Francesca Forrest's Blog, page 75

getting the car inspected

I still haven't managed to do any more Inktober sketches, in spite of some excellent prompts, but here's a doodle of a young woman who was in the waiting room at the mechanic's where I went to get my car inspected.

She was perched on one of those molded-plastic chairs that have depressions for your bottom and your back. She had her legs drawn up to her chest and was concentrated fixedly on her phone. She was pretty, but nervous seeming, someone I'd expect to express themselves in waves of rapi...

seal script that looks like cat kanji

Wakanomori is providing me with all kinds of interesting items these days. For today, have some cat kanji. It looks made up, doesn't it? But it's a bone fide form of seal script--that is, stylized kanji used for signature seals.　The source is 篆楷字典 (Tenkai Jiten), a dictionary of seal script (tensho) and kaisho, a very clear, blocky style used in inscriptions.



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Halloween lucky

I always want to do something fun for Halloween, and then I leave it too late and don't do anything at all. This year, though, I'm hopeful I'll manage a thing: I've created good-luck cards, ten cards each in five categories of luck: lucky number, lucky creature, lucky sport, lucky ride, and lucky color. I've printed out enough to accommodate the vast numbers of children who come through our neighborhood, and now I'm cutting them.

Here are just a few:





I tell you, it was great fun picking these i...

October 15: mysterious

(I'm skipping October 14: teeming)



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pine-needle kintsugi

You can see examples of kintsugi--repairing ceramics with gold, so the crack itself becomes a thing of beauty, and the object-with-cracks is celebrated and appreciated--various places online ( here's one ). This morning I saw pine needles doing kintsugi with cracks in the road, laying down in the crevices and repairing the road very beautifully:







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La Niña, finished! Overall impressions

The ending of this show was intensely satisfying and mainly (maybe not entirely) realistic. Thinking back over the entire story arc and all the characters, I do have a few criticisms, but mainly so much love and so much admiration for the storycraft and the character development. It would be an excellent show to use with kids to get them thinking about how characters grow and change (and why this is important) and what motivations are--but beyond all that, it's so engaging!

My main criticism w...

Inktober 11 and 12

Hmmm, I fell behind again.

Yesterday (October 11) was "run"



And today's prompt is "shattered." I was thinking about the mirror in The Snow Queen, which, when it broke, caused such problems for human eyes and hearts



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taking up space

I've been doing writing sessions with adult learners in Holyoke. Last week's theme was "stories they tell," about stories told in your family. The group had great stories to share. There's a website, and gradually, as people give permission, some of their writing will go up there. I was reassuring them that nothing would go up without their permission, and one woman said, "It's okay; I like taking up space in people's mind."

It was such a startling, brilliant remark. I asked her if she'd write...

all caught up: yesterday and today

Yesterday's prompt was "screech" and today's is "gigantic"

I think another fun way to do "screech" would be to do a reaction to someone who's hearing a screech. (Also, something like this critter might do more of a peep than a screech, but...)

"Gigantic" was a lot of fun.



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weekend Inktober drawings

I was away over the weekend with very limited Internet, so I'm giving you my weekend's Inktober drawings now--along with critique, because why not?

The theme for October 7 was "shy," and I liked my concept for it, but was disappointed by my execution. I think I either should have worked on it longer (and paid more attention to, like, anatomy) or else gone for something more cartoonish--simpler lines, etc.

The theme for October 8 was "crooked," and I decided on lightning, but my first attempt u...