Henpecked

 
Of course most people know the phrase "henpecked" meaning persistent nagging usually, but in the true context of the word in the animal world, its a bit more than that.

As readers of the blog know, there are usually chickens in the barn, mostly laying hens these days, keeping me supplied with fresh eggs daily.  Well, there is a pecking order in a flock of birds and sometimes that gets out of order and they turn on one another.  It starts as a little peck or a feather pull then can rapidly progress to constant pecking of the victim til the bird loses feathers, often most of them on top of their head and neck.  Chickens are very aggressive at times and will gang up on and kill another bird that shows signs of distress or bleeding.  I presume its a throwback to the "survival of the fittest" principle, but never nice to witness.

Once noticed, the pecked hens are removed from the flock and left to explore the barn with BD and Buddy, the ducks, til the feathers grow back and they can be reintroduced to the flock.

The sketch at the top of this post is of one of the of henpecked hens who have the run of the barn and garden now, along with BD and Buddy.  The feathers are starting to grow back again but they look pretty scruffy around the head and neck still.  Of course moulting around this time of year doesn't help either.  Here they are enjoying spring, ready for an adventure into the meadow to hunt for bugs.

Work, art and work

 Victoria Beach  Pastel 4" x 6"  

available on auction at Daily Paintworks

Has a week really passed by since I wrote?  I was full of good intentions, but life got away from me.

The studio move proved to be more time consuming than anticipated, but it should be finished by the end of this weekend and I am in there more or less and just starting to set up a new painting.  I am determined to put paint to canvas this weekend.  Provided I can find my palette...  That's the problem with moving, things change places, even if intentions are good.

Here are a couple of views of the new studio as it currently is laid out.  A table will go down the middle of the room and a few things shifted around. Its just far to neat and tidy right now! Not a sign of creative juices flowing anywhere.  That will all change soon.

 

The new space is about double the previous studio and in fact I get two studios eventually.  My old studio needs some plumbing work, so once that is done I can set that up too and have a production and a teaching studio.  Or that's my plan.  Like all renovations, its a huge investment of time, money and energy and one thing leads to another, which leads to another and so on.


Because I haven't had much painting or even sketching time this week, I was getting antsy so did this little drawing/painting in pastel of Victoria Beach, PEI.  The view across the cove with canola flowering bright yellow was irresistable.  Its available on auction this week through Daily Paintworks.  I am putting my small paintings on DPW and so far am having positive results with it.  Like every art sale site there are positive and negative aspects, but overall I'm getting more exposure and enjoy seeing the new art every day.

Speaking of art sales, there's a new Canadian site called Artbomb that's worth watching.  If you subscribe, you receive one email daily with the work of one to three Canadian artists available to bid on.  Bidding is from 6am - 11pm (Eastern time) for one day only.  If your bid is successful, the art is shipped direct to you within two weeks. Only Canadian artists are featured and its good to see the talent from artists across this country being showcased.

I have a couple of other projects in the pipeline and will say more about them in the next couple of weeks.  What with supplying galleries, selling paintings, marketing and admin, as well as my full time job, I really need cloning to get it all done! 

Fanny Jane

 
The week has gotten away with me and I've spent most of it doing the "behind the scenes" work for art instead of being planted in the studio. 

Playing catch up from being away from work has taken its toll on my brain and then there's the switch to the new studio.  Its a lot more time consuming than I had anticipated but I should have a good dent in it this weekend and hope I can start some work in there soon. 

Its also the season of juggling galleries, with seasonal ones opening and needing pieces delivered.  Packing, delivering, communicating, reviewing...There's just not enough of me to go round some days! 

But the sketchbook still is with me and even if I don't get much studio time, I take a few minutes here and there to put down some lines.   This sketch is of my maternal great grandmother, Fanny Jane Atwill, born in England in 1861 then moved to St. John's.  There was some trips back and forth it seems before they settled finally.  I would say she was likely in her 70s when the photo was taken which I used to draw from.  The quality wasn't great in the image so detail is limited.  The high necked lacy covered dress, was  that a "for best" or every day wear I wonder?

