Creativity, Writing, and How To Stop Nibbling On Chocolate Chip Cookies When You're Supposed To Be Working

I spend a lot of time listening to NPR when I'm working. Here's Faith Middleton interviewing Julia Cameron and Lee Jacobus in an episode called How to be a Writer. (Julia Cameron talks about her "writing diet." Step away from the cookies!)

Monday Map: Seattle to Whistler

Friday Fun: If Only the Muppets Were Invited

"Once again we have shown that Americans demand and deserve a thoughtful exchange of ideas among it's candidates."

The muppets sure got that right.

Awareness

Finished art, from this sketch.

Baby Turtles Everywhere

Look at what popped out of the ground a week ago... baby snapping turtles! I'd never seen such a thing.


















For about an hour, 8 or 9 of them slowly poked their heads out of a tiny hole in the grass, completely entangled together, and made their way one by one to the pond, in back. How did they know where to go?



























We'd seen the mama laying eggs at the beginning of summer in a rotted tree stump, far from where the babies hatched. If they were from the same eggs then she certainly faked us out!

Sweet!

Last week I received this award from the lovely Diana Evans, an artist, illustrator and fellow blogger in Canada (who draws the most scrumptious looking cupcakes. I'm gonna need to go on a diet if I think about them for too long...) Thanks, Diana!

Monday Map: Malaspina's Voyage

This map was for a story about the little known scientific explorer Alejandro Malaspina, who sailed around the world in the 1700's.

Friday Fun: Silly Musical Interlude

I don't know about you, but I could use a little silliness lately. Also, I like chickens. Must draw some more...

Friends?

Okay, enough with the bats already! I did want to post this piece, though. (From this sketch.)

Incidentally, the second bat tested negative for rabies. And we've gone around and bat-proofed the house as best we can. (But, come on, an old house has lots of holes...) At least we know they're not nesting in the attic-- both were random.

Here's our next homebuilding project.

Eeny meeny miny moe...

For when you can't decide what to work on next... (scroll down post to read suggestion.)

(Oh, and I am SO jealous of her woodpile...)

Yep, It's Coming...

Strange, the leaves are just barely beginning to turn around here. In past years I've noticed the change as early as the end of August. I don't know what to make of the weather lately.

Here's the sketch for this piece.

Monday Map: Nashville to Asheville

I forgot to mention last Monday that these travel guide maps are from this big project back in May. The client recently sent me printed samples. They did a great job with the color reproduction. Nice when that happens!

Friday Fun: "I have told you two a thousand times: Do not mix your metaphors!"

Hahaha... sorry, I just couldn't resist.

Let us not look back in anger or forward in fear,
but around in awareness.
–James Thurber

Runaway!

This is a little piece for one of my favorite clients, Our State magazine. I usually do maps for them, so this was a nice change of pace. (No pun intended!)

They're located down in North Carolina, and I have to say they are some of the nicest people I've worked with. It's a good thing to be nice!

Tree Trunks, Firewood, and Illogical Language

We had a truckload of tree trunks delivered to out house last week. Call us crazy, but this winter we're going to try to heat the house with wood, mostly. We'll still have oil as a backup, but it's just too darn expensive. And I like to stay warm.
















Now I know why a cord of seasoned wood is so costly-- it's a ton of work to cut and split! (But hubby loves any excuse to pull out the chainsaw.)












So here's a question-- how would you explain to a non-english speaking person why you cut a tree "down" but you cut the wood "up?"

Monday Map: Boston to Berkshires

Friday Fun: Holy Dewey Decimal System, Batman! Who IS That Librarian?

I just couldn't resist this, since bats have become the theme of my week, again...

I know libraries attract all sorts of patrons, but didn't she think there was something weird about, um, four dudes in moth suits?

I'm Really Not Making This Up

We had another bat in the house this morning. (Just when you had asked, Elizabeth! Go figure.) I was enjoying my coffee and a book this morning at 5:30 am when all of the sudden this little guy came swooping in from the screened-in porch and flew around the downstairs. I screamed. (I really never scream about anything but there's something about swooping bats that gets to me.) (Okay, well, I think it's the wingspan, even though he looks so tiny in the picture.) He finally came to rest in the corner of a living room beam, where the hubby trapped him in a container. So, another call to animal control today to send him off and have him tested.

Holy infestation, Batman! I think we may have an issue.

Batty

Here's the finish to this sketch, finally!

And my brief rant for today: I hate my scanner! Tell me, why would a company construct a scanner so that the user is unable to clean underneath the glass bed? When said user contacts tech support she is told that said machine was not constructed to be opened and cleaned and that since she can't clean said glass, she would be eligible for an upgrade?

Um, excuse me... there is no way to clean a perfectly well functioning scanner so you are telling me I should buy a new one? Talk about planned obsolescence! What is the matter with this world??!

(P.S.- The mechanically brilliant hubby managed to take it apart so that we could clean the glass, but the machine is still fogging up inside and making fine, thin lines in my scans. Argh!)

Okay, rant over. I'm saving my pennies for a new scanner. From a different company.

Monday Map (On a Tuesday): Wisconsin Shipwrecks

These Monday holidays really throw me off. Happy Tuesday, everyone!