Coloring in 2018

I had some time to play with chalk pastels this morning, and really liked the soft and blended colors. I have some more examples of colored in liturgical calendars on my instagram @la_balbirona with colored pencil, pantone markers and watercolor. You'll notice that all of them use pretty much all the colors of the rainbow, I just can't help it. I have to use them all. I admire a lot of artwork that is very subtle and tone on tone, using just one color in varying gradations to create a very pleasing and harmonious image, but that subtle and self-restrained ability just isn't within me. I think of my work as medieval-inspired, somewhere between stained glass, illuminated manuscripts and a painted gypsy wagon.
Happy coloring, whatever your style!
--LeeAnn

January 2018 Calendar Sketch

My notes on the month ahead.

January 2018 Sketch click here to download the PDF

Left in black and white for you to color.

There are more Epiphany customs than I could fit, including of course the one best known to Americans, the King Cake. This pastry ring is often filled with nuts and cinnamon sugar, covered with icing and colored sprinkles in purple, green, and yellow. A plastic baby Jesus figure (or similar token) is hidden inside, and the lucky person who discovers it in their slice of cake is the "king" for the year, or has to host the party next year, customs vary. This same cake is sold throughout the Epiphany to Mardi Gras season. However, this pastry always looks unappetizing to me, after all the sweets we've already had at Christmas--and store-bought versions are always off limits since I am a celiac--so I prefer to emphasize other Epiphany customs.

In my house, I am methodically putting Christmas decorations away. First the stockings, then the tree (it was dried out and making me nervous), next the nutcrackers, outdoor lights, and assorted seasonal knicknacks, and eventually, at Epiphany or Candlemas, the nativity scenes. My favorite this year is a blue and white china nativity set that I have sitting in the window with white tulips. My traditional nativity set is sitting in the kitchen window, where we can see it all day long as we wash dishes and prepare meals. The advent wreath with Christ candle will sit on the dining table to be lit daily until Epiphany (if the candles hold out) and then it will be recycled, as it's made from a tree round and cedar greens.

Lighting candles daily is important to me in these gray, dark, cold and wet days. Where I live the sun is now rising about 8:00 am and sets by 4:30 pm, and most days are cloudy, chilly and wet all the way through til after Easter. If the Narnia had had the weather of the Pacific Northwest, the phrase would have been "always November and never Winter (let alone Christmas)!" 

Have a blessed month of January!
~LeeAnn

So Much Life

Well, I didn't intend to take that many days off blogging in between posts. Just so many things happening, I didn't know where to begin.

First off, I decided to take "Advance" to heart and started researching again exactly which classes I needed to finish off my social studies endorsement. I have a B.A. in History already, but not enough US history to make a good high school history teacher.

I need a year of U.S. history, one class in Pacific Northwest history (a state requirement to graudate high school, usually completed in 8th grade), one American government class (POLS 202) and unfortunately one class in macroeconomics (ECON 202). I figure I will get the poli sci/econ stuff (which will be more of a struggle as some math may be required) out of the way first.

I have applied for admission at the local community college, which offers all these classes, and will do one class per quarter. Then, after that, I apply to the Masters in Teaching program which will take two years and get me a secondary endorsement in history/social studies. So, I'm going back to school in a couple months!

And then, ten days after I applied for registration, I got a job offer out of the blue. Part-time, which is perfect, and maybe with benefits, even better. So, now suddenly, I'm going back to school and working part-time. Well, gee, "Advance" was the right word for 2015 after all!

How will it all work out? One day at a time. I started thinking about Lillian Moller Gilbreth (the real life "Cheaper by the Dozen" mother) again and how she managed it all. She had eleven children when she was widowed and a professional business to take over as well as her husband's speaking tour. While she had a flawed perspective on some things (eugenics) she was truly amazing in many ways. I'm spending a little time re-reading her book "As I Remember" and a comprehensive biography written about her, "Making Time: Lillian Moller Gilbreth -- a life beyond Cheaper by the Dozen."

