Mustache surprise

Hey baby.

Sorry. Couldn't resist.

Here's another drawing from last weekend:

This weekend I'll be doing lots more drawing, attending a days-long open-air concert in the Short North, seeing my grandmother, and finishing the book I've been reading all week. Guess which activity I'm most excited about?

Odd bird

Found my eraser. It was in a very dusty spot under a chair.

I identified a weird mystery bird this afternoon. My sister and I always see the same enormous, odd-looking mutant duck during our river walks. (Significant feature: gross puffy red and black skin on its face.) We stare and speculate until the bird starts to look nervous, then we back away vowing to return with a camera. Today after a judicious Google search I discovered our odd bird is a wild Muscovy duck--not a mutation resulting from a chemical spill but the result of hundreds of years of domestic inbreeding. This is all my bird book has to say about the Muscovy: "Interbreeding produces a bewildering variety of plumages and sizes; some bear little resemblance to the parent species." Thanks, David Allen Sibley.

I didn't used to think birds were interesting at all, but now I find them fascinating. The natural world is amazing.

Here's another drawing from the weekend. (I know the seventeenth wasn't a weekend day for most people, but it was for me. I had Friday off so my weekend began Thursday after work. Hurrah!)

Title: You can only sit on this couch with me if there's room for you. Which there isn't.

Pencil drawing

I filled five pages in my drawing book this weekend. Very satisfying.

I like the thick, solid lines of a 4H pencil. It's as easy to erase as it is to darken, but it's capable of producing very fine lines, too. It rarely needs sharpening, and it follows directions. Yes, I think a 4H would be my desert island pencil.

Speaking of favorite things, I lost my best eraser over the weekend. One moment it was sitting on my knee. The next moment I reached for it absentmindedly and it wasn't there. I'm optimistic, though.

Postcards

Two postcards I received last week:

One from the UK and one from the Vatican, which is an independent country and has its own postal system, apparently.

Here's my postcard for the Today I Saw Postcard Swap. It's going to Australia.

Beans

My favorite things that come in cans.

Of course, old-fashioned beans are good when soaked and boiled and gussied up with a recipe, but I like modern beans, too. Canned beans--the kind best spooned out straight from the can. Such beans are a friend to lumberjacks, cowboys, and campers everywhere. And librarians such as myself

I wonder how beans would taste inside a sandwich? Clearly this calls for an experiment.

Cucumbers and tomatoes

A sketch and a drawing from the weekend:

I can't wait until they're all grown up. I like them on open-faced sandwiches with butter and salt.

Three faces

From my last drawing book:

From my drawing book now:

Another sort of book entirely:

Would you tell your secrets to a man with this mustache?

Drawing book in review

I like monsters. Before I drew them with my red litho crayon, I often used purple marker. Or I made them with paper.

Here are sketches of a dog breed I'd never heard of until last year:

After I made these sketches I drew this Schipperke on a postcard and mailed it away.

(More about postcards later. I love them.)

Oh, and one time I drew a house:

I meant to fill this page with more houses in other colors, but never got around to it. I like how blank it looks, though.

In March I began a series of portraits in red litho crayon. Then I started this blog. I've enjoyed sharing my drawings with you, and I look forward to sharing pages from my new drawing book, too.

A few things inspired me to start blogging. Jill's Today I Saw blog was one of them. It combines two things I really like: drawing and postcards. If you're fond of either, and you have an address, then you'll definitely want to be part of her postcard swap.

Hurrah, Hooroo!

Today's a celebration sort of day.