I am trying to scan or photograph some of the better drawings I did for my just-concluded class at Carleton, but honestly, it’s tough to scan (or shoot) the drawings at high enough quality to make them look like they when you’re holding them in your hands. Here, though, is a decent shot of an ink drawing (with washes) of one of the river birches in our backyard. This was exceptionally fun to do, and it turned out well. The prof thought it was one of my better pieces.
The current Facebook meme, adulterated with two- and three-fers and in no particular order. The supposed rules: “Don’t take too long to think about it. Fifteen books you’ve read that will always stick with you. First fifteen you can recall in no more than 15 minutes.”
1. Don DeLillo, White Noise, Underworld, and Libra
2. Tim O’Brien, The Things They Carried
3. William Gibson, The Bridge Trilogy and the recent non-SF novels, Pattern Recognition and Spook Country
4. Vladimir Nabokov, Pale Fire and Speak, Memory
5. E.P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class
6. Chris Ware, Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth
7. David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest
8. Haruki Murakami, Wind-up Bird Chronicles
9. Jorge Luis Borges, Collected Fictions (especially “Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius”)
10. Herman Melville, “Bartleby the Scrivener”
11. Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale
12. Franklin W. Dixon, The Secret of the Lost Tunnel (a Hardy Boys book – the first novel I ever read)
13. David Kennedy, Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929- 1945
14. Joseph Mitchell, Joe Gould’s Secret
15. Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow and The Crying of Lot 49
I’m reeling from déjà vu right now, having come inside a few minutes ago from 90 minutes in the backyard, where I was finishing my final project for my drawing class – the first time I’ve “crammed” for a final exam since about 1999, just before taking my comp exams in grad school. (Among other things, tonight I learned that mosquitos think India ink is worth investigating, but that the ink pulls them into the container, where they miserably drown. Related: be sure to cover your India ink pot when working outside.)
We were supposed to spend 10-12 hours on the drawing over the last couple of weeks; I think that – beginning with extensive measuring, continuing through a ton of sketching in pencil, and ending with hours of drawing with pen and ink and various ink washes – I’ve spent about 25% more time than that upper mark. And I’ve recited the maxim “Tone, not hue” to myself roughly eleventy billion times.
We’ll literally see tomorrow if my time has been well spent, but regardless, I have enjoyed the experiences of the course and of the project. Musing as I drew, I realized that I haven’t worked this hard on a non-parenting, non-work project since grad school – which was actually a lot more like work than this course has been.
We capped the insanely busy weekend with a nice trip to the Arb so the birthday girl could wade in Spring Creek. (It’s not really wading if the water only covers your feet, but still….) Vivi, against her inclinations, decided to join the five-year-old in the water.
Vivi’s experiment ended after a few minutes, when a scary stick surprised her and, trying to get away, she stepped in some squishy mud, which was too much to bear. Before that, though, she did enjoy herself. How about that thousand-watt smile?
I spent 90 minutes in our backyard this evening, working on my final drawing project (quick: what’s the opposite of a magnum opus?), which was a placid, relaxing sort of activity except for the ridiculous noises:
So much for the quiet countryside. I could barely hear myself committing art.
The girls and I unwound this afternoon by playing a game of kids’ charades. Julia is actually quite good at it, even if a good half of her physical hints involve the same up-and-down motion with her two hands. (This stood in for “hanging up a coat,” “cooking,” “digging,” and a bunch of other items.) The game had two especially good moments.
The first one came when I drew the card for “hairdryer.” I had to think about this for a minute, and then when I stood up to assume the tipped-head stance of a person using a blowdryer, Julia yelled “hairdryer!” I said, “Honey! That’s amazing! How did you know that?” She smiled shyly and said, “I looked at the card while you were thinking.”
The second good moment came a few minutes later. Vivi drew a card and showed it to Julia, who was helping her interpret the cards. Julia leaned over to Vivi and loudly whispered, “It says, ‘cow.'” Vivi nodded sagely and went, “MOOOOOOO!” Pretending I hadn’t heard Julia’s help, I said, “Uhhh… Horse?” Vivi scowled at me and yelled, “Cow, Daddy!” So much for patience.
