Author: JLfromNH

Tools of an artist

As a kid one of my great enthusiasms was drawing. Crayons, markers, watercolors and pens streamed through my fingers as I doodled, cartooned and sketched countless reams of paper. Somewhere along the line though, that pastime faded away to the occasional doodle on paper margins. I’m not sure why that happened but the preoccupations of adulthood likely got in the way. However as I have gotten older, my interest in drawing has rekindled.

The tools available to an artist boggle the imagination. My go-to place for quality supplies is the Blick art supply web site. Their free catalog is an inch thick tomb displaying tons of brushes, pastels, oil, watercolors, pencils, charcoals, air brushes, paper pads and numerous other goodies to inspire the budding Rembrandt or Michelangelo wannabee. I could spend all day just thumbing through it and ogling the supplies but of course the whole point of having the catalog is to order something and then start creating.

The simplest drawing tool, as well as the best to start with, is the pencil. Drawing pencils come in two forms, graphite and charcoal. Graphite pencils are the ones we are most familiar with, especially in the form of the number two pencil. Artist pencils come in a range of grades based on their hardness, with the softest pencils graded B to pencils with harder graphite cores labeled H. The number two pencil everyone is familiar with falls in the midrange (HB). Which grade of pencil to use depends on your preference. I tend to settle on 2B and 2H when doing quick sketches. Graphite pencils can range from the hardest (9H) to very soft (9B) but you will discover you won’t use the full range. Once you have sketched a bit, you will find your favorites and stick with those. Art supply stores do sell pencils individually, so you can purchase the grade you prefer and not wind up with a pile of pencils you will rarely use if you buy them by the set.

One drawback to graphite pencils has to do with shine. Because graphite is a mineral, it will reflect light from a surface you may intend to be very dark. If you are looking to create dark values in your drawing, charcoal pencils are better. Charcoal pencils come in varying grades of hardness as do graphite pencils. Made from either grape vines or willow sticks burnt in an kiln without air, their organic composition allows them to absorb light so you don’t get the annoying sheen that you do with graphite.

For eager beaver do-it-yourselfers, you can create your own willow charcoal sticks but being somewhat indolent, I prefer buying them ready made for use. One drawback to using charcoal is the fact that it smudges very easily. A fixative spray can lay down a layer of protection as long as you don’t mind the smell or the slight change in appearance it can cause to your artwork. The decision of whether to spray or not to spray is a controversial topic among artists, with everyone having their own opinion. If you are not interested in long term storage, a cheap hairspray will do the job though the paper may yellow over time.

As for what brand of graphite or charcoal pencils to use, you can buy them quite cheaply at Walmart for quick sketching practice in the beginning. As your technique improves you can find better quality pencils online at a variety of sources. None of them are really budget busters and the quality is roughly the same with all of them. You will no doubt settle on a personal favorite and have at it.

Happy drawing!

Plant Galls

On investigating plants throughout the summer, it is not unusual to come across a bizarre looking growth on a plant, many times looking much like a tumor or a wart. These are galls and they are produced by a variety of parasitic organisms such as viruses, fungi, mites and insect grubs.

Galls come in an astonishing assortment of shapes, colors and sizes, depending on which organism created them and which plant is being parasitized. Gardeners may bemoan the appearance of these funky growths. But for the most part, they don’t really harm the plant unless it is already sickly or is heavily laden with galls, they only render it a bit unsightly to look at.

The invading organism releases a substance which irritates the surrounding plant cells which begin forming a microhabitat for the parasite to live in. Insect galls will often have nutritious starches and other materials which may insure that the grub remains in one spot and doesn’t entirely devour its host.

‘

The above picture shows a small clump of galls on a wild grape vine in my back yard. They are likely the product of grape midges that hatch from eggs laid by the mother inside the stem of the vine which then forms the gall. There are a variety of grape midges each with its own life cycle. The vine itself appears uninjured and as long as the damage remains minimal, I will leave it be.

This particular gall was found on a non spiny member of the thistle family (not sure of identity). The gall extends several inches along the stem, swelling it but not apparently interfering with the growth of the weed as it managed to produce flowers. Until I can firmly identify which plant it is, the identity of the gall maker will be uncertain.

This odd bulbous growth found on a jewelweed plant is also a gall. It is formed by the larva of the jewelweed gall midge. The egg producing the larva is planted by the mother into a forming flower bud which then creates this odd structure looking much like a Christmas ornament. Once it has matured enough, it will chew its way out, drop to the ground and winter over.

