adventures

of aplantfancier

Tag: drawing

  • year of the dog

    New year, new adventure.

    Google search of the day:

    “best toys for dog who loves to shred fabric???”

    Buckle up.

  • bark at the moon

    Back at work today on adventures #4, in which I cannot draw a dog. This of course is the whole point of the endeavor — to practice. To build a practice. Consistency, repetition, progress. Right?

    Man, it’s hard to stay positive on so little sleep.

    The puppy is near four months old. She’s been with me for just one week and I’m exhausted, I love her, I hope I’m doing it right. She’d never been on a leash and I don’t know why but I didn’t think it would be this hard. I leash trained a cat for goodness sake.

    ENTER

  • puppy101

    I’m working on layering some detail into the grass this morning, down in the furnace workshop. I’ve got towels going in the laundry room outside the saloon doors, and upstairs I hear the rattle of the puppy’s stuffed worm, a hand-me-down from the cat, and the telltale thump of a jump down from the bed, where she knows she is not allowed.

    I knew puppies were like babies, but like nothing can prepare you for the reality of a baby, human or otherwise.

    We’re on day 7, and I finally kind-of slept last night. It’s trash day, and I’ve already been out with her on the leash three times, watching the trucks, getting treats, bristling, getting treats, mostly not barking, getting treats. She’s beginning to deescalate.

    She’s fascinating. I’ve loved training the cat, and so even though the puppy is unfamiliar, in some ways she’s easier. Many of the same concepts apply. They’re both food motivated, but the puppy is biddable, the puppy wants to please me.

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  • ch ch ch ch changes

    Welcome. Been a minute since I was down in the furnace workshop. I mentioned that I queued the blog so that I could be present over the holidays, but I did not mention that I also queued the blog because three weeks ago, while I was having my coffee and watching the Today show and doing my morning check of the rescue where I got my lovely cat, there she was.

    A burly little golden floof with dark, soulful eyes and a graceful black snoot. My heart, I realized, was suddenly racing. Oh no, I thought. Now? This is happening right now?

    It was. Because I knew her when I saw her.

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  • WIP

    Hi, welcome! I have a confession to make. I’ve been meeting puppies. I’ve been reading dog books and stalking dog reddit and trying to get “AI” to tell me what kinds of dogs these rescue pups are. Trying to see the future. Medium, or big, or perhaps extremely big? Can I picture that? Will this dog be kind to my cat? Can I know that somehow?

    Meanwhile I’m plugging away at the little adventure comic and plugging away at the laundry, down in the basement, snow piling up outside and muting the light trickling in through the glass block windows.

    I’ll have to get up early and shovel before I go to work, but I can only be glad. I put 50 plants in the ground in the last weeks before the weather turned, a garden hail mary. The more snow the better. One year we got so much, even the gladiolas made it.

    I’ve got all the lamps on; the little 70s swivel neck I found in the basement of my apartment in Seattle near 15 years ago, the green glass bankers lamp on the bench, the silver clamp lights I paint under.

    I swept and vacuumed the floors, and dusted the worst of the cobwebs, and now I’m here, brush in hand, thinking.

    ENTER

  • icicles & cherries

    Some photos from my walk with the cat, on a warm day when everything was melting.

    Happy New Year

  • not a prodigy

    Around this time in 2022, Thanksgiving week if I remember right, I biked over to Blick and got a little Cotman student watercolor palette, and a 6×8 watercolor block, and a couple of brushes — I’d always wanted to learn to paint.

    After a couple of frustrated months, it occurred to me that I didn’t have to invent painting, and I did the sensible thing, I got on YouTube.

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  • 1 & 2

    First adventures in a new medium.

    —

    Bursting into my scheduled post to say: Good Morning! I hope you’re enjoying the holidays! Santa got me a scanner, so there’s been a flurry of activity here in the furnace workshop.

    I replaced the individual images of thanksgiving grocery run and two from december, and all of my adventures irl, present and future, can be found here.

    We will now return to our regularly scheduled blog posts.

  • how it’s going

    It’s laundry day again, down in the furnace workshop. Everything’s sorted into little heaps and I’m here at the bench drawing the next page of I, Triangle Head while the machines chug away.

    I’ve already churned through the guest sheets and towels. Now I’m deep into clothes, a load of denim, a load of tees and sweaters. Have I mentioned that I love doing laundry?

    I’m coming to you from the Sunday before Christmas. The guest bed’s stacked away to a twin and remade for one (the cat, sleeping in the middle of the day). The presents are neatly wrapped under the tree, and I’ve been hard at work all week, scheduling my blog through the end of the year so that I can be present over the holidays.

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  • two from december

    From photos taken on a blistering cold weekend.