Gilbreth Family

One of my favorite quotes from her children's retelling of their lives goes something like this: "Mother was afraid of storms and would hide in the closet terrified, but when father died she stopped being afraid. The worst had happened and nothing would frighten her again." That's a loose paraphrase. I identified with that a lot though. When children are depending on you alone, you realize that there isn't time for being silly or stupid or fearful. You lose a lot of your fears when you compare how small they are to the big things you've already survived.

So, Advance! And welcome to the challenges of 2015. 

In the mean time, I went down two rabbit trails of research. It's relaxing.

1. I read through the lineage of the modern Japanese imperial family and drew a family tree. The emperor and empress are probably the world's cutest elderly couple.

Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko, 2015

As a long time fan of the British royal family, it is interesting to note the differences between them. The Japanese imperial family is much more confined and conservative--the women have a very peculiar formal court dress that is something in between modern and Victorian (why don't they wear traditional Japanese dress more often, I wonder?)--and very strict inheritance laws.

Imperial family at New Year's Day lectures.

There was a movement to allow girls to inherit a few years ago and then one of the emperor's grandsons finally had a son and so the issue was dropped. About fifty percent of the Japanese imperial family have no children, a few never married. Of those that have children, they are overwhelmingly girls. Very different than the European royals that almost always marry and have two or three children. I wonder how much is genetic and how much is self-restraint. After WW2, all Japanese nobility were disinherited and made commoners with the exception of the descendants of Emperor Taisho, the father of Hirohito (Emperor Showa), and all daughters of the emperor automatically become common once they marry (unless they marry a prince, who would have to be a cousin at this point, and unlikely, given the dearth of males in the family). I also learned that Japanese emperors and empresses are given new names after their death, in fact they have several names over a life time: a childhood name, an adult name, possibly a ruling name, a posthumous name.

2. I developed an interest in postage stamps--not particularly because of their collectible value, but rather as another way of sharing art and color with the world. I love the way Patrick at Edelweiss Post uses vintage stamps arranged by theme or color to make stationery sets. I am all eager now to see each new stamp the USPS releases, though the "forever" value makes them a little boring. I think collecting stamps of small value, the ten cent/five cent/two cent stamps, gives you more opportunities for artistic arrangement. Why? Just to add color and interest to a personal letter or greeting card.

Lillian Gilbreth on a US stamp.
I will have to be on the lookout for this one!

I've been trying to get into the habit of writing letters more often, especially to the friends and family who are rarely on facebook. It takes a knack to have a conversation at a slower pace and keep it from being ridiculous and redundant. My dad (out of state) likes to email, but it's fast, almost too fast. Once we've exchanged the news there's nothing to say for a week until there's new news. But when you write a letter, it's like the conversation just keeps going from week to week; there's a feeling of being able to take your time in what you want to say and not being perceived as rude for not answering in five minutes. (Do you do that in your instant messaging or texting also? Just delay the reply to slow down the conversation? I admit it, I do.)

In 2013 I made a big effort to send a lot of Christmas cards and inside I printed a short letter about the history of Christmas greetings and sending cards. I realized at that time that the card is the gift. There isn't a need for exchanging other gifts with friends at the holidays when the card is beautiful, well-made, and thoughtful.

 My virtual stamp collection of Washington State theme stamps. So far, I've managed to collect only the 4-cent Space Needle and 25-cent 1989 centenary stamps and a few tribal northwest coast Indian art stamps as well. Shocking to see how much postage has gone up in my lifetime! The 25-cent stamp was first class when I graduated from high school. This year, I believe it has increased to 49-cents.

Stamp collection and geneology...retro cool or middle aged? ;)

January in progress

The general mood of January in the Pacific Northwest is Sleepy. On most days, the skies are over cast and gray. It's a rare treat to have a sunny cold winter day with bright blue skies. It's a good time for indoor projects, like scrapbooking and drawing.

Baby born in winter's sleep,
Snowflakes fall, snuggle deep.
(Baby Born, Anastasia Suen & Chih-Wei Chang,1999)

Typical overcast evening in January.

