Knitting Dragonflies

Watching the Preakness and sketching a bit. Inspired by the moving horses. Interesting Horse related facts: In the state of Arizona, it is illegal for cowboys to walk through a hotel lobby wearing their spurs Horses younger than 4 years can concentrate for a maximum of 10-15 minutes A horse typically sleeps two and half to three hours a day A zedonk is the offspring of a zebra and a donkey Horses generally dislike the smell of pigs I’m planning on getting back to my knitting soon! Seriously!! LOL

A quick sketch of an Amaryllis that I have. I love these flowers, they give us a bit of color when the days are cold and grey. I did a fast sketch with some Crayola paint brush pens , which I bought on an impulse, thinking they would be good to pack and take (and the price was right). With basic primary colors they are fun, but don’t blend well. I used a standard office black marker to add some details, and then regular Crayola crayons to add depth to my colors. It was a fun project to play around with. Compact, cheap and fun. Find the child inside of you again.

A quick sketch of a tree in my backyard, now minus its leaves. Done with a office supply felt tip marker, a fairly fat one. And finally some fibery progress…. After dithering about after every two rows, I decided to forge ahead on my Iced Sweater from Knitty made with Colinette Point Five. Due to the flash, the colors look pinker than the actual yarn. This is a top down sweater pattern, and after sweating the gauge for a bit. I’ve decided to consider it as a suggestion as to how much “off” I’m going to be, and try to compensate from there. I have no idea if I’ll have enough yarn to complete the sweater. I have 10 skeins of 50 m each = 500 meters or 546 yds. of Cardinal, (it is fairly bulky, I’m not sure if it is considered super bulky). The recommended needle size on the label is 17 and I’m using a 10 to get close to the gauge needed. This resulted in most of my problems, the knit is turning out to be thick and rather stiff. But I’ve decided to think of it as a warm sweater/coat...

In an effort to loosen up my paintings and brush strokes I became interested in the ancient Sumi-e Japanese (I have also seen it called Chinese) painting. Sumi_e roughly translates as ink painting It is an art form that strives to distill the essence of an object or scene in the fewest possible strokes. A few carefully placed broad strokes that fade off abruptly, a few thin lines and a dot, and a bird is clearly called into being on the paper. Sumi-e is sometimes confused with calligraphy, because the tools used are the same. Calligraphy is the graceful, artistic representation of written characters, using ink and brush, while sumi-e is painting a scene or object. In the West, sumi-e is often called Chinese Brush Painting , although it has been a major art form in Japan and Korea as well. To paint with ink requires the use of the Four Treasures . This refers to the must-haves of sumi-e: an ink stone , an ink stick , a brush , and the appropriate kind of paper . The ink stone is a...