I love this drawing by Peter Arkle, a freelance illustrator whose phenomenal work appears in print all over the place and online in several wonderful collections on his website.
Today was the first day of summer, for all intents and purposes. Yesterday still seemed springlike, but today was hot enough to give me that feeling of being suffused with heat. More to the point, we were lucky enough to partake of a classic summer activity: a garden party held by an old friend who, in the past year, has both beaten cancer and earned her PhD. Anyone who accomplishes either of those things should have the right to throw a celebratory party for herself; doing both in the same six months is phenomenal. Congratulations to her on both counts!
So we headed up to the Cities for the party, and had a blast. Julia made a new friend (the four-year-old niece of our friend), all the kids cavorted in one of those inflatable bounce houses (rented specially for the occasion), a great deal of excellent food was had by all, and Shannon and I caught up with a bunch of old friends. Not a bad way to start the summer.
As it often does, the internet reacted hilariously to my blog post and photos about the girls riding their bikes up the slope at the end of our neighborhood park. Some preliminary comments on the blog about how the hill can be a tough little incline gave way on Facebook to chatter about how the park looks just like Teletubbyland, the place where the Teletubbies live.
All the talk was summarized neatly by my friend Doug, who used his Photoshop skills to… To… Well, to make me laugh almost to the point of tears, and to put Julia and Genevieve in Teletubbyland:
Well done, Doug!
Vivi is imagining an elaborate game in which she, as “Big Boy,” is using her Elmo phone to call her two friends, a brother named “Mommy” and a girl named “Gommy.” Mommy is three (“ree”) years old, and Gommy is ten years old. Their daddy’s name is Christopher and their mommy’s is Shannon. Mommy and Gommy love to eat ham sandwiches with spreadable cheese for lunch, as long as they can also have blueberries. They both have faces and bodies and tummies, but Gommy has red hair – “just like Ariel” – and Mommy has hair that is green, no; pink; no, yellow; no, white; no, brown; no, purple (“purble”). Both have green, yellow, and white eyes.
I dunno about you, but I’m gonna have nightmares.
I took Vivi to her first swimming “lesson” this evening. She was insanely exciting about it, chanting “I so ess-cited!” before and during the drive to the pool and then (after a minute-long freeze-up when we actually saw the pool for the first time) again until we got in the water.
Once we were wet, she intermittently reminded me to hold on to her, but mostly just enjoyed everything we did: floating on her stomach, floating on her back, putting her chin and mouth in the water, blowing bubbles in the water, putting her ears in to “listening for fish,” and of course jumping off the deck into the water over and over and over.
In short, she did great. It’ll be fun to see her get even more comfortable in the pool.
Here are 63 seconds of the girls biking on Saturday, May 17, in our neighborhood park. They might be going slow, but they’re working hard.
Heywood Park Bikers from Christopher Tassava on Vimeo.
Now that the girls are such good, fast bikers, this is what I usually see on our “walks.”
Unless this is what I see: the rightmost pink speck is Julia, speeding away from me.
As promised yesterday, here’s my drawing of Mai Fete Island, as it appeared on the night of May 13, 2009. (Click here for a larger image or here for a giant image. – and many thanks to Tucker in the Carleton PEPS group for shooting the drawing!)
As soon as I got home from work tonight, I headed back out the door with Julia, Genevieve, and our neighbor girl, M., all of whom were hankering to ride their bikes to the playground. I was, myself, hankering to be outside, so I was happy to go with them.
M., on her (too-small) bike and Vivi, on her Big Wheel trike, did great. Julia, on the other hand, not only did great – pedaling happily and steadily for 60 minutes or more – but grew up right in front of me. She actively refused the little pushes she usually requests, she remembered both how to start from a standstill and how to stop on an incline, she deftly steered around all kinds of obstacles (including, several times, Vivi), and even she even took a lap of the neighborhood park with M. while I stayed with Vivi. Thinking about it, I’m sure that, in all the thousands of hours I’ve spent with her, I have never been physically further away from Julia than I was when she was on one side of Heywood Park and I was on the other. I was amazed and impressed and delighted and – since nothing parental can be unmixed – a little bit sad.
Then again, with this success under our belts, we can now bike and walk all over creation – or at least our subdivision.