She has a glint of mischief in her eye and I think she would have been an interesting person to know.

Billie and Bunny II

I thought there should be a more archivally permanent version of the Billie and Bunny sketch that I did last week, so here's a 5" x 7" in acrylic of the same piece.  This is available for purchase on Daily Paintworks and you can also purchase a variety of reproduction options and note cards of this painting through Fine Art America.

I have also made available the first four Fishy Bits prints as notecards and reproductions as well and will continue to add prints as they are completed.  Original prints are always available from my website www.jeanettejobson.com 

Drowning

 

 Drowning

Mixed media    16" x 20"

Available  on my website

Besides the painting title, I have felt a little like I've been drowning this week. Its taking me some time to get back into the swing of things after my break, butlife is starting to fall into place now and with a weekend looming I should be all set by Monday.  A couple of weeks without painting always leaves me a little unsure of my strokes and lacking inspiration in some ways.

I'm in the process of building a new studio in the basement of my house.  Its about twice the size of my current one, which I hope to keep as well, and it will give me enough room to hold small workshops and classes.  Right now its having flooring laid and being painted, then there's lighting to be added.  As there isn't a lot of light in the room, lighting will be crucial.  Also storage and deciding just what furniture I want in that room.  So much to do!  Here's a little peek at production so far.  The room is long and narrow  9' x 20'.  Still lots of painting and construction left to do!

As my mind is all over the place, abstraction seems to soothe me, so I grabbed a canvas early one morning and started a piece based on a piece of writing.  The rest evolved over a couple of evenings til its now complete I believe.

I find abstract paintings really do paint themselves.  I have a concept of shape and colour but where it finally ends up can be anyone's guess, including mine!

Billie & Bunny

 
I've been travelling to see a new grand child and am compiling sketches and images of the adventure that I'll post during this week.

Right now I'm getting my sea legs again with a 3.5 hour time difference to adjust to again and back to work in the morning.

However, I thought I'd share a quick drawing that I did of a friend's dog, Billie. Its about 12 x 15 done in pastel.   Billie is a truly lovely dog, laid back, gentle and loves to fetch and and carry in true retriever fashion.  This became very apparent as everytime I walked in the door or entered a room she would greet me bearing "bunny", her favourite toy to play fetch with.  I started to call her "Billie & Bunny".

Billie was adopted and came from a French Canadian background, so only responds to commands in French.   After a few false starts, my brain cells recalled French enough to communicate with the dog.   "Donnez-moi le lapin, Billie."  Yeah right she thought, fight me for it first.  And so the game would repeat itself over and over.

Je t'aime Billie!

A month of sketches

For the past month I, and several others, have been sharing sketches on my March Sketch a Day page.  The idea was to encourage sketching and drawing and provide an opportunity to share work with others by providing the ability to post thumbnails and links. 

So what have I learned from a month of sketching?

• I learned that I do enjoy sketching and a lot of my work tends to steer towards animal life.  (surprise, surprise)
• I learned that the sketching itself doesn't take a lot of time, but the posting does take a concentrated effort.  Maybe because I can't just plop a sketch on a blank page without telling the story around why it came to be.
• I learned that daily sketching enhances my drawing skills that are the backbone for my paintings.  The lines of sketches and drawings are my path and cannot be ignored.  If I can get across only one message to those who want to create art - good art - it is to learn to draw well.  Everything else falls into place from there.
• I learned that its very good to have company along the way.  Thank you to those who posted either daily or less frequently on the March Sketch a Day project.
• I learned that the most mundane things often make the most interesting subject material.
• I learned that drawing from life or from a photo of something you find interesting are equally valuable exercises.  Yes, the purists will disagree, but drawing is drawing.  If you can get accurate shapes and forms on paper, its never a bad thing. 
• I learned that I can sketch anywhere.  There is no elaborate set up, no rules, no subject that is out of bounds, no place forbidden.  I sketched in coffee shops, my studio, at my desk at lunchtime, on the sofa while the news was on, in the car, in airports, on planes...there is no limitation.

