Days are too short, and that’s a good thing. They’re the right kind of long.

It seems there is  an endless supply of problems to be solved and improvements to be made. So they must be attended to.

I am not familiar with Windows Server 2012 S2 but it appears I will have to chip away at my general ignorance of that operating system.

Meanwhile I’ve fallen behind. Like I mentioned, the days are short.

The poor red Europa is no further ahead today than yesterday. Meanwhile the Land Rover is looking more like a future transmission job. With that rig, the tranny pulls out from the cab. I remove the floor, the seats, and the seat box. I think. Funny how when the cars share a garage, they copy each other. When the BMW was there, it and the Land Rover both needed radiator work. Now the transmission has been out of the Lotus and the Land Rover has apparently taken note of it.

I’m not sure how I made so little progress during the waking hours but that changed in the late afternoon when I went to sketch Larissa and Kayla.

Live sketches are an exercise I’ve allowed myself to avoid perfecting and it’s a shame. I am pretty sure that the better art will derive from live sketch work. If nothing else, getting it right will force me into good habits and better expression. I don’t like how poorly I now perform in that arena but at the same time my gut feeling is it’s exactly where I need to be.

Enter on stage Larissa and Kayla who were available this afternoon.

Kayla was first on the chair. Another picture I’m working on made me want a certain pose, but we tried several just the same. In every one she was beautiful. The more we tried different angles the more I wanted to do a face only sketch or head and shoulders. I started a full form sketch and compromised with myself start over and do her face from the side. That’s only a compromise because straight on eyes to eyes is better. I hope to get that sketch later.

She couldn’t be distracted. Even when her little brother tried to pull her into another room to play she resisted responding. It’s no small feat considering that this cut into her play time outside.

Progress wasn’t slow in coming. There was a point where I decided to stop fiddling around and put in bold lines and let the chips fall where they might. I’d been timidly developing the composition as if this were a studio sketch where all the time in the world is available. It’s not. Studio work just masks it. Here, I have to turn the work into the equivalent of a conversation as opposed to the speech that a studio drawing becomes.

Reactive, immediate, and fresh. Those are the desired qualities. When I did the bold lines it came together quickly.

Kayla wanted her name snuck into the sketch in numerous places. I gave it a try. With that i added a hamster, hearts, a bird, and a snowflake. Their bird is named Snowflake. The hamster was brought out to pose for me. The trick was to add all those things without degrading the sketch and i think it worked. She requested a signature. I asked her to sign it too and just our luck, she’d recently designed a signature she was happy with so that’s what she wrote.  She held it up so I could photograph it and then I handed it over.

I do wish I had it overnight at least though so I could touch it up in the morning if there were a need, but it’s hers and she has it in hand.

It’s interesting to me that once again, what I see while sketching is different than what my phone camera sees.

I took a picture with the phone camera to compare

The dim light always makes the camera ratchet up the contrast

After I snapped a photo of the drawing, we added the little extras. She’d enjoyed when I added that to the big drawing of the family and wanted something similar embedded in this one. Rather than risk unbalancing the drawing I added a neck and sleeve treatment that looked like nice clothing design and all the little goodies were added in those. her name is written there numerous times.

Next up was Larissa, who wanted an Indian theme. She had a banket with pattering that would remind one of New Mexico indigenous art forms. She thought it might be wise to let her hair down and I agreed. To make it curl her mom had braided and wound it up somehow and she wasn’t around so Larissa tried loosing the hair. Reluctantly she allowed her father to try. Then she let me try. None of us could unlock the hair and she would not let us cut the bands that held it all together. Her mom arrived and took care of it.

Meanwhile her dad left. At that, her littlest brother began crying and Larissa was distressed to hear his anguish. She hid her face in her hands.

She wasn’t crying. She just didn’t like the poor lad’s tears. They’re close.

So I showed the kids a routine I used to do with mine when they were little. I don’t know why little children like it so much but they  get a kick out of it and even Kayla gave it a whirl. Then she showed us all a gymnastics move she can do. Suddenly, the little guy who had been crying showed up standing in front of me wanting to do what the other kids had done.

I grabbed his hands and crossed them. Then I flapped his arms up and down a few times and did the chant, “Swing your partner round and round, swing em swing em swing em round!” and pulled him around by one arm  and he almost got dizzy and started laughing. He wanted several rounds of the same and was just as gleeful every time.

So Larissa got her hair back and also her happy disposition. Instead of just being curly, her mane was sufficient for two heads. I’ve not seen such a full head of hair.

We got to work. We lost a lot of time to the hair project so the clock ran out on us with the drawing. Larissa had many ideas about how the final composition could be dressed up nice. I took a few phone camera pictures and between those and the sketch I should be able to finish at home.

After a stretching break. See her brother sketching along side me.

What it treat! I needed that. Life sketching something I ought to be doing several times every week, if not every day.