Galls can take many whimsical shapes, some looking so much like part of the plant that if you aren’t familiar with the species, you might not realize you are looking at a plant gall. One is the willow pinecone gall which resembles its namesake. It looks quite ordinary until you recall willow trees don’t have pine cones. Oak apple galls often look so much like apples, you could be forgiven for thinking it was an actual fruit. But a closer look reveals its true nature, an oddly structured home for the little grub inside.

It’s easy to pitch a hissy fit when you see these strange formations on prized plants in your garden. But for the most part they are harmless. Many of these larva and mites hide inside the plant to avoid predators such as birds and other insects who would gladly chow down on them if the opportunity presented itself. What looks like a nuisance to you is actually lunch to somebody else. If you really have to, just pinch off the leaf or odd growth and remember it’s merely another startling reminder of some of the astonishing adaptations to be found in Nature.

Vintage Art

I have a fondness for vintage art work and own several clip art books from Dover Publications with a wide assortment of illustrations. They range from elegant to comical, all with their own special charm.

The above illustration is from one of the clip art books. I like to call it the amazing levitating mop for if you look closely, you will see the maid is not really holding onto it.

Recently on the blog site Ecosophia, the writer John Michael Greer complained about busybodies of every sort and put out a call to have the Order of Anti-Poke Noses revived. Apparently there actually was such an organization and one of its calling cards is shown above with a delightful vintage image of a ghastly harridan poking a long proboscis over a fence and sticking it into the business of a quietly courting couple.

Off and on over the years I also collected vintage postcards and advertising cards such as the following.

Balsam’s Hair Tonic promised you would not only gain a youthful appearance if you made use of their product but a happy family life as well.

The reverse of the card (a bit hard to read because it is shopworn) extols its virtues and also advertises an accompanying health tonic that will cure insomnia, dyspepsia, rheumatism, malaria (!), jaundice and a host of other ailments, all for a buck fifty. What a deal!

This is a postcard which doubles as a fortune telling card for single ladies. With lots of green color and four leaf clover images, how can you go wrong finding out who your future hubby might be? (Notice it assumes he will be a gentleman, though some of the choices of Circle III seem to be more for working class fellows.) Fortunately no one ever made use of it so it now occupies my collection.

I’m guessing this postcard falls under the humorous category, though the humor seems a bit dated to me, not surprising since it’s from the early twentieth century.

What lies behind the appeal of vintage images like these, or any vintage item for that matter? One line of thought seems to be that while some of it may be the inexpensiveness of second hand items, there may also be a psychological basis for it as well. It allows us to mentally connect with the past and serve as a source of comfort in unstable times. While I can’t say that is the reason I enjoy these images, they do harken back to a simpler time when things seemed a bit saner and much more human.

The little sketch I recently made of a ‘dippy hippie’ may not be quite vintage but does make me nostalgic for times now long gone. Will such times ever come again? I think so. Especially if you are willing make an effort to make it happen.

Peace.

The Perils Of Gardening

All of us dream of having a garden like this –

But wind up with something that looks like this –

Well, maybe not that bad. But with all the hungry critters and erratic weather, it’s not easy to produce something that’s even halfway between the above photos. So how does one ward off persistent fence crashers such as deer and woodchuck, the two large beasts that cause me the most trouble?

Put up fencing. Lots and lots of fencing.

Chicken wire is also a good defense. Here are some of my peas under a force field of chicken wire.

And some of my wax beans with fencing and wire mesh.

I found a wire mesh cage stashed up in the top of the garage when cleaning out the detritus of 50 plus years. It makes a nice wire cage for the bush squash I am trying out.

Will any of this be effective in making it possible to harvest some veggies later on in the summer? Only time will tell. Stay tuned.

****************
I am happy to report the sale of a third story to the quarterly magazine Into The Ruins.
Thank you Mr. Caris!

Old War Stories From The Hospital

My late mother worked for a number of years at the local hospital before rheumatoid arthritis finally side-lined her. Before that she often brought home tales of things she had encountered in the hospital, going into a fair amount of detail. The result of that has been my possessing a relative immunity to gross-out stories. Another result is a better appreciation of the difficulties of caring for patients and resolving to be a good one myself if and when the occasion arises. (Reality check: Well, I like to think so but probably not).

