Stippling Strike

As some of you may know I just finished a two-part tunnel project in studio that required me to 1) build a tunnel model (8" x 8" x 20") out of cardboard with a designed pathway through it and 2) display the tunnel in plan view, section view, and six transverse section-elevations on two 24" x 36" pieces of white matboard using only india ink and stippling to show depth and texture. The good news is there IS a light at the end of the tunnel! I have emerged, though with a slightly lower IQ after hours of cutting cardboard and dotting. I think my eyes are still adjusting, my wrist and fingertips are recovering--slowly, and I know what day it is! I am on strike from all stippling, or resemblance to stippling, including dotting my "i's" and "j's", until further notice!

Though these last few days were pretty intense, one of my fellow classmates found the comedy in the experience and recorded it on the whiteboard in our studio. It made me laugh; I thought I would share. (p.s.--the numbers listed are actually pretty close to what we really did!)

October nurtures the inner child

I love autumn. I love the colors: the crimson leaves of dogwood and red maples starting to turn, the clear blue of October sky, the gold of hay bales and ripening fields. I love the smells: cinnamon, cloves, ginger, apple cider, caramel. It smells like home, it smells like comfort and warmth. I love the feel: the crispness in the air and the excuse it gives me to pull out a jacket for the first time and wear fun striped argyle socks, the drier air is wonderful for evening walks under a harvest moon. I love the sounds: the crunching of leaves, the wind rustling through the trees, the soft rainstorms. I love the foods of the season: pumpkin anything! (pumpkin soup, roasted pumpkin seeds, pumpkin pie, pumpkin bread, pumpkin butter), apple anything! (apple crisp, applesauce, apple pie, apple juice, or a crisp Jonagold apple), soup and cornbread, sweet potatoes, acorn squash.

I love autumn for its invitation for young and old to play. Not only do you get the sight and sound of colorful, rustling leaves, but you can make piles and jump in them! Not only do you enjoy the scenes of harvest time, but you can use those hay bales to stuff old clothes into a scarecrow! Not only do you see the rich orange of pumpkins, but you can have your very own, dig out the insides, and carve faces of your own creation! It is a time for bonfires and ghost stories, for hay rides, and carnivals, for apple bobbing, and trick-o-treating. The air is full of spices; goblins and ghouls, witches and wizards are prowling. It is a time of magical whimsy and color and mystery. Autumn is a time to be young again to relish in all the bounty of life; the final hoorah before a winter sleep.