pre-rush hour

....................stuck in traffic

I can feel rush hour nipping at my heels every day now on my way to work. The barrier for the HOV lane is in place or in the process of being zipped down and traffic from the opposite direction is already at a standstill. Traffic after midnight is so much lighter than early evening but there are more people driving faster. Last night a storm passed through and I had slick roads and an oily windshield to deal with. The lightning was bright but not scary.

I've been learning about colored pencils from my artist friend, Larry. I'd been trying to add color to some of the old black & white illustrations I'd clipped from magazines without much sucess. Acrylic is too thick and when thinned it wrinkles the paper too much. My cheap watercolors were a little too watery and I was considering artist-quality paint. Then I thought about colored pencils and thats what I want to try next. Larry told me about the "art stix", wide flat pencils you can use to lay down a background, and about watercolor pencils that you color with and smudge with a damp brush for a watercolor effect. How exciting! So today I've been researching availability and prices. The local art stores I've been frequenting either don't carry the brand I want (PrismaColor) or their prices are higher than what I would have to pay through an online store. So it's a math problem: spending money & time here on gas to drive to the store plus higher price plus sales tax versus lower online price plus shipping. Where's my calculator?

I found some really cool wallpaper in Better Homes & Gardens magazine that I'm thinking about putting up somewhere. It's white paper with frames drawn all over it so you can draw or paint on it or glue things on it to make your wall covered in mini-works of art. My problem would be that I would probably want to save my art and how would I get it off the wall?