Tindaisies

Cracked

I’ve been having fun making found poetry this past week. It’s like collage only using words. The poem written in the above image reads:

cracked
found in the sand
between you and me
contents emptied
forgotten by now

Each line is from its own source, found as a complete phrase in some of my own creative writing, a recipe from a cook book and an instruction manual.

The doll head in the drawing is real. I found it in the garden two autumns ago while picking brussels sprouts. We live in an old farm house and the back of the property must have once been where a previous family  dumped things they no longer wanted. After heavy rains or wind, the soil shifts, revealing household remnants of china and glasss shards, buttons, rusty belt buckles, tarnished coins, tiny medicine bottles, marbles, wheels off toy cars…

The doll’s head was by far the coolest thing I have found yet. I wonder how long she stared at us walking by her before I discovered her. She would have been tiny,  her head is about an inch long; she is wearing a 1920’s flapper hat with a blue stripe on it. She has a mischievous smirk, she is not a classic beauty, but she is exquisite in her own right. I call her Betty.

Solomon Grundy

Where does the time go? Why does it seem the older we get, the faster time flies? The weeks zip by in a blink. I design a quarterly publication, three months pass by and before I know it, I am in meetings again.  I had my first meeting for the summer issue, today. As if that’s not enough, I’m staring at another approaching birthday in the upcoming week, in fact, I know a number of people whose birthdays are in April, but now I’m prattling – just practicing for my old age (which is how many quarterlies away)?

Solomon Grundy’s  entire life blows by in one short week.  The verse is  a 19th century nursery rhyme and each day represents the Seven Ages of Man. I admit, I like the Sesame Street version better:  poor Solomon Grundy washes a part of his left side each day and at the end of the week, only half of him is clean.

Solomon Grundy,
Born on a Monday,
Christened on Tuesday,
Married on Wednesday,
Took ill on Thursday,
Grew worse on Friday,
Died on Saturday,
Buried on Sunday.
That was the end
Of Solomon Grundy

This is my entry for this week’s Illustration Friday prompt “Fleeting”

I just love it when people who are wrapped up in their life’s calling don’t think twice about how they look or whether they are following norms and conventions. They seem oblivious to the effect they have on others as they go about their own business. You can always tell a true eccentric from a poser

This post also falls into this week’s Illustration Friday topic, Repair.

Sometimes you think you know someone well, until you see them hanging their frillies out on the clothes line and of course sometimes it’s a bit of a shock.

I’m continuing to experiment with Photoshop, rather than directly drawing into Illustrator. This time I used a Faber-Castell PITT artist pen on smooth paper (a truly awesome Indian Ink marker I bought last June, to try out) I photographed the drawing, cleaned it up in Photoshop, then added the colour and text. I like the distinct hand drawn quality in this image.

Oh, and this time, I kept the poem short and sweet

Wartina moved to the town of Bagweiss
The neighbours were worried about voodoo and vice…

When she hung out her frillies, it made them think twice
They resolved that she probably was rather nice.

Bubble and Squeak is a dish made of Sunday dinner leftover mashed potatoes and green vegetables. You dump the potatoes and cabbage, brussels sprouts, cauliflower or broccoli into a bowl and mush them up together. Then tradition dictates that you fry them in the roast’s drippings in a heavy frying pan although butter or oil works fine, too. You have to press it into a cake in the pan and flip it once the bottom browns. The bubble and squeak is ready when both top and bottom are browned and the mixture is heated all the way through. Serve it with sliced, cold leftover roast and chutney.

It’s called bubble and squeak because that’s the sound it makes as it fries.

Bubble and Squeak

Not far from the capital of Mozambique
Was a village renowned for its Bubble and Squeak
The chefs who were part of this vegetable clique
Bought the finest ingredients from a veggie boutique

There was also a village that liked to cause trouble
They said that the dish was called Squeak and Bubble
Their potatoes were dug from among weedy stubble
Their cabbages grew among old tractor rubble

Both villages declared their recipe best
I’ve sampled them both and I have to attest
Wearing a blindfold I would not have guessed
The cliques from the troubles or the best from the rest

Yeah, another poem.

Click the image for a larger, clearer version.

These days, I almost prefer writing these poems to drawing, maybe because I pressure myself far more when drawing. These poems are just fun to come up with.

They are the result of a combination of a beat running through my head, a germination of an idea and then conjuring up as many rhyming words that I can find and then fabricating relationships – as far fetched as necessary – between the words to make the whole thing work.

This poem is about not being afraid to think too big… or too small. I think. Either a deeper meaning is eluding me or this is as deep as it gets… in either case, the previous sentence applies.

Sailing

Henry McHale
Who’d never been further than the town of Snorzdale
One day built a boat from a metal lunch pail
That he got from a coupon in a heap of bulk mail
And set sail

With him he took: the finest brown ale,
a plate of steamed kale,
a well roasted quail,
one lobster tail,
and licorice he bought at a two-for-one sale.

He saw a blue whale
And a jet trail
He spent his time playing a diatonic scale
On a horn that he made from large a garden snail
And rendering his miniscule memoir into Braille

He ran into a gale
It registered 2 on the Beaufort Scale
And that was the most thrilling part of the tale.

A silly poem for this week’s Illustration Friday theme, which is canned. Isn’t it true that often people don’t see the true scope of their own talents?

Here is the poem for easier reading: (yes, I wrote it …)

Mary Margaret Ferdinand
canned.
Whatever it was she had on hand.

The breadth of her canned
collection spanned:
a minute hand,
a kick stand,
a wedding band,
an ampersand,
and a pineal gland.

Side by side the jars would stand,
in a line on her baby grand,
as Mary Margaret played Dixieland.

No one could make her understand
why her performance was in high demand.

She thought it was only because she canned.