thanks

May 12, 2006
by annwood

Wow, thanks for all the comments and kind words. The encouragement really means a lot and the other great thing about this whiplash deal is all the great blogs I’m seeing that I probably never would have. Amazing, inspiring stuff. I wish I had discovered this community a long time ago; it’s an incredible resource in lots of ways. I had to go out of town for work and I’m slightly brain dead now from an overly packed day and long drive. Tomorrow I’m hoping to finish early enough to go on a thrifting expedition on my way back to NY and if I’m very lucky maybe a brief visit to Ikea (need shelves desperately).

I plan on making up today’s horse tomorrow ( just can’t do it in a hotel) and then I’m hoping to have a weekend of ship building.

I hate having a post without a picture so I’m including this little study for a ship.

littleship.jpg

giselle – horse #13

May 10, 2006
by annwood

Thanks to everybody who commented on the bird party, I feel welcome and encouraged and excited about my brand new blog. All the “chic to classic” entries are great. It’s fun and inspiring having a little window into everybody’s imaginations. I love stuff like whiplash, not because it’s a contest, but because I love an assignment, having a theme imposed maybe sends my thinking somewhere new and the quick deadline makes it impossible for me to get obsessive and suck the spontaneity out of my little project. Given enough time I can suck the spontaneity out of just about anything.

Tuesday’s horse (#13) is giselle. I think this is my favorite horse so far, it’s a little color study for something else I’m working on.
giselle13.jpg

Bird Style

May 9, 2006
by annwood

A little bird party, some birds quite chic and others more comfortable in
something classic.

handmade fabric birds

Find a sewing pattern for little birds here.


birds2.jpg

And here’s my first pretty much done ship:

ship.jpg

ship2.jpg

It’s Monday, so I made a horse. That little plan is working out for me in lots of ways: I’m making 100 so there’s no fear of a mistake and even if I don’t like the horse
I make it usually generates an idea, no do-overs allowed so I can’t obsess endlessly, I think the discipline has been good for me and it’s a fine way to start the day.

horse12.jpg

I finished a ship

May 8, 2006
by annwood

I had a great ship building weekend and finally, pretty much, finished one. I’ve been thinking about, and working on these for a long, long time. The do-overs became endless. I ran out of daylight today so I’ll probably post it tomorrow but here’s a preview of a couple sails, a silhouette and some stuff I got at the 3rd St. ( Park Slope) flea market .

sail1.jpg

sails.jpg

sil.jpg

money.jpg

what did I know of love’s austere and lonely offices? 9

May 3, 2006
by annwood

It’s day 3 of mandatory horse making. None of them have ended up being the horse I thought I would, or intended to make when I woke up. Today’s horse “Sunday” was going to be sort of a collage but ended up with a poem by Robert Hayden I saw on the subway the other day.

sunday.jpg

sundayback.jpg

Those Winter Sundays

Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he’d call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,

Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love’s austere and lonely offices?

Robert Hayden (1913Ð1980)

What I’d like to do with the rest of today is finish a painting of the big yellow sprinkler at the water park by the west side highway where my friend Judah plays (present for his mom) and finish the paper mache ships I’ve been working on forever (I’m so close).
What I’m going to do is make drawings for $’s for a Jimmy Dean Sausage commercial and get my hair dyed brown as I’ve done every month since I was 25.

momentum

May 1, 2006
by annwood

In the interest of generating some momentum and discipline, both of which I’m lacking a little lately, I’m beginning my blog in earnest . To start things off my plan is to make a cardboard horse everyday, monday – friday, first thing in the morning and post it ( and maybe some other stuff too). The horses are something I started a while ago and then slacked off on. They are little experiments intended to loosen me up, permission to try stuff, paralysis prevention. I’m going to make them until I have 100.

That’s the plan.

(I made 2 today, zeal of the newly converted)

 

Here are the others: