#154

Hello, friends and family. Here’s what we have finished…


…and there hopefully will be more to come on Tuesday.
Our daughter is in Florida this week at a cousin’s wedding. It should be very different around here without her, but it’s not. I’m just pretending that she’s in her room all week watching movies, which is her favorite activity at home in her scant amount of free time. When she goes off to college in a couple of years, I’ll just have to imagine a movie that’s four years long. . .like “Gandhi.”
We don’t always have money for presents, but we can make just about anything we can think of. Here’s the wedding present Jo made to send along with our daughter.


Every year Jo has the idea of a Christmas with nothing but home made presents, but we’ve never done it. Maybe this will be the year our son gets that Xbox shaped quilt he’s been dreaming of.

-Dylan

#153

Hello, all.
Here's the art, as usual…


You see a lot of strange things here on the Oregon coast. When we first moved here five years ago, it seemed like these oddball occurrences were more frequent than they are now. Maybe we're just adjusting. I remember being amazed to see pedestrians just step out into traffic with such faith that everyone would stop. And the cars did stop without complaint. Where we were living before, in the Orlando area, stepping out into traffic was a good way to get killed. In fact, I used to work near a road that had the highest fatality rate for pedestrians in the country. But now, it's not unusual to see traffic stopped in both directions on 101 while someone moseys across. But I saw something unique the other day at the crosswalk. I was about three cars back, so I couldn't see at first who was crossing, but it was taking quite some time. Then I caught a glimpse of a chicken that was crossing the road. Of course, I immediately asked "why?" There was a bar there on the corner, which doesn't explain the chicken, but I had to look to see if any stereotypes were walking into it in groups of three.

-Dylan

#152

What’s up, Doc?
Here are some print ornaments that we made this week. We’ll be back to making hand-painted originals again next week…
Jo has been working and working on this giant side project that we have going on this week. If fact, she’s still working. She wants to rest, but she’s propped open her eyes with toothpicks like in the cartoons. She tried painting a bed on the floor to rest on in desperation, but I erased it with my giant eraser. She drew a tunnel on the wall to escape through, but I had it booby trapped with an anvil on a rope. A package just arrived containing a rocket and some roller skates. Wonder what she’s up to now.
This week is nearly done, then it will be back to our regular schedules. Well, maybe not. Jo has to build an after school art program from the ground up next week. No rest for the wicked. . .or for us.

-Dylan

#151

Hello, movers and shakers.
The newsletter is late, but the art is right on time…

I was helping my brother-in-law and his wife move to Portland yesterday, and I got home too late and too tired to write the newsletter. It wasn’t one of those “show up and pack the truck” kind moves. It was one of those “show up, pack up the house, throw out the nine bags of sprouting potatoes, then pack the truck” kind of moves. But it got me out of the house, and I got to exercise muscles that I didn’t know I had, so it was still a good day.
Jo and I have some side projects that we’ll be working on this week, so I don’t know how much art we’ll get listed on Sunday. Maybe nothing. But it will all be worth it in the end, as you will discover in the coming months.
Jo has also committed to teaching an after school art program at the kids’ school. They have nothing in the way of supplies, but they are flush with cash and eager to spend it on her growing list. I wonder if we can sneak any earmarks in there. It seems to be all the rage.

-Dylan