color and I love big equipment. So I had to set up my little chair and sketch a while. 

Out With The Old

 I've probably had my smart phone for about 10 years. It's rough around the edges, the charge doesn't last as long and I'm running out of storage. AT&T has been sending me reminders that I qualify for an upgrade. So I finally succumb and replace it! I don't need a bigger screen so I opt to replace it with a similar phone. 

The monthly rate only goes up a few buck and I get more storage. The upgrade process only took about an hour yet I pushed it off for months. I donate my old phones to the Topeka YWCA for their women's shelter. I can feel good about that. I'm not real keen, though, on how our daily lives hinge on the availability of cell phone coverage and having this little computer with us at all times, and the need to replace it every few years.

And A Seat Belt, Too!

We live just outside of town. A quarter-section parceled out like a mini-suburbia of five homes within a pasture section. The lots are bigger than suburbia, though. We (more precisely I) mow three acres. I like mowing but don't like the lost time that I could be doing fun things like sketching. My latest mower (zero turn, or ZTR) is in its sixteenth year and  burning oil for the last three years and an idler pulley just worked itself loose. The last time I mowed, I popped the belt about ten times. Frustrating. I've not putting any more money in repairs.

I've been looking at mowers in recent years to determine what my next mower will be, so after popping the belt so many times, I spent a couple lunch-hours talking to a local retailer and pulled the trigger. I still get sticker shock but I'll use it for many years. I chose one a little wider and faster than my current one. The three and a half hours needed to mow the yard is just too painfully long. We need to speed it up.

I've just mowed once, and it's taking some time to get the feel of it. It's a ZTR, too, but from a different manufacturer so it's different. It's going to work out nicely. It will be faster. This thing is so fast that it comes with a seat belt. It's raining right now or I'd be mowing now!

Quality Not

They just don't make things like they used to! In the last two months we aged out our coffee maker and toaster. I still try to support local stores, so we went to Walmart to replace the coffee maker. Mr. Coffee has been at it a lot of years so I purchase a standard 12-cup version. It brewed fine, but the built-in clock ran three times faster than normal. The 2-hour hotplate shut-off in under one hour. That also meant the timer start fails. Many tries - many fails. I then did a Google search and found that this brand has had this problem for the last 1.5 years. But they have great customer service. A quick message chat on their Facebook page and they sent a replacement. The replacement works great. It just seems like a good quality assurance program would have caught this and saved everyone a headache. I also had to throw away the new-but-defective brewer. That's a lot of landfill!

Then the toaster gave up the ghost. Both of these had over 10 years of service so I don't fault them. The new toaster from Target wasn't the entry level so I expected it to work. However, the lever to load the bread failed to stay down after a couple days use. I had to hold it down manually to complete the toast cycle. It's junk, too! And yet such a pretty thing. The Oster company isn't as helpful. I need to deliver it to the local authorized service center, which is 60 miles away and requires proof of purchase. Who keeps receipts these days? Things should work! The credit card printout for the month lists it, though. Tomorrow we're going to KC for some shopping. The service center said they will determine if they can fix it or have Oster send me a replacement. I suspect it will end up OK, but what ever happened to quality construction!?

This is my first home sketch of the year. It feels great! I don't like being away from sketching for as long as I have, but that's life. The font I used on the title and the appliance descriptions came from a fountain pen Facebook group posting. I thought it was a beautiful font, so I'm trying it out.

Ditch Burning Time

It's Springtime! We like to burn the tall dead grass in our steep ditch to clean it up and prepare it for new growth. This always is a spontaneous decision. We need a time when we have the time, and the wind is low, and the grass hasn't grown much yet, and it's not too dry and not too wet. It's like an ah-ha moment and we scramble to get it done.

In Shawnee County we are required to have a Burn Permit and we need to "call in" the burn before we start it. This year the Fire Station was empty (out on a call) when I went there, and the "ah ha" moment was upon us. The conditions were perfect so we went ahead and did the burn. No close calls.

