Thursday, November 18, 2010


Medium: HB Pencil

Tuesday, November 16, 2010


Medium: Pencils F, HB and 2H

Monday, November 15, 2010


Medium: HB Pencil

Friday, November 12, 2010

Garden Sprawl Friday



The last of the hot peppers. When I went outside the other night there was some frost, so the next day I took everything, even the nubs. And I replanted some good-sized pieces of the horseradish that I dug up a couple weeks before. I still haven't planted the garlic. There's much that needs to be done.

Thursday, November 11, 2010


Medium: Pencils 2H and HB

The holy card was sitting there while I was drawing the fruit, so I just included it. Started it yesterday and finished this evening.

Tuesday, November 9, 2010


Medium: HB Pencil

Monday, November 8, 2010


Medium: HB Pencil

Sunday, November 7, 2010

From The Diaries of Evelyn Waugh

Saturday 31 January 1931

Seminary. Dutch Father Superior, fine beard. Good woodwork by brother. Two-storeyed concrete building on site of first mission. Eight years' training to be priests. Three ordained. Laboratory with anatomical models, telegraph apparatus, etc.

Tabora school. Huge two-storeyed concrete building. Arcaded outbuildings for native teachers, old buildings, farm, etc. Bad soil. One class typing. Boys wore uniforms of khaki caps, vests and shorts. Band drilled by KAR sergeant-major.

Saturday morning school court. Honour boards with one boy a year's name. Dais. Carved shield-back chairs. We sat on dais with prefects, school on floor. Prefect of week shouts out 'Shari' (case). Three urchins called out accused of smoking. No defence. Laid on floor, held down, and given two strokes each with cane by sergeant who salutes after beating. Loud cries in most cases. A larger boy accused of refusing to plough field. Said he didn't hear order. Witnesses called. Prefects discuss case and sentence him four strokes. An announcement made that epidemic of mumps in town over. Then we go out.

Went to Indian cinema with commercial traveller. Old Charlie in transition stage Keystone - Goldrush. Polishes his nails before meals. Food stolen. Eats grass with salt and pepper and delicacy, rinses fingers. In the end handsome lover turns up and Charlie goes off. Followed Indian film; fairy story; very ornamental. Beautiful girl greeted with shouts (no women in building) and is led from her bed to precipice and thrown over. 'That is her dream.'* Supposedly beautiful youth gazes at her. 'He wants to take her into the bushes.' Later elephant with drunken attendant. 'That is an elephant.' Elephant escapes, wicked robber attempts entrap heroine. Her father dies saying he has never kept promise to irrigate desert, etc.

*Comment(s) by Waugh's Indian companion

Saturday, November 6, 2010

Friday, November 5, 2010


Medium: Pencils F, H and HB

Garden Sprawl Friday

The Boss and I have grown a few crops on some land he leases - about four acres; and to start this year we did not even grow on a third of that. For one, this was the first time growing on this field, and we wanted to start small, sort of to just get a gist of things without making a big production. Second, we have the landscaping to do, so we wouldn't have a whole lot of time to do harvesting.

We had it to the teeth with just the small planting we did, keeping on top of the beans; they have to constantly be picked. We sold to some farms and caterers. The beans were top quality. Our plan for next year is to grown more, and to get into the farmers markets, selling directly to people. We grew some lemon cucumbers as well as the beans.

And, as one can see in the following pictures, pumpkins. All the pumpkins were from seeds I saved from approximately twelve or nine pumpkins which I grew in the backyard (their purity was kept intact). I did a post on that, which can be found here. They are the heirloom, Rouge Vif d'Etampes, or commonly known as the "Cinderella", pumpkins. They didn't get as red as least year, due to the cooler season and later planting, but many were quite bigger, which was likely due to the soil being tilled for the first time.

My mind still boggles at the inundation of pumpkins (more than we know what to do with) that came from the seeds from those nine or so pumpkins (the pictures don't get across how many pumpkins, as the leaves and vines hide them). I didn't plant all the seeds but made sure to keep a good quantity to plant again next year in a location where cross-pollination won't happen. In an adjoining field some other kinds of gourds were grown, so the risk is too great that the seeds in these pumpkins will not grow true to type.









Some medium to smaller-sized ones:




The St. Michael icon, further along





Three previous stages can be found here, here and here.

Wednesday, November 3, 2010


Medium: B Pencil

Monday, November 1, 2010


Medium: F Pencil