I had gotten into the habit of sketching most days prior to this project, but don't always share my work with the world. I may continue to let the world peek into my sketchbook with a weekly post on just that subject.  It doesn't become as onerous task if weekly than to create a new post daily.   I can share more of my painting work with you in additional posts during the week.

However, the blog may be quiet for a couple of weeks as I'm off on my travels again.  I hope I can fit in some sketches of  things new and different  (to me) and share them with you if possible - technology being willing.

Airport Heads II

Quite often I have layovers or waits for flights in airports and love to people watch and sketch when I do.   This trip was no different and I captured a couple of "airport heads" in my sketchbook.

People are quite distracted or bored in airports so rarely notice me sketching them. I pile as many heads as I can on a page to get information down quickly and not waste time changing pages.  After all these are just sketches not complete drawings.

I find people sometimes do try to make sketches into complete drawings instead of simply captured expression, shape or colour shifts.  To me, it defeats the purpose.  I see my sketchbook rather like an incomplete camera, able to take the essence of something and put it on paper instead of trying for a highly detailed image.

This is the last sketch of the March Sketch a Day project.  I'll share my thoughts on the project in a separate post, then I'll be absent for a couple of weeks, while I take a trip west.   If you haven't checked out the sketching project, please do, its fascinating to see the work and style of other artists who joined in during the month.

Dottie

I have this cute ceramic tea light holder that my daughter gave me.  Its in the shape of a hen with dots of colour all over it.  It always reminds me of spring.

Here's my version of it in graphite and white pastel on toned paper.

Cockpit

I don't particularly enjoy flying.  Its tedious and I like to be the driver, not the passenger, when it comes to take off and landing or at least see where I'm going.

I was in Ottawa for a few days and on the way back today, there was a stopover  in Halifax.  I wasn't allowed to leave the plane and had been given a premium seat with a view direct into the cockpit.  All those buttons and gages...mind boggling and rather different from driving a car.

So between people coming and going in the limited time the door to the cockpit was open, I did a quick sketch of the co-pilot and part of his working environment.  If you think seats are tight on airplanes, these guys don't have it any easier I thought as I watched the pilot literally vault into his seat using an above head hand grip for guidance.  No way to do that gracefully, either in or out.

Just two more days left in the March Sketch a Day project!  Thanks so much to the artists who participated, it was great to see you join in and the diverse range of work that was produced.  I'll do a little synopsis of my thoughts on the whole project on April 1st.

Duck skull

 
When I had ducks they had the freedom of the farm to wander and some would be adventurous and explore the meadow or the vegetable field, sometimes venturing to the edge of the woods.

Now we all know that its dangerous to go into the woods don't we?  Or so we tell our children.  Those fairytales of big bad wolf, trolls and goblins were all designed to prevent children wandering off, getting lost or getting eaten by something!

Unfortunately the little Khaki Campbell ducks were disobedient children and did go to the edge of the woods.  Where a fox was waiting.

This was a duck skull which I found in the woods, near where several disappeared.  The only good thing out of this is that I have a skull to draw from and they can be difficult to find.  If you've never drawn part of the skeletal structure of an animal or person, I strongly recommend it.  You learn so much about anatomy and how the body moves from it.

Goldfish

 
I think many people have had a goldfish as a pet at one time or other in their life and there's usually a story to go along with how it came home with you.


As a child I never had a goldfish, and never recall seeing them for sale or as prizes at a fair - not that there were any fairs here in Newfoundland then, just the Regatta in the summer.   So I think I made up for it by gathering up fish of all kinds later in life.

I used to have many, many fish at one point, both cold water goldfish, koi and tropical fish as well.  The goldfish mostly lived in a little pond in the garden but a few that were more exotic were always the inside pets.

I have no fish right now, but feel the need for a few live models arising. There is nothing better than watching them move and seeing the light reflect on the gold and orange scales.

Its time to get another goldfish I believe.

