My father fought in the Korean War, and for the past three years I have been making quilts in his honor for Veterans. I am taking my Dad with me to a new fight regarding North Korea. Peace.

Nuclear War is not a fixable choice. The @POTUS sham summit with North Korea, the slap in the face of Veterans, the treasonous salute to a N.K. General - well, my father respected peace more than war.

Off and on throughout my art career I have drawn / painted pears. Like Vincent and his sunflowers, for me, pears reflect our condition in our environment. With my epilepsy and PTSD being worse right now due to strains inflicted by this administration, I'm going to focus on pears for a while. Oil pastels are almost a perfect medium if you have one subject you want to depict. I have a set of 60 Sennelier Oil pastels - consistent colors for a series of Pears. On 5 x 7 canvas panels.









Number 720 "Orange Pear" (c) laeom

I have been doing so many different projects, I have not had time to blog!. I am working on clay statues of our animals, using Roma Plastilina professional clay.  I have just finished one of my son's dog Bailey, and am finishing one of our cat Ceasar. Photos to follow.

I have also been working with fiber arts, generally knitting spools circles that become paintings. One project that has been waiting is my metalpoint drawings.  I have several, on marbledust and wood, that I have wanted to either tint with water color, paint in oil, or some other method of bringing the metal drawings into the realm of color.  I have decided to do this with oil pastel.  I use all types of oil pastels- Cray Pas, Gallery, Cray Pas Expressionist, Caran D'Ache, and Sennelier.  And, for Mother's Day, my son just bought me a wonderful box of Senneliers.!!!

This is the 50 color wood box set, from Dick Blick.  I can't wait til they get here! Sennelier makes the softest oil pastels, and they are luxurious! I generally use them for a top layer, and use other less expensive (harder) oil pastels for the underneath layers of color.  Below is "The Look" (c) laeom, oil pastel on marbledust and rabbitskin glue on wood, 6" x 6".  This is our cat Moochie aka Munchkin.

This was done mostly in Sennelier oil pastels. Oil pastel is a wonderful way to express! THANKS to my son, a wonderful Mother's Day gift!

I Pledge Allegiance

Knit American

New Look

While beginning to knit socks for my quilts for veterans sets, I realized all of my yarns are foreign although they are sold in America by American companies. Yes I did some screaming at Lion Brand Yarn because I am in shock they do not make but 3 of their yarns.

I am going to be focusing on hand spinning wool and knitting socks using American-made tools. Supporting American industries, whether sheep farmers or cotton growers is very important.

My artwork is currently sculpture of my animals and I will add posts here about those as well.

Saving Edward

One thing that happens with any type of metalpoint drawing is that the drawing fades.  For example, I gave my sister a drawing of a pear done in gold. It has faded out to be almost invisible.  That is because the metal interacts with the atmosphere, giving off particles.  Some metals fade faster than others, some, like aluminum, hardly fade.  I thought this was mainly apparent with gold, and I don't work in gold often.  However, when unpacking and checking some of my artwork, I found that some of my copperpoint drawings are fading.

Originally, metal was used for drawing before a painting was completed, being the original under-drawing of an oil or egg tempera painting. Some artists, but not many, work strictly in metal as a finished piece, and that was my position when I did many of my metal drawings.  But I don't want to lose Edward.  Edward is a character I have drawn a couple of times, and now he is fading.  I am going to paint him in oil over the copperpoint, and will do the same for some of my palest drawings.  Edward, fading, is on marbledust and rabbitskin glue on wood, and the surface the drawing is on can affect the fading effect.  "Chinese white" or Winsor and Newton Designer's Gouache in Zinc White give a surface that has slightly less fading.  Below is Edward, copperpoint:

and below are some other examples of copperpoint and fading:

Wait til you see these in color!

Update: I do love drawings in copperpoint, but I did have to save these from fading.  Below are "Edward" and "Best Face Forward" in their initial oil color layers:

I will be adding a few more layers of color before these are finished.

Update: July 31, 2017  Finished with "Edward" and "Best Face Forward" - copperpoint under oil under crayon, on wood. (c) laeom

For the first time, I am trying a replacement ant gel for my Uncle Milton's Gel Ant Farms.  I purchased the gel from Antgel and it was very easy to make.  The ants arrived today, and have been placed into the farms.  This will be an interesting experiment as to whether the replacement gel is as good for the ants as the original gel in Uncle Milton's farms. I have made a short video from today:  

New Ants Arrive- and Go Into Replacement Gel Farms

In a new video, I talk about using crayons and the coloring of an American Flag image, bith for stress reduction and for taking back your own sense of America.  

Coloring For Stress Reduction

And of course, crayons are wonderful for fine art as well:

"Pear No. 31" Simply Art Beeswax Crayons on paper (c) laeom