updated blog

www.roadsparrow.blogspot.com  Check it out.  Finally some pictures.  Some boat news, some art, some stories. 

Love,
Rachael

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Catch up on photos, and short boat update

Jason at paintball, shot by his good friend Phil. He didn't even know there was someone still left on the other team. It looked bad for quite a while, blood and everything.

The booties I knitted, cute little pointy elf toes. Can you see that they really have a heel?

The Renaissance outfits that Carol got for her and Russ.

My Ren outfit, not the best picture of the cape, but we're showing off Jason's new hat and vest.

POINTY HOOD!

And since I'm at it I can try to get you caught up on this past week. Basically it was none stop. I was schedule to work 9 hrs a day. Saturday, Nov 29 was Jason's Birthday, it was also his mom's best friend's 50th birthday so we went out for dinner and dancing. Sunday night was B.B. King for the grand opening of the Durham Performing Arts Center. We were pretty high up but it was neat to be in the presence of a blues legend. Wednesday we were back at the Center for Lewis Black, an angry comedian yelling about politics, we laughed hysterically. That night I did find out that there were extra tickets to the hockey game Hurricanes vs. Penguins. So Jason and I went to that with a bunch more people. Someone has season tickets, nice seats. I thought it was a bit ironic, my second hockey game and I've never been to one in Minnesota.

I got my bike all tuned up and with saddle bags. The guy at Back Alley Bikes sold me used water proof saddle bags for $40. I don't know if that was each, or together, either way he said they are usually over $100. I don't know, I LOVE them. I can haul everything with me, my bike looks all cool, I have a functional mode of transportation. My busy week caught up with me on Friday when I forgot to turn my alarm on so I missed the bus and the bike was in the shop. Dreya let me take her bike which made me only 10 min. late instead of the half hour I would have had waiting for my bus.

Yesterday I finally got to go to the really really free market. It's the first Saturday of every month. Everyone brings whatever stuff they want to get rid of and everyone is free to pick through everything else. There is no strings attached. It's awesome. I got all sorts of goodies then decided to bring the things that my boss had given me that I didn't want. I ended up bringing two loads of stuff home. I got a wine rack that holds nearly all our wine - did you know that Dreya and I had bought two cases? I got a sweatshirt, tank top, wrap around shirt, a cool curtain rod with blown glass balls at the ends, and a navy blue polo shirt. Which, for those of you don't get the joke, that was Jason's and my kitche uniform down in Antarctica. I wore it when I came over to Jason's this morning, complete with my old bandana head scarf. Perfect. I am really glad to have that shirt. It totally puts me in the mood for cleaning. My boss has given me a stoneware lasagna pan, a nice 5 or 6 candle holder, one of those that would sit on a mantle. Dreya has brought home big glass jars from work so I've been able to do some rearranging in the cupboards.

I didn't feel like I accomplished much this week, it was really just a flurry of activities and lots and lots of fun. This coming week I have a normal 40 hr week so I plan to get more done. I signed up for another class - writing. It's at the community center. I've also signed up for InDesign which is the computer program that will help me layout my book the way I want. I don't think I'll sign up for any more classes though. Once I finally did the math I realized that the Community Ed classes are $20 a lesson, not that great of a deal.

On Friday I met our new nurse at the Neurology clinic, Bethany (my old room mate's name), and then at the Art Center the girl that works there and who also waits on us at Carrborito introduced herself and her name is Mandy (the name of a super good friend that I worked with in Antarctica). The owner of the bike shop is Jason and his mechanic helper is Ben (one of my brother's), how ironic is all that? I met them all pretty much this weekend.

Saturday night was Yo Mamma's Big Fat Booty Band. They are a really dancing sort of band, big hats, funky costumes, and they didn't close down till 1 am. It was greay. I danced the whole night in an outfit made from the free market, a reversable house dress from the 60s with a red and white floral pattern. I certainly felt funky. Dreya dressed up like a James Bond villianess. She had the big jewelry, leaopard print, and cleavage. It was an awesome night.

For those of you that aren't my family I'll tell you what my family sent me. So, for Thanksgiving I wrote everyone a letter using some old packing paper that looked like paper bag material so eveyone sent me an envelope of letters and drawings and they all used various scraps of paper. I have notes written on plastic bags, a napkin, a kleenex, a magazine page, paper bags. . .a pile of recyclables. It was funny and sweet and cute.

Next Friday is another band, then another on Saturday. I have to go to coffee night on Tuesday, but other than that, so far it's a pretty mild week, it's just that December is counting down and I need to get focused. I have a bunch of paintings to look at and try to fix. I'll show you those as well.

