chas in the studio

This is how a warm-up page usually looks. Sketchbooks are great for warming up.

My hand was trying hard to translate for my eyes, so I was about on the third of six sketches of this one particular person in this one particular photo. Chas walked in.

I told him that drawing is a lot like exercise, in that you have to warm up your muscles before you can run.

I told him, also, that this person’s face was particularly difficult, so I had to keep trying to capture it until I was happy with the translation. I also explained that I was a little “out of shape.” 😉

“I’ll help you, mommy.” which he did, here and there.

He, too, was satisfied with the sixth drawing, that one in the lower right.

Who’s More Proud?

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So, a few days after Christmas, we decided to pack the kids up and head for the sierras. Someone twittered that it had snowed 12 feet in 10 days, which could have read “served 12 scoops of ice cream in 10 minutes” for all the excitement the kids had when we told them we were going. They haven’t seen snow in, like, twenty million years.
We bought them sleds.

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Neither of them have ever ridden a sled. I tried to get them started in the backyard on the sleds before we left, but muddy hillsides can’t prepare you for this lovely sugary flakiness.

While that describes me perfectly, I was in fact talking about snowy Lake Tahoe.

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Chas prefers to practice for snowboarding, which is what the big boys do around here, and he knows this intuitively.

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Damon adjusts Chas’ approach to suit the equipment because 10am is too early for tantrums and the subsequent boozing that will follow; remember that we are on vacation and we reserve the right to remain chill.

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Perfecting standing balance atop the sled is more fun, though. than sitting on it like, say, a baby. We brought a bottle of wine in our picnic bag. We are well-equipped for chaos.

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No chaos. Just Chas, jonesing to be BIG, impressing the ladies with his style,

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and with his impressive,

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utterly ferocious

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Incredible HULK impression!!!

If the word “PRIDE” doesn’t sum up all of his expressions here, then “cute as all damn hell” works for me.