Seeds of thought

Sketches, while part of my March Sketch a Day project, often are the first step in the process of creating a piece of art.  From the gelling of an idea, to a rough thumbnail, then a more detailed sketch and finally transformation into something more solid.

This sketch was an original idea which turned into the relief print shown below.  There was a lot of transformation, cutting, altering, errors, corrections and swearing while it went through its metamorphosis, but it emerged on the other side and is now available as an open edition print through my website and  Daily Paintworks.

I use several different types of Japanese paper to print with as I love their ability to take up the ink crisply and dry quickly.  I use oil based inks for printing and find they produce a much more defined piece compared to water-based inks.  I do use water-soluable inks as they're easier to clean up, but am trying some Daniel Smith oil based inks and quite like how they perform too.  The clean up is rather messier so I'll be doing longer printing sessions when I use these I think.

Dreamer

5 x 7

Soaring

As I write this it is dark and I can hear the foghorn's low tone on the headland.  The seagulls have settled in for the night, no more flights til morning. No more soaring on the air currents. Tonight they are grounded to the lonely beaches, cliff ledges and shoreline until dawn releases them again.

Grandmother's footsteps

Who remembers this game from childhood?  In England, the game is either called "Grandmother's Footsteps" and sometimes "Statues" where the person who is "it" turns to make sure that the players are not moving if they hear movement, or it's called "Mr Wolf's Dinnertime", where "Mr Wolf" has to try and catch anyone moving - if "Mr Wolf" cries 'dinnertime' then s/he has to race everyone back to the start line, trying to catch as much 'dinner' as possible.

So what's the connection between a game and a cow?  Its back to the farm in Somerset again.   It was a dairy farm and I rented a cottage on the farm smack dab in the middle between acres of cow fields and hay barns.  As a result, there were lots of cows around and close to the house...sometimes too close.

When the heifers (young cows) were in the field and I had to cross it for whatever reason, they would, as a large group, follow me, presumably thinking I either had food or were taking them somewhere.  They would tramp along behind me, running to catch up and I could hear their heavy breath and loud footsteps. It was like being followed by an army! I often wondered if I'd get trampled in the herd.   However, if I turned to face them, they'd all freeze, mid stride, as a group and wouldn't move a muscle until I turned to walk again.  It became a bit of a game with them at times seeing how many times they'd stop before I got to the fence and scrambled over, leaving them looking a bit perplexed.

I have to admit I felt a bit uncomfortable with them all behind me at times, as they'd get closer and braver as we got nearer the fence.

March hare

Mad as a March hare.

The first time I saw that expression come to life was a peek through a tall hedge on a tiny back road near the farm I lived on, close to Combe St. Nicholas in Somerset.   I was walking the dogs and  a movement in the field caught my eye.  Two large hares were standing on their hind legs, whacking furiously at each other with their front paws.  I stood watching them for a short time, fascinated at their strange dance/fight.  The dogs, of course, wanted to join in, so it was best to move on with them.

This is a common territorial dispute around hare mating time which extends past March I'm told and I was lucky to have seen it in real life.  Of course no digital cameras or cell phones to capture the action then, just my memory.

March Hare in Newfoundland means something different, even through there are hares present, mostly Arctic hares, often mistaken for rabbits.  March Hare was once a little get together on the west coast of the province to break up a long dreary winter, but now has turned into an international literary festival, including work of local poets as well as some of the best writers in Canada and the world as well as the finest professional musicians from across the province.

My March Hare is a memory of the ones I saw in the hedge-lined field in Somerset years ago.  Done with a charcoal under drawing with pastel overlaid on newsprint.  And here's what they looked like in the field.

Puffin

An Atlantic Puffin.  These birds are in the Auk family with a stocky build and colourful beak in breeding season.

Nesting colonies can be seen offshore on the southern shore of the Avalon Peninsula, a short boat ride away.  Often called "sea parrots" because of their coloured beaks, in Newfoundland they're sometimes called "sea potatoes" because of their chunky shape.  Such effort these little birds put into flying, with wings beating up to 400 times per minute and able to reach speeds of 55 miles per hour.  They swim underwater as well as they fly, but only for short submersion times of 20 or 30 seconds.

