Now and then I realize that I need to practice drawing—as my skill in that area is challenged, to say the least. I like to draw and sketch at bedtime, when I’m snuggled in for the night. With water soluble ink pencils at hand, it’s a pleasant way to spend an evening before nodding off.
When drawing, I strive for the incongruous—and I don’t have to try too hard to achieve something a bit over the top, or offbeat, for two reasons:
1) Incongruities appeal to my benignly rebellious nature—“benign” meaning that I’m not militant. But we Longeneckers have never been big on conformity.
2) Incongruities are about the best I can do! So it figures that bottles can be as big as the furniture in my paintings, that a bird bath might wander indoors, and that cattails will grow in the carpet. By the size of the bottle and glass, you might deduce that wine is huge in our lives, but actually we don’t do wine. I simply like the bottles*. My friends and relatives are ever reminded to save their empties for me—especially if a blue bottle is available. And glasses go with the bottles, right? 🙂
The above happy (and sappy) domestic scene was made with water soluble ink pencils, watercolor paint, and my highly esteemed SHARPIE® markers with ultra-fine points. I’m not certain that the rendering is worth matting, but I went ahead and matted it anyway. It’s an ego thing. I love my babies so much that I dress them up and show them off, regardless of their condition.
Margaret L. Been, ©2012
*Not only wine bottles grace our windows and shelves, but glass most anything bottles. Suddenly it’s hard to find a glass bottle anymore. I prowl the supermarket aisles, looking for glass. Olive oil still comes in glass, and we do use a lot of that. I save the glass SMUCKERS® jam and jelly jars. They are sweet with little clusters of flowers in them.
I may have bought the very last glass MRS BUTTERWORTH® syrup bottles a few years back, and these treasures sparkle in a sunny window. Soon the antique and second hand stores will be charging a proverbial arm and leg for that wonderful brown glass lady.