There is just something about burning grasses. The smoke, the flame, the sounds, the physical activity needed to follow it with tools and water to keep it tamed. I've always liked it, even though at times the outcome isn't good. I HATE talking to firemen as they put out our uncontrolled fire. Not an issue this year.

With this post I also celebrate 10 YEARS OF BLOGGING HERE! Can't believe it. Maybe I haven't been consistent but I've posted each of those years. The climate has changed in the blogging world. Few if any visitors. Few if any comments. The social media options for keeping a web presence has eclipsed this old style blog, but I still prefer this format. I miss the old days when I had back-and-forth dialog with viewers. I may decide to pull the plug at some time on this blog but, for now, I'll still post. It's a process that feeds a need.

Another bookbinding class

I love bookbinding! I'm in the learning process, and every class I take has something to be learned. No two teachers do things the same way, and they each have their own take on the subject. So, when I recently found out Kansas City was holding a two-session weekend class, I signed up in a hurry. It was this weekend and well worth it!

The host organization is the Print League of KC, which is a recently-born community printing organization.They recently got their start with the help of crowd funding and have a nice facility with a few presses (don't ask me what, because I haven't learned printing yet).  They also offer classes to pass along the skills. The instructor for this class was Thayer Bray, a local artist who is an accomplished book binder.

We learned three book structures over the course of two 3-hour sessions. There's just something soothing about working with your hands and a few tools and some paper. We learned how to use a vintage paper cutting machine. Cuts such a clean edge. Intimidating, but once you understand how it works, it's an enjoyable tool to use. I love the atmosphere in their shop, too. Creative energy everywhere, and the aroma of printing ink and machines. Industrial meets art. Today we had a snowstorm hit while we were in class. Nice to watch, slick to drive in.



Here's a picture of the class projects, being inspected by our household's local feline, Cosmo.

Too Good To Be True

Cleaning the shower has proven to be the toughest task. It takes strong chemicals to get it partially clean. That's been my approach for years. I have heard of the white vinegar/Dawn blend for the do-it-yourself approach. It sounds too simple. It can't work well. I kept up with the harsh chemicals until one day when we ran out. Then I remembered the white vinegar/Dawn. A quick Google search yielded a recipe. I mixed some up last weekend and tried it.

The smell is a bit weird. Not harsh like chemical but not like perfume. It squirts out thick and it takes some work. I left it for 30 minutes. Then, with a little elbow grease, the softened scum cleans right off! I wouldn't have believed it. The glass doors clean up great, and a water-resistant residue is left behind to keep it clean longer. Note: I had to touch it up with a Windex-type cleaner to clean a little soap residue off.

I read about heating the vinegar after I used the first batch. Maybe the second batch I'll try it. The two ingredients seem to react and pressurize the squirt bottle. It leaks out some. Maybe this stuff is best mixed as you need it and not kept around. I'll know in time. This stuff will be my go-to for the tough scum.

Electrical Work

I don't like ALL handy-work but I do like electrical work. I like the tools, and the process, and the finished result. Part of the appeal is that it makes me more that a typical office worker. More than a pencil pusher. I can actually DO something useful. Over the years the list of electrical projects has grown and with each one I learn a little more. If speed was needed we should just hire an electrician but if time is available I'll take them on.

In Wilma's sewing room she needed another outlet and to have a cable TV outlet extended. I thought about how to do it for a while. For way too long. The TV cable was easy, but the 115V outlet took some time to figure out. I thought I could install one in the middle of an existing run but it proved impractical. Then I noticed an outlet close that I could tap into. Once I had a plan, it went fine. The back of the wall is open studs so I didn't have to fish it in. I HATE to fish in through studs. With that in mind, I guess I should say that I like electrical projects as long as they aren't too difficult.

