Public Picking

Yet another great thing about Davis, CA: picking public fruit. We just recently got hip to a commemorative mini orchard near my house. Really, it’s a park with a bunch of different fruit trees that commemorates the orchards that used to be there. Since Davis is an ideal place to grow things, there are plums, oranges, apples, and yes, FIGS (seasonally) growing literally a ten minute walk from my house.

I love figs. I am half Italian, so I grew up eating them, but they’re not very easy to acquire unless you have a tree of your own- they are sold for near astronomical prices (if they’re sold at all). If you’ve ever eaten a fig, you know why; aside from having an amazing honey-like sweetness, they area extremely fragile and have a short shelf-life, making it seemingly impossible to transport, like most of our fruits and vegetables are, across the country and the world.

My boyfriend Mike discovered one of these nearby fig trees yesterday, heavy with ripe Black Mission Figs. Many of the lower branches had already been picked clean, but with his ingenuity and good memory of a tool for just such an occasion, he found this amazing basket tool at the local hardware store.

The top has a little claw to snap the fruit off the vine with a basket below to catch the fruit. This nifty device is attached to a roughly 10 foot pole, to get those lusted after high-branched fruits.

This wonderful contraption only set us back $22, and we came away with close to 100 figs (don’t worry, we didn’t steal them all- there are still tons more). To put this all in perspective, I saw baskets of 6 figs on sale for $5 at the Farmer’s Market yesterday. I thing we got the better value. Some of the figs are a little mangled, as they are very fragile and easily skewered with “the claw,” but who can beat munching on the mushed ones while picking more?!

This here is our bounty. You might be thinking, “I love a good fig or five, but what could they possibly do with that many?” To which I answer, “There’s fig preserves, figs stuffed with gorgonzola cheese, grilled figs, breakfast, lunch and dinner figs, salad with figs, and the list goes on!”

Life in the Fast Lane

This here’s my newest 8×10 drawing from my Saving the World series. I am an addictive multi-tasker, so this drawing needs to be tatooed on my arm to remind me to stop doing so many things at once. It’s one thing to try and expedite the process of cooking dinner, but the other night, I was chopping vegetables, grilling peppers, and refilling the dog’s water bowl, all at the same time. My boyfriend said quite plainly, “you’re trying to do too many things at once.”

What is it about the world we live in that makes us feel like we aren’t working hard enough if we aren’t trying to do ten things? Maybe it’s just me, but there never seems to be enough time, so I end up trying to cram in a bunch of activities or tasks at once. What I’m beginning to learn is that this behavior leads to many half-done or half-appreciated things. But learning is a slow process, so I need to make many notes and signs to remind myself!

Prints of this “Slow Down” drawing are now available in my Etsy Shop as well as the lovely set of 5 x 7 prints of my Dream drawings/paintings below.

Living Creatively

Last week, I harvested my first two zucchini. I mean first ever– last year the zucchini didn’t quite survive the aphids. These little squash were so perfect, I could have sworn someone had run to the supermarket, bought some zucchini and thrown them underneath my plants. I got such a thrill out of this– the fact that we had thrown some seeds in the ground and gotten these beautiful squash.

This, along with a conversation with Bit o’ Honey got me thinking about how many ways there are to be creative in daily life, outside of traditional art. Some of my favorites are cooking, baking, writing, gardening, dreaming, reading aloud, and thinking. What about you? How do you get creative in your day to day life? Here are 10 more ideas I came up with about how to . . .

1) Plant some seeds- preferably ones that will produce food.
2) Make up a new sandwich.
3) Bake a cake.
4. Take pictures of your daily life and create an album (digital or physical) for a friend or relative living far away.
5. Plan a food-themed party (pie party, dog days of summer feast, tomato luncheon, Ethiopian dinner).
6. Paint your mailbox or a sign for the outside of your house that says your address or a welcome greeting.
7. Enlarge and frame some favorite photos.
8. Hand-make a birthday, holiday, or just because card for someone you love.
9. Hand write a letter to someone you talk to all of the time or haven’t talked to in a long time.
10. Draw a note for yourself or someone else (for example: “meet you at the library at 6:30″ might consist of a building plus a book, two stick figures, and a clock that reads 6:30)

Listen

Hello out there! I had big plans today for a post about living creatively, but my boyfriend ran off into the mountains with our shared digital camera, so it will have to wait until later (maybe tonight if he gets back early enough). But I did want to share a new drawing with you. This one is called “Listen,” and it’s another one from my How to Save the World series. I just put the print version up for sale in my Etsy Shop. [So far, I am only selling prints there as I figure out how I want to handle my shop, but please let me know if you are ever interested in buying an original or even a print of something you see here, but is not yet available in my shop.]

I think listening is so important. It’s so hard to listen sometimes, but I think listening (as opposed to talking) is the foundation of good communication. I struggle with this, especially with my closest relationships because sometimes I get so excited to tell people something, that I forget to listen to what they have to say.