My favorite places in my weather app: two for family out of state, and four of the best places in Washington. Almost every place is cold and dreary right now. Supposedly, January 15, St. Hilary's Day, marks the end of the coldest days on average.

Not quite fifty, but several shades of gray.

The Christmas decorations have been taken down. I actually started early (for me) this year, on New Year's Eve. It felt like time to clear away the clutter, however cheerful and colorful it can be, and create clear spaces and a simpler view for the new year. I left the outdoor lights turned on until the twelfth day of Christmas (Jan. 6) and now we are just waiting on a clear dry day to take them off the fence. After this coming Sunday's celebration of the Baptism of Jesus (Jan. 11), five Sundays of Ordinary Time follow before we suddenly find ourselves in Lent.

Where we are in the Year

I'm working on a new drawing, possibly the first in a calendar series. One of the interesting traditions associated with New Year is First Footing. In Scotland, the first guest to set foot in your house in the new year brings the luck with him or her. We haven't had a true guest in the house since Christmas (my parents) and no visitors inside the house at all until Tuesday this week. I guess we aren't as social as traditional Scots. In the "old country," this first guest was a planned event and was greeted with a festive night of toasting to the new year. I can barely stay awake for midnight. I can't imagine starting a party at that hour. But I think that's the way it is with many celebrations like that, they really only happen for an individual once in a while, few people celebrate a tradition every year without fail. And that's perfectly okay.

JANUARY (in progress)

The girl on the left is based on a photo of my 11 year old daughter and the four bubbles are to feature four famous men of interest to me that have birthdays this month: Mozart, Robert Burns, A.A. Milne (well, I thought Pooh Bear, his creation, was more recognizable than Mr. Milne), and Martin Luther King Jr., in order of the year they were born. I should have added Ben Franklin, but realized too late that he is also a January man. [Have you ever thought about why famous men and women are honored on their birthdays but saints are honored on their death days? (Only three saints' birthdays are celebrated: Jesus, Mary, and St. John the Baptist.) There are lots of famous deaths of non-saints, of course, but when future generations come around to celebrate the life of that person, it is usually on the day of their birth, not the day of their death. I'm trying to think of examples that don't fit this pattern. I will have to come back to it.] The center drawing is a PNW take on the Epiphany, with the three wise kings coming upon a small house in the woods (Nazareth, WA?) and Mt. Pilchuck and the Cascade Range behind. I want to tie all these elements together with some quotes around the drawing and then frame it up in a square border. 

Ongoing Project: a scrapbook of ideas and pictures and journaling for 2015. I had fun picking out a new binder, paper and creating a cover. This is where I'm going to store all the little bits of memorabilia over the year. Things that don't belong in our family photo album, or in the very practical Household Hub Notebook, will go here. I had kind of given up on reading magazines because I just ran out of time to look at them, but now I'm excited to pick out a few and clip and glue in my favorite images and short articles.

My 2015 Yearbook ala By Sun and Candlelight

 The Household Hub Notebook was set up originally by my professional organizer friend Monika and I've kept it up for five years now. I go through it maybe three times a year. In here I put things like business cards, class schedules, doctor's referrals, warranties, any kind of necessary paper that I need to hold onto for a while. I don't put things in here like bank statements or utility statements, those go into my long-term file box until they can be purged (every 7 years).

At my desk.

The carnations and tulips are still looking fine. I switched out the nativity scene for a Stewart plaid serviette (that's fancy-speak for paper napkin).

If it's not Scottish, it's...ahem.

Scottish Heritage Days
Hogmanay - Jan. 1
Burns Night - Jan. 25

National Tartan Day - April 6
Highland Games - summer
St. Andrew's Day - Nov. 30

In a year, I usually manage to do something fun for one of these days, never all of them, lest you think I am an over achiever. I've still never been to a Burns Night supper, but some day I will, when I don't have to worry about finding babysitting and driving an hour or more to the closest event. Well, there is January, so far! Opera next week and a museum visit, I hope.