no catchy title today

Last night's model at Life Drawing was really good. Very unique gestures, brought in some props, and even maintained active facial expressions during the longer poses! Unfortunately, I was not having the greatest drawing night (am I ever?)

But here are some that I managed to sort out of the cull pile:

a one-minute gesture that I like mainly for the odd placement on the large page

and two of the longer poses (I forget, 20-minutes each maybe?)

I don't feel like I've found that magical combination of materials yet that really lets me get past beyond struggling with materials and on to struggling with the drawing.

*****

In other, more crafty-news. I've been suddenly overcome with the desire to make friendship bracelets. I think this seed was planted last year or so by Ray Fenwick (my Halifax Art Hero).

He did a whole series about friendship bracelets which you must see by clicking the link in this sentence. But here's one of them if you're too lazy to click:

Friendship bracelets have also been popping up all over the fashion-blogosphere. I like the clever, up-graded twists people have been doing with them: weaving them through and around gold and rhinestones bracelets, etc.

Partly I think it's just because, in learning to embroider, I've been handling embroidery floss a lot lately and I used to be a Pro-Star bracelet maker back in the ol' days... so it was just bound to happen.

I've been having a hard time finding embroidery floss but I stumbled upon a GOLDMINE at the Lens Mill Store in Guelph recently. That place is a throw-back to an earlier time for me too. I made a big quilt in university and most of the fabric came from there. It used to be in an old knitting factory that was a pleasure to visit. It has since moved into an ugly strip mall and the factory is now condos that aren't very soundproof (I know because I have a friend who lives there). Oh well... it still houses all sorts of weird loose ends and embroidery floss is very abundant!

Also, I found this awesome horse-head-thread-organizer thing there! I never knew I needed this until now! Love it. Also love that I found FLORESCENT floss! And some sparkly gold stuff (not pictured). What what!?!?!