Happy Holidays from Anne and some pigs...

I've done my playing. Now I must clean. Hope everyone is enjoying their holidays! I think you'll have to click on my picture to see what it says.

Elephants

I already posted these elephants on the old blog, but just thought I'd post them here too. I wish I would have seen that 60 Minutes elephant segment! It is cold. Too cold, in fact, for me to go to my friend's house for movie night tonight. She called earlier and invited me, but I wimped out. When I got home from work tonight, I just wanted to stay in. Call me party pooper or whatever else would describe someone that won't go out and have fun because the elements get in the way. It really would have been nice to see my friend had it not been so cold. We used to have movie night every Sunday night, but we were both so busy with class this fall, that we had to take a movie night break. Damn cold.

Speaking of the cold and snow, I did something ridiculously idiotic tonight. I got a ride to and from work today, so I have not taken my car out all weekend and it was still covered with snow. So, when I got home from work tonight, I decided to brush off the snow. The whole time I was brushing off this snow, I was carrying my book bag and was completely unaware that snow was drifting into the bag. I didn't open my book bag until about an hour after I came inside and when I did, I discovered, to my horror, that there was a puddle in my bag and several water damaged books. I would say probably about $60.00 to $70.00 worth of damage, in fact. Why did I have to check out so many hard covered books today?!

The Cutest Baby Hippo Ever!

I know I'm usually a rhino kind of girl, but this is way too cute not to share. Long live pachyderms!

Nachos Navidad and a Rhino

It wouldn't be the holidays if I didn't discuss Nachos Navidad. I have had the television on so infrequently in the past month that I actually have only seen the Nachos Navidad commercial once. And I live for the Nachos Navidad commercials! I'm not going to post a picture of Nachos Navidad as by now you probably know what they look like: basically a dumping of beef, re-fried beans, a couple of dollops of sour cream, a heaping of guacamole and possibly three black olives all nestled atop red and green chips. Anyway, as I don't eat beef I have never tried Nachos Navidad, but they certainly make me take notice every year.

I have been away from the blogosphere these past days, but I'm going to try not to stray again for the time being. I have had to do some shopping (which I hate) and have had to spend some time at work (which I also hate). Tomorrow I will be doing neither (which I love), so hopefully I will do some cleaning and more importantly, some drawing. I did do a tiny bit of drawing this morning as you can see here. I realized that I have ended many a class with a rhino drawing and I didn't do that this time, so I thought: "why not? I'll draw a rhino."

Something Cute

I just thought I'd post a cute sketch, since nothing else about today seems cute. Being cold isn't cute or funny or fun in any way. It is 60 degrees in here and as I don't have a snuggie blanket, my arms are cold. I slept covered with 3 quilts and was toasty warm last night, so it was a bit shocking to wake up to the iciclic (my made up word for today) temps in here. Anyway, at least my computer keeps my lap warm. Now I have to try to prepare myself for going outside. I don't wanna... Nobody should live in a climate that produces subzero temps. It's just not natural.

Oh, and one more thing: I remembered how to knit! I tried about a month ago and I couldn't do it. I think my brain was probably too fried from school at that time to recall unused skills. I tried again on Sunday and it all came back to me. So, I am now the proud owner of a new scarf and have another option for X-mas gifts. Now I have to go outside for real. No more stalling.

Sleeping Piggies

I painted these piggies quite some time ago and thought they very accurately depict how I have spent my day, so far. Yes, I know it's only 10:30 (which reminds me that I need to adjust the time that appears on this blog), but I've been up since 8:00 and have not left the couch. In fact, my computer and I have been snuggled together like two pigs in a blanket. And yes, I am wearing a real blanket too, but not a snuggie. I think I have too much pride to use a snuggie blanket of any sort. Yes, my arms get cold, but blankets should not have sleeves. It just isn't right.

I need to do my computer proficiency thing sometime today. I have to do this ridiculous thing before I can graduate. The thing is so old that the links it tells you to click on don't even exist anymore. And anyway, how the hell does St. Catherine think I could have completed her Master's program without knowing how to create and send documents. Just one more hoop to jump through...

Edited to add that I just ate a big piece of chocolate cake for breakfast. It was the best breakfast I have had in a long time! Mmmm

Goodbye St. Catherine

Sketch removed because the artist thought it was too crappy




Well, I don't particularly like this sketch, but it is the only one that I did tonight so I will post it. This is my sketchy copy of Caravaggio's St. Catherine of Alexandria. I don't think she is the same Catherine that my school was named after (I think that one is French), but she is a St. Catherine nonetheless, so she could have a kinship with the correct one. I don't think I would like to be saint. To be a saint, one would have to act all saintly and where's the fun in that? I don't even really respect saints as they seem to just be the self righteous types who go around thinking "I have suffered so--now make me a saint." Or maybe not. Sometimes they have schools named after them, but schools are places of suffering, so who wants to bear the responsibility of making students suffer from generation to generation? Not me. I think there was a St. Anne or two that suffered at some point in our world's history. They can bear the torch. I will continue to behave in a non saintly manner. I will end this post by saying : Goodbye St.Catherine. It's been a long journey and you have made me suffer from time to time, but mostly you have been o.k.. Leaving you is somewhat bittersweet, but mostly I'm ready to move on and let other worship at your altar.

Hooray! Paper has been sent on its way!

Slacking the Morning Away and a Vermeer sketch

Yes, as my title proudly (well, not so proudly, I suppose. More like stupidly...) proclaims, I have been slacking the morning away. I got up early to work on the paper and haven't typed a word yet. What have I been doing? Reading stuff and watching videos on the Internet. Oh, and I did have a bit of time to work on this sketch. This is my version of Girl Interrupted at Her Music by Johannes Vermeer. I don't like this one as much as a lot of his other paintings because it includes a man. Don't get me wrong--I am not a man hater. I just always feel like there is sort of an ick factor in his paintings of men and women together. It's always like the man is dominating the woman (or girl, in this case) in some way. I am sort of wondering if this is supposed to be the music teacher with his pupil. If that's the case, double ick. Ick ick! I just decided to sketch this because I wanted to relax while I was not working on my paper and the Vermeer book just so happened to be on the floor in front of my couch. This was one I had never tackled before. I do love Vermeer's paintings and he always did an especially lovely job of portraying women having quiet contemplative moments as they go about their daily activities, but you have to wonder about his attitudes toward male/female relationships. And I suppose you could say he was a product of his time. In his day, women basically had three choices: they could be a wife and mother, they could be a maid, or they could be a prostitute. Anyway, the fictional vampires that I'm writing about have more respect for women than Vermeer's men. I suppose I should get back to writing about them, shouldn't I?

Yet Another Blog

Yes, I have created yet another blog because I do heart blogging and I also heart avoiding homework. Blogging is a good homework avoidance activity. As you can see, this blog is not specifically a drawing blog, but I will always post drawings in my blogs because I heart drawing and it feels natural to post drawings. It's what I've always done. The above drawing was done for last week's weekend drawing event at wetcanvas.com. I did the drawing because I was avoiding homework. What will I do next week when I no longer have homework to avoid?