I recently heard or read somewhere (wish I could remember where) that really listening to someone is about just listening, not trying to give your input. This advice was given in the context of how when we are “listening” to someone, we often feel the need to volunteer a story about a time we experienced something similar, instead of taking the time to really understand what someone is saying. This really hit me hard because I do this constantly. I’ve been trying to pay attention to this habit and realize there is a time and a place for everything.

On that note, I will stop talking and start listening to what you all have to say, with my pen and ink ears below and my open comment box on this blog! Let me know what you’re thinking out there!

“Listen” 8×10 inches

Wednesday

I recently finagled my way out of working Wednesdays. Mainly, I saw a wavering in my boss’ demeanor. I started working at my current part time office job about two months ago. At the time, I had classes on Wednesdays, but the agreement was that I would move to working 5 days whenever possible. Upon telling my boss that I could move to 5 days because classes were over, he said, “We would prefer that you work five days.”

I thought about this for a couple days, and decided, I would prefer to continue working 4 days. I told him so, and he was not able to say no, although I will work occasional Wednesdays as needed. So here I am, not working on Wednesdays. Woohoo! When opportunity knocks, open the door! I thought I would show you a little bit of what my Wednesday looks like– because, in all reality, it’s not that I’m not working, but that I am taking the day to do the work that I love.

Me working on a new word painting called, “Jane’s Mane” in my “studio” (garage).

A trip to the art store, my favorite kind of store. Unfortunately, I forgot my wallet, so all I could do was browse.

Another “Save the World” sketch in the little sketchbook The Art House provided.

Spending quality time with Lance, my big, silly pup.

Punchline

This week’s Illustration Friday word is “punchline.” The first thing that came to mind for me was actual punching, as opposed to the more idiomatic definition of the expression.

I get bored easily with exercising, so at different times in my life, I have taken kickboxing and boxing classes. I’ve never actually “boxed,” other than sparring lightly in class, but it is quite an adrenaline rush just to do the moves, and a great workout!

My favorite boxing memory is from the boxing class I took while studying abroad in Perugia, Italy. We would warm up by running the perimeter of the small room doing different movements. My favorite was kind of a “grass blowing in the wind” type movement where we put our hands above our heads and swayed side to side while running. So there I was, one of the few girls in the class, with a bunch of smelly Italian men, swaying around the room. It still makes me laugh every time I think about it.

I pulled out some of my old boxing gear for my interpretation of “punchline” below.

You, Me and Some Chocolate Cake

I’ll be honest, I had a pretty bad day at work today. The fact that my boss completely changed a project I have been working on for a while, added to the fact that I don’t really care about what I’m doing (I work at an uncreative office job), made my mood plummet.

So, on my way out of work, I called my boyfriend Mike to see if he could meet me. I met Mike at his work, and inevitably, we ended up at The Coffee House on the UCD campus, that sells the best afternoon treats. We both grabbed a nice slab of good old-fashioned chocolate cake.

There’s something about sitting down with someone you can be yourself with, someone that you love, and eating cake. It really shows how everything else isn’t so important. We laughed, talked about little and big things, eating our chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream icing. It felt luxurious, like we were playing hooky, like we were living the good life– all for under $3.

Making Your Dreams Come True

As you may know if you read my blog, I am working on a project under the theme “30 Ways to Save the World”. I started thinking about how to represent two new “ways” about dreaming. When I started working on the drawing, I decided it needed some color, so here it goes:

“Dream,” 5×7 inches, pen and ink and watercolor

“Make Your Dreams Happen,” 5×7 inches, pen and ink and watercolor

Family

I added a couple more prints to my shop today, including this geometric bloom drawing I did a while ago:

It is 4.5 x 6.5 inches, and I call it “Family.” I didn’t set out to draw a family that day, but afterwards, I realized that this drawing represents to me what a good family can be– there’s room for everyone to bloom while still staying connected. I feel very lucky to say that my family is very much like that! Happy Sunday.

My New Shop

I just wanted to let you know that my new shop over at Etsy is now open for business! For those of you who don’t know, Etsy is a great website where artists and crafters can create their own shops for pennies. The only requirement is that everything be handmade by the seller.

I am still getting the hang of it, so any comments you have would be greatly appreciated. One problem I’m having is that the thumbnails can only be square, so I’m not sure how to handle rectangular artwork because it doesn’t seem like you can upload the thumbnail separately from the full size picture. Does anyone know anything about this? You will probably notice some of my thumbnails look a little cut off.

Also, wordpress does not seem to have an Etsy widget!!??! So, I have put a little button in my sidebar until I figure out what to do.

Aside from these gripes, I am pretty darn excited to have finally started my shop! I’ve been chipping away at all of these little details about it for a while, and finally, I had to just say, “what the hey, I’m just going to do it and learn along the way!” Within minutes, one of my newly posted items had been viewed 14 times! Etsy is hot!