In December 2011, a baby puffin was found wandering on the streets of Montreal and flown by Air Canada back to Newfoundland for some TLC before being released.

The Line up

The first day of school.  Nervousness, anticipation, excitement, new shoes, new bag, new pencils.  And lining up.

School is often the first formal lining up a child has to experience. Seeing the little faces makes me wonder what's going through their minds and their behaviour and tolerance for the ritual of order gives a glimpse into their personalities and future.

This sketch is of my grand daughter's first day of school.  Head of the line, she looks like she's been there, done that and has the t-shirt.

What's in yours?

Your refrigerator that is.

For the last seven months I've been on a health kick and have lost a significant amount of weight.  As a result, the contents of my fridge have changed a lot.  One, there is a lot less generally in there.  Two, the contents consist mostly of fresh fruit and veg, meat and a variety of salad dressings.

Over on Daily Paintworks, where my small paintings now reside, a challenge is provided weekly.  This week it was What's in Your Fridge?   I'd never drawn or painted the contents of my fridge and thought it could make interesting compositions, so I took a few shots and found some that I liked.  Plein aire isn't really possible with the fridge door open for ages...

I haven't painted it yet, but here's a sketch of what's in part of the fridge door.   The small glass bottles of diet Coke I bought so long ago, they're probably gone off by now.  Like many things, I buy them as art props but still haven't gotten around to using these yet.   I rarely drink soft drinks, so there's little appeal to me to consume them, but the green tinged bottle with the classic shape appeals for a painting.

Hmmm, perhaps its time to have another look in the fridge.

Tripod

 Tripod's been the "adopted child" for more than six years.   He was a cat living wild for a couple of years around the farm, then through a series of events ended up in the house and has stayed ever since.

His wild days still manifest themselves in his hunting ability, his blood curdling growls in his sleep, his fights with other cats who venture onto the property and, of course, his missing limb.

He's showing the signs of aging.  I don't know his age and the vet says his teeth are those of an older cat, so who knows precisely.  The injury to his front leg that caused the amputation is an unknown too, perhaps a snare, another animal, its hard to tell.  And I suspect there's  a direct link to his eye on the same side as it never opens fully and in this sketch, lying on his beloved newspaper, he looks a bit like a pirate.

Things you may or may not know about Tripod:

• He adores lying on paper.  As soon as preparation is made to light a fire, he makes a beeline for the newspaper laid on the floor, hindering use.

• He only eats human grade tuna and dry cat food, one particular brand.  He obviously had never eaten it when he first arrived and would not chew it, nearly choking.  I was trying to figure out how to do a Heimlich manoevere on a cat...

• He will not eat freshly cooked fish or meat of any kind.  Ever.  He looks at it, sniffs it, looks at me in disgust and walks away.

• He will only drink water from a puddle or stream outside, never from a dish inside.

• His three-legged mobility state can go from Tiny Tim the cripple, to seek attention, to faster than a speeding bullet if a rabbit is in view.

• If slippers are left on the floor, he lies down and puts his 1.5 front feet in one of them and lies there til disturbed.  Why, I have no idea.

• He despises dogs.  He will stalk and physically attack any dog, any size, any disposition.  It can be the most cat-friendly dog in the world and Tripod will launch himself at it unprovoked.  I know there are foxes and coyotes and hunting dogs in the woods around the farm and I imagine he had his fair share of confrontations in his wild days, so this may account for his behaviour.
• Unless shut in the house when you go outside, he follows like a dog.  Anywhere you go.  And flings himself down on the ground in front of you, often tripping you. People wonder why I go for a run with a cat under my arm.  Well, its because I have to bring him back home because he's followed me and its just easier to carry him than wait for him to catch up.

Yes, this cat is very, very different.  You'd really have to experience him to understand.  He's not your average cat at all, more like a dog in many behaviours.