So, this project is done. When I saw the tools all laying around, I knew I had to sketch them. It's late at night now, and I was sketching. When Wilma figured what I was losing sleep to do, she gave me 'that look'. That's OK.  I got the itch . . . I need to scratch it!

Holidays 2017

I've had a quiet spell as far as sketching goes. I finally took the time to sketch a black walnut shell that I've been keeping since Thanksgiving. This will represent the holidays for me. I was the favorite uncle for this holiday visit and took my great niece and nephew to the park a few times to play and walk around. We collected some black walnuts we found and I showed them how to take the husk off and break them open and pick out the nut meat. They had now idea you could eat something you found on the ground. We spend time coloring, too. We don't get to see them more that once a year, so at their young age every meeting is a big new experience. That broken nut shell represents a lot of family time.

This sketch also represents the holiday because of our families traditions of having walnuts around with the nut cracker and picks. Wilma and I both had this in our youth and still have it around in our home during the Winter. I was raised with home-grown black walnuts that mom and dad would spend HOURS processing so that mom could add them to banana bread, cookies and cakes.

From an artistic standpoint that nut shell jumped out at me. There isn't one straight line in the whole structure. The shading expands quite a range of values and textures. It just had to be sketched. I've been keeping it around and finally took some time on New Year's Day to finally memorialize it. This was my first sketch with the upgraded fine nib in my Lamy Joy. Much better feel!

Boots, Blades & Bobcat

It's Springtime! Things are coming alive and I can get outdoors more. Recent rains have set consecutive days of rain records. I need to hike in a local wetland and finally have an excuse to buy these waterproof boots. The wetlands are REALLY wet and my Goretex-lined hiking boots just aren't up for walking through standing water for a few hours. These boots do the trick.

Then it's time to mow. After changing the oil, the oil filter and air filters and lubed the Zerc fittings, I started the beast. My little zero-turn is 12 years old now, and I had plenty of oil-burning smoke until it heated up some. That will take some work, but not today. These are the old blades that I'll take in to be sharpened. With two sets of blades, there is no hurry for these do be sharpened, which helps the shop in their busy season. I mowed the first cut. The war has begun.

It's time to plant a few geocaches in the Topeka area. My next one will be on Burnett's Mound, which is in Skyline Park in the city boundary. Recent rains have made the hiking trail very muddy. Luckily an old road is fine and I can hike to the top, but I study the hiking trail for tracks. BINGO! Tracks of a young bobcat are plain as day for about 20 yards. I've only seen one of these little cats in my life but I've seen the tracks much more often. They are evasive but living with us.

PS  I heard my first Northern Mockingbird this past weekend. I've seen a Killdeer in Topeka but not here on our land. They've nested here the past four years and we're looking forward to their migration return.

Beats a Chainsaw

The rancher across the road from us is doing some fence maintenance. He's taking over the operation of his parent's cattle ranch and the fences haven't been maintained properly for several years. One particular stretch, probably a half mile, is overgrown with hedge trees (osage orange) to the point where you can't even get to the fence posts sufficiently to fix the barbed wire. In my younger days this would just mean breaking out the chainsaw and most of the family members and clearing out trees, one at a time. It takes weeks. Not today (if you have the money).

One day a bulldozer and an excavator show up. In the course of about three days the half mile of osage orange trees has been taken out and stacked for burn. They haven't rebuilt the fence row yet, but the worst is over, and it looks sharp. They've already reworked the fence along the road with nice 5-strand tight barbed wire. He knows how to do it right.

When the tree-clearing was finished the dozer was taken to its next job, but the excavator is still there. Last night was a warm night (for March) and I had some time after supper to walk over and sketch this beast.

March Sketch Crawl

Today was sketch crawl time for Lawrence Urban Sketcher. We visited the KU Spencer Museum of Art. My first visit. We had a good showing of sketchers and met in the Student Union for a little food and talk afterwards.

