Drawing

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Recycled yarn

Before: imagine this op shop jumper is twins - I bought two of them for $1 each. Abercrombie & Fitch, womens size large (perhaps that's why they were in the op shop - this looks like a small to me!) with bonus gorilla arms, 40% lambswool/30% nylon/27% acrylic/3% polyester.

After: this is one of the jumpers deconstructed into its constituent yarn, and partly reconstructed into a pair of Bloke socks (yep, more socks! I'm still in need of sedatives, evidently). There are little navy blue squiggles of yarn throughout the house, turning up in the cat's food bowl, and even one or two magically transported into the backyard, byproducts of the unravelling process. Undoing a jumper is strangely satisfying, both in a destructive and constructive way: watching the progress of frogging versus the steady growth of the new balls of yarn. By the time I undo the second jumper I will have a surfeit of navy blue.

Let's take a little gaze into my crystal ball...ah, the mist is clearing...I see...navy blue knitting...socks for me, handwarmers, maybe a beanie...lots and lots of navy blue knitting!

Sedatives, mmmm...

What does one do when life seems beyond one's control and one is stressed out? This one knits.
Socks. You can never have too many handknit socks, right? I needed a project that was fast, relatively easy and very fun. And, bonus, not only did it suck up a good portion of the little scrap balls festering, er, breeding in the yarn crate but it calmed me right down. Hands busy, brain quiet = happy. These were done in three days of evening tv watching.

And then I knitted another pair :)

Doodle doodle doo

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Slough of despond

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Long time, no blog.

Unemployment sucks. I hit a really low patch and couldn't get motivated to do more than work at the two temporary part-time jobs I managed to find (one of which has now ended), and look for work. Looking for employment is like a full time job in itself: scanning the job sites/newspapers/cold calling (which is the worst of the lot). I did have one interview for a job I would have loved (again part-time, but I'll take what I can get), but didn't get it. Sending off applications for jobs that don't inspire me but which I could do (I'll work at just about anything), apparently into a black hole or a trans-dimensional portal, because very little gets acknowledged or responded to in any way. It's as if I'm talking to myself, or writing to myself. It's a little eerie and very discouraging.

Not much art happening, bar drawing-a-day (lots to update the blog with, there! Six or so weeks of drawing...), but I am thinking about stuff again. Painting. Drawings other than the little daily ones.

Just to top off my despond, my car broke down last week. All the coolant escaped and the poor beast almost died of thirst. She now has a new water pump and a secondhand radiator and is back on the road. The Bloke and I trawled the wreckers for the radiator. I quite like visiting the wrecker, it's a whole other world I didn't know existed until I met him. Dirty hulks lie rusting in huge yards, picked over and scavenged for parts, like a pack of predators have savaged them. Cars that have been in catastrophic crashes, cars that have just reached the end of their useful lives, cars that don't seem to have had much wrong with them on the surface. All washed up in dusty, greasy, rusty, festering, mouldering rows.

Actually, they're quite organised; each car is numbered and the remaining parts available entered in a computer database, which prints out a map of where in the yard each vehicle reposes. I was impressed! I'm not much use when it comes to the assessing of viable parts, and even less in tool wielding to remove said parts, but I took charge of navigation and equipment toting. Photography is forbidden (not sure why) but some car graveyard images would be interesting to have. I picked up a part-logo: FA. Falcon, perhaps. I may make it into a brooch. And I scavenged some of those little bulbs from rear brake lights - they look like they'd make
good glow-worms with the addition of some paperclay and wire (and maybe some glow-in-the-dark paint). Or wreck-worms.

Consumerism begone

The above is a fat quarter featuring cats in a fabric I didn't have - now added to the basketful of cat fabrics already in my collection. $2 from Bentleigh Market.

On the weekend I went to DFO, Direct Factory Outlet, looking for new saucepans. I haven't really been shopping in over two years, an economic move made necessary by the limited means available to me whilst living on a student allowance and little more. This enforced removal from the world of consumerism appears to have become an engrained habit. I wasn't enticed at ALL by any of the fripperies on offer, though I did look in the bookshop and at the Birkenstocks (ooh, pretty, oh my, look how expensive, quick, run away!). No saucepans within my budget, either, except at the really cheap warehouse place - one large 24cm pot purchased for a measly $10. I was quite surprised at the level of non-interest the place held for me. Shopping is no longer an entertainment to me, I couldn't get out of there fast enough :)

On the other hand, a trip to the Bentleigh market was more my speed. Trash and treasure, yep, bring it on. I bought three things for under $10 total. The fat quarter above, and the game below for $1 - I plan to re-paint it and turn it into an art piece, a book-like object. I've been looking out for a wooden version of something like this for a while; there are lots on card, but few wooden ones, particularly complete. This doesn't look played with much, or perhaps the previous owner took good care of it.

And a pair of embroidered shoes, too pretty to leave at $4 and just my size. I gave them a gentle hand wash and they're now nice and fresh. Of course, now the weather has turned to rain and I can't wear them. Yet.

Horn(y)

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I've been perusing a book of Aubrey Beardsley drawings - some of his sweeping lines and use of classical mythology is emerging in my own drawings. The horn'd beasts in particular.

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