Boat Update:

I got to talk to Dad yesterday, (for the rest of this update I'll refer to him as Randy since that how most everyone else knows him). It turns out that the guy that sent him to the Bahamas was trying to get him to work on a very large boat. Randy had one money boat in the garage that he was working on restoring this past year but there is a whole new project that only fits in the barn. Randy said that the only place he could work on it was in the barn and the only way he would do that is if the barn was heated, and not out of his own pocket. Well, the guy agreed to the deal and now Randy has an insulated heated barn with folding doors and a huge furnace. His very own shop. How cool is that??? Well, this means that Randy has agreed to restore this giant boat, about a two year project. Which means that he can't go sailing yet. That means that he'll be finishing up his boat in the new heated space, finishing the boat that was in the garage, and starting the new restoration project this winter. Randy also has a new assistant, my brother Ben. Ben tells me that the car dealership that he was working at closed down so now he's working for Randy. So, once again Ben is thinking of sailing with Randy! YAY! It's too bad that Randy doesn't get to go off sailing around the world next summer but he will be sailing next summer around Lake Superior and saving up money for the big voyage in summer 2010.

What this means to me is that I have a place to be for at least another year. I can try to get hired on at the hospital, I can continue to nestle in at Dreya's, I can continue to get involved in my community and I don't have to wonder about plans for a long time. I can work from project to project, and they are lining up. I have the paintings to make for Becky, bowls to design and paint with Rachael - the Rachael that I met at the Carrboro Art Crawl, and I have scrapbooking to work on in a major way. It's so exciting. Next summer I hope to sail with Dad a little and see how things have changed.

Paintings for Becky - very first peek

I don't know if you know the story but Becky bought me 100 sheets of watercolor paper. In return I told her I would paint her 10 paintings from which she could choose two. This is what I have so far. Please note that these are all in progress or are not what I will present her with as final 10. I will take you on a little tour
"cheery blossom" That's the idea I was going for, the black slash got way too curly and is unhelpful in the painting, the pink is too busy, and too much like a blob. I like it better cropped down like in the first photo and I think that is how I will end up presenting the painting later. I would like to try this concept again but with more angled lines and more wet looking color.I was trying to do Kentucky inspired landscape with abstract. This is still a work in progress. It's a little loose, too much the same green but I'm not quite sure where to tone down or if I should brighten stuff, should I add more colors and where? I tried adding the red in the background but it doesn't quite go together right. I like the idea. I'd like to work on it some more. I like the composition, I just want to have a better plan for the colors. I would like to do one in yellows and blues that mix together to make greens. Maybe that would be the simplicity and complex coming together. I would also like to try one with the fences white. The fences should fade out in the background.I'm just not sure if this is the sort of picture that Becky was going for. I first tried pouring on colors which I would then slash big streaks of black through but when I was supposed to add the black I couldn't decide where to put it. Now I think I might try turning this into an abstract horses head, very close up. You can see the eye in the upper right corner. Hopefully with the loose lines I could make it look like it was in motion and racing. I think that this painting is too bright for Becky's office. I like that there is lots of white. My priority is to make something for her law office.
This was one of the mix colors. I painted the black on first which was a lot easier to work with but I still feel like I didn't have a plan for the colors. I liked that I was muting the colors down more instead of always the bright primaries. Becky had talked about earth tones, sea foam green, a burnt red, and I want to narrow it down and focus more on those colors

I painted the black as Kentucky inspired fence lines, still trying to keep it very abstract but I think the fence line theme is still pretty obvious, then I tried to use more warm colors and with the greens and all. It's. . .ok. Nothing very dynamic. It looks like a pattern instead of an abstract painting.This is a true Chinese character. I think it mean success and completion or something. I plan on this being two paintings, so these are two images as a pair. When it's cut apart I want to try flipping the designs around and seeing what I get. Still pretty blah. For the time I put into it it's not all that interesting.


This is hard to distinguish. This painting is still on the board and it's a long narrow painting. The yellow above is not part of it. I was just curious what Becky thought of the very square rough pattern. I have plans for this, something more scrap book-y, more colors, more contrasts. I want the squares to be more like frames and colors on paper cutouts that don't stay in the frames. This seems to be deviating away from plans for Becky but I had the intention of making it Kentucky inspired again. I was trying to represent a fence line. I want to have images of horses and racing inspired images in the frame work. You might be able to make out the little horse head I quickly painted. This would be more detailed but it's not all bold and strong.

Then I tried putting some of my paintings together as one. Now we have something. On their own they don't make sense but together they have the black slashing through and being broken up by the borders. I might try some more of this style but it's harsh. I think Becky wanted more calming. I have two more phases I want to try, one is bright flat colors with racing themes. I have some photos of horses heads, jockeys, race tracks. I think I'll calm down the colors a little bit but they will be more blocky.

After that, if Becky liked the landscape I want to work on those. So, any suggestions? I'm not taking any criticism comments, only from Becky, she's the boss, I am finding plenty on my own. I just want inspiring ideas on how to improve, things to try. What sort of images say "Rebecca, fabulously successful lawyer and awesome person, she will take good care of you and everything will be all right"? That's the message I'm trying to give. I started by breaking down the message but like I said, I think the black and the slashes is to harsh. Maybe in big numbers and more color, more spaced apart, the black and colors will change and have a calming affect since they don't make any sense. Security in numbers. Let me know, I am looking forward to all suggestions.