This sketch doesn't really exemplify a typical art exhibit. I was drawn to this exhibit, though. The heart wants what the heart wants. The artist made up a story about an escaped (stolen) lab animal from KU. He had the office desk of the lab researcher, letters explaining the escape, lab tools everywhere, and then you notice an incubator with a weird looking animal in a glass globe. Then you notice the lungs expand as it breaths! And it's all made up. I walked around to all the other arts exhibits but came back here to sketch. Due to typical art museum paranoia we were told to use pencils only. I used my fountain pen. I sure love my flex nib.

The Urban Sketcher scene around here is very active and in a state of flux. The longest-running group in the area is organized by Kate Johnson of Excelsior Springs (Kansas City). As that group is fading away, another unofficial group started in Lawrence, headed by Gail, which I've been attending. Then an official Lawrence Urban Sketcher groups started in Lawrence last year. Our two groups have been meeting together lately. Then last week was the kickoff sketch crawl for the newly-created Kansas City Urban Sketchers group.  It's a busy time for urban sketchers! I think they're onto something.

Out With The Old

I was driving near downtown Topeka this week and noticed an old building being demolished. Not just any building. It was the Morrell Meat Packing Plant. My dad worked here right out of high school. This was the second largest employer in Topeka, with over 1200 employees. Then the flood of 1951! This was a big event in our local history. This building is virtually on the banks of the Kansas River and was flooded out. After the flood waters receeded, the building was declared unfit for production of food products, or at least it would not be cost effective to rebuild the building to where it could be used again my Morrell. So it has stood empty since then. That's 75 years. Not that people haven't tried to refurbish the building for other uses. However, no pipe dreams came to fruition. This building was erected in 1940, so it only saw 11 years of service.

Recent work to rehabilitate the levees and flood walls along the Kansas River have created the idea to just tear it down. A second Morrell building has already been removed.

Flooding of the Kansas River has happened a few times in Topeka history. It's part of who we are. The '51 flood caused many changes in the area, and in Kansas. It was the pivotal event that spawned the creation of several US Corps of Engineers flood control projects (lakes) in eastern Kansas. It also changed my history. If it weren't for the '51 flood, I would be the son of a butcher. Dad really liked the vocation of meat butcher. Not so much the big slaughterhouse experience, but after you pay your dues, you can hire into a grocery store as the house butcher, which he said would be great. Good skills, good food, good pay. He was set. The flood put him out of work, and after service in the Army he became a printing pressman. He loved that job, too. But I always remembered Dad when I saw the Morrell building. Now one more thing is gone to remind me of him. Now I have this sketch, though.

I decided to spend Saturday morning sketching the demolition work while there was enough structure to see what is used to be. While sketching, I had to good fortune to meet Danny and his grandson. They parked near us and had also come down to watch the action. The grandson just walked up and asked what I was doing. Nice kid. Then, after his curiosity was satisfied, he played with some toy cars he brought. Danny worked just across the street from my Dad and we're both grandpas raised in the area, we chatted a while. Danny and I chatted as they started to use the wrecking ball. We had a front row seat, right behind their fencing. Once in a while the vibrations would come through the ground. Impressive. So, it was a nice outing all the way around.

Tactical

I've got a thing for flashlights. Always have. Always will. And it seems that it's not unusual for guys. The recent craze for tactical equipment is just another verse to the old song. I've resisted buying one because they're just too pricey. These are LED torches with rechargeable lithium ion batteries. They brag about their lumens. My brother and brother-in-law have them and paid dearly for them, and they punch out into the night real well. Very impressive.

Then I had a thought. Maybe if I bought the smallest one it would be affordable. Well, I found that an AAA-size flashlight is the least expensive, as I thought. I'd have the neat power and features without the high cost of the full size flashlights. However, they are still expensive. I've resisted for a long time, but finally succumbed recently. This little rascal is great! With the rechargeable high-output batteries it puts out more light than any traditional flashlights we have around here. I'd do it again.