our backyard friend’s silhouettes

our backyard friend’s silhouettes, originally uploaded by young@art.

A warmup set, and part of my new silhouette obsession: Winsor & Newton Black Indian Ink atop delta ceramcoat atop gesso atop the pages of a Moleskine (heavy stock) sketchbook.

We have no more critters in our backyard than anyone else, but I wage that ours are the cutest, because of the quail. There’s a family, about 20 of them, that run the perimeter at dusk. The California Thrasher couple have a nest somewhere in the hedge; when we lay in the sun by the bird bath, one of them will watch us from the grapefruit tree, sometimes with a red worm in his mouth, for a half-hour or more. Hummingbirds are always fighting, and the woodpeckers have assaulted the old olive tree on their continual hunt for boring insects.

more fronts & fungi

Sillyvalley was scoured clean again by another front and today, awestruck, we were witness to some kind of crazy glorious spectacle of snow-capped mountains atop the massive bowl of San Jose, all purple and crytallized behind the field outside the kitchen window, which is, for its part, cloaked in a riot of yellow mustard. I just didn’t know what to do with myself, standing there in the playground after school, staring at the immaculate horizon.

Then, as with all cold fronts, the sky started weeping. Under a rainbow we walked home and decided to hunt for mushrooms in the backyard under the oak canopy, savoring the last bit of afternoon light, regardless of the rain.

And what do you know? The rain stopped just long enough.
mushroomhunting.jpg

We gathered a handful of mushrooms, no idea what kind yet, just for something to draw or paint while I started a pot roast. I set a pan of opaque watercolors out on the table and gave a quick basidio-lesson and painting tutorial. They did all the rest.
mushroomsketch2.jpg

Ford picked up a paintbrush:
mushroomhunting6.jpg

And Chas got sleepy.
mushroomsketching5.jpg

what to do?

You know you live in California are a slacker when you have to decide,

    Should I spend tomorrow morning with the kids, stockpiling water and other necessities, reviewing emergency procedure, in the face of a 30% big aftershock possibility (which, incidentally, lasts until Tuesday?) or…
    Should we skip school and drive to the beach for the 7 foot swells at Manresa?

I mean, after all, Ford has a cold. And what kind of parent am I to send a sick child to school? Oh, the stress! A tent, a sleeping bag, thermos of tea and a tote full of books–Tsunami risk aside, the cool, salty mist sounds very therapeutic.