Her stories covered a wide range from the absurd to the tragic. She often recalled with amusement of the little boy (perhaps three or four), hospitalized for some ailment. He didn’t like where he was, didn’t like the nurses and especially didn’t like what they were doing to him. His favorite tactic (though probably not very effective) was to stand up in bed and threaten to pee on the nurses if they came near. Another story was the birth of a baby boy to a couple who had been long childless. It was generally agreed among the nurses that this was one of the homeliest babies they had ever seen. They nick-named him Mister Magoo because of his resemblance to the cartoon character. But as far as the delighted parents were concerned, he was absolutely beautiful.


Long ago our local hospital was the go-to place for mothers in labor from a number of the surrounding towns. One winter day a laboring mother was being driven frantically by her husband (this was before 911) when control of the car was lost and they wound up ejected into a snow bank. This saved them from being critically injured as this was in the days before seatbelts were mandated. The ambulance duly rescued them and brought the couple to the hospital. However it was then discovered the mother was no longer in labor for the simple reason that she had given birth. Where was the baby? This entailed an even more frantic drive back to the accident scene where the baby was found thankfully unharmed though a bit chilled in the snow bank. Delivery by auto-ejection.

One day my mother came onto her shift and noticed a new patient in one of the rooms, a man with his arm in a sling looking very, very glum. According to the other nurses, this particular gentleman had been partaking of the copious refreshments at the local Elks club which has a very well supplied bar. He became so intoxicated that he fell off his bar stool and in doing so, broke his wrist rather badly. He was immediately rushed up to the hospital. A problem arose after he arrived there, as he was convinced his injury was non-existent. He proceeded to demonstrate his wellness by flapping his hand back and forth, much to the horror of the nurses who could hear the broken bones in his wrist going *crunch*crunchety*crunch***! He was truly feeling no pain, a situation that corrected itself once he sobered up.

More bizarre was the patient who was brought in for frost-bite to his feet. He was an avid mountain climber who had over-estimated his endurance to cold. While he kept all his toes, his heavily callused feet soon showed the effect of the frost bite. The calluses began sloughing off in huge disgusting chunks, some quite thick. Apparently during the summer, this guy often walked barefoot, before it was fashionable to do so, building up quite a layer of calluses as a result. After this rather gruesome process had completed itself, it was discovered that underneath the skin was pink and healthy. It was theorized that because of their thickness the calluses had insulated his feet and kept the frostbite from being worse than it was. Nowadays we obsess about having soft smooth skin on our feet, fretting about the least little corn or callus we develop, forgetting that for countless ages we walked barefoot and got around just fine.

Because it was a hospital, tragedy was never far off. The most dramatic event that happened when my mother was still working was the derailment of one of the trains at the Cog Railroad back in 1967, when 8 people were killed and over 74 injured. The flood of patients that poured in severely tested the skills of the hospital staff. This was at a time before the modern day emergency medical training programs became a recognized specialty taken for granted today. Still the doctors and nurses rose to the challenge. My mother’s shift was usually 3:00 to 11:00 PM but because of the situation she worked straight through until the morning. It was something she always remembered for a long time afterwards with a sense of accomplishment.

It was in the late seventies (78 or 79) that she finally had to quit work due to her arthritis. In her later years there was one patient she helped care for just before she left who she always wondered about. A young man, a tourist up for the skiing, was brought in by a friend. He was very ill but the doctors were having difficulty diagnosing what was wrong with him. Although it wasn’t too openly talked about, it was understood by the nurses that both men were gay. Since the doctors were having no luck treating the young man, unable to even pin down what he was ill from, he was shipped down to a hospital in Boston, his eventual fate unknown. The question that was always on my mother’s mind was this a case of AIDS?

Since the first recognized cases of the disease in the gay population were noted in medical literature in June of 1981, it’s entirely possible AIDS was the source of this patient’s illness. Since 1981 was the year it was officially recognized, there were almost certainly early cases that came and went, the patients dying without it being suspected what was ailing them.

My mother had originally gone to nursing school before she was married but had to discontinue it, when her mother died suddenly and she returned home to assist her father in raising her other siblings. She subsequently returned to Littleton but met and married my father without picking up where she had left off in her nursing education. It wasn’t until after the stress of a hysterectomy and dealing with a mentally ill son that she finally went back to nursing as a way to cope and return to something that had been a dream of hers. She made many friends, both nurses and former patients and had many good memories about her nursing work. Oddly when I went looking for a picture of her in her nursing uniform (complete with little white hat) there was none to be found. She evidently never got around to posing for one. But I think the picture below captures her spirit well enough. Thanks Mom.