The second drawing I named “Fiddle and Washboard”. The washboard is like a busker’s washboard, in which you’d rake your bare fingernails or thimbles up and down its ribbed surface to make percussive sounds. Around the washboard, in various locations, are attached various recycled bits of metal to bang on and achieve different noises. A tiny cat food tin, a ribbed metal soup can, a metal mayonnaise jar lid, the end off of a metal coffee can, a metal sink strainer, and a couple of bells. The smallest bell if from an old alarm clock. I don’t know where the larger bell came from or what it was previously used for – I just know it makes a deep ringing bell sound when struck.

I constructed the fiddle many years ago using a Pirate’s Gold cigar box, that I picked up at a flea market/yard sale, and I used a wooden flagpole for the neck. The box is trapezoid shape, and I carved f-shape sound holes in it with a Dremel tool. I carved the fretboard, tailpiece, tuning pegs, and the bridge, by hand, from scraps of wood. I ran the pole through the entire body of the instrument and attached the carved fret board to it. I wanted to install violin fine tuners, proper tuning pegs and a professionally carved bridge on it, but that has not yet happened. Perhaps someday. Proper violin strings might be an improvement as well. I installed a set of four old used mandolin strings on it, because that’s what I had around. Mandolins and violins use the same tuning, so I figured the gauge of the strings would work. The bow came from a small music shop near me, which no longer exists. I asked the owner if he had a bow around, and he told me that in fact he did have one in the back room, but the frog was broken. I gave him a couple of bucks for it, then took it home and zipped tied the frog in place, in true DIY form, and it kinda-sorta works. It was a fun project, anyway. The instrument sounds like a cheap fiddle. Now to learn how to play it! I’d probably play that washboard or one of those tambourines better.

I decided to draw these displays on sight – no photo, no grid. I would view the objects in real-time and freehand each scene as I saw it in front of me. This is a great exercise in honing your observation skills. There must be a name for it, but I don’t believe the word “plein air” is it. But that is what I did. The subject was 4-5 feet away from me and I sketched it out. It’s also a great exercise in keeping things moving along. I would be limited on time with each drawing, as the lighting in the room changes every few minutes. Therefore, the position of shadows changes quickly as do the tones.

I created the drawings on 11 x 17 white smooth Bristol cardstock. I used 2-3 different graphite pencils, along with a cardboard blender stick to smudge the graphite, for blending and creating shadows. I also use a kneaded eraser and a white polymer plastic eraser to remove graphite when I need to. I find that a metal eraser shield is a very useful drawing tool also. A softy brush is useful for brushing away eraser boogers and graphite dust. I also used a strip of sand paper during one of these drawings, to break down tsome graphite (utilizing some smudging techniques).

I try to freehand straight lines most of the time simply because I’m too lazy to line up a straight edge – I like to be free and keep moving mostly – but if a line i’m trying to make is fairly long, and must be accurately straight (such as the neck of a fiddle, or the long legs of the washboard), I will use a straight edge to achieve that. Sometimes a line needs to be accurate or points may not line up or the position of objects won’t look right. I prefer a clear plastic straigh-edge, so that I can see my drawing through it. To freehand a straight line, I find that pulling the pencil (rather than pushing it) gets me a much straighter line. I’ll add here that that goes for paintbrushes as well. Circular shapes I try to freehand, using the natural arc of my wrist to help me get a nicer line. Turning the paper different directions can also help to achieve the proper arc you’re going for.

I began working the drawing out with a hard lead pencil (I believe I used the 6H pencil), as the harder lead leaves a lighter mark. I use the 6H to create a faint skeleton of my drawing on the paper. Once the objects are lightly and very roughly sketched out to scale and positioned where they look right to me I start fleshing things out with the softer pencils. I partticularly like using ebony pencils. I believe it’s the darkest of the soft lead pencils. It lays down, responds well to different pressures, and blends nicely, and leaves a dark contrasty mark.

I videoed the creation of both drawings and you can watch them on both Rumble and my YouTube channel, to see how I use the tool I have mentioned. The YouTube links are directly below.

Timelapse Drawing: “The Tambourines”
Timelapse Drawing: “Fiddle and Washboard”

Both drawings are available as prints in my webstore.

I plan to draw more in the immediate future, in combination with my painting. The variety of mediums keeps things interesting for me.

Thanks for reading this! I hope you found this interesting and that you’ll go check out the videos. Some folks have told me that they find the videos to be relaxing, as well as inspiring. Subscribe to my YouTube channel (it’s free) to receive notifications when I post new art videos.

This bench might be a comfortable place to cast a fishing line. Maybe it’s THE fishing spot. Or it might be a quiet place to read a book or to pray. Or a place to sit privately for a cry, remembering yet another friend or family member that recently passed away. Or maybe one might sit here and ponder what their own life has been, what their future holds, or even wonder about their own mortality. Or perhaps one might solve some current problem in their life right here or ponder about the world’s problems in general. One could sit here with a beloved dog, or a girlfriend, boyfriend, wife, husband, or child, to tell stories or jokes, make big plans, share some beef jerky, or simply enjoy each other’s presence. It could be a great place to commune with nature, watching the herons land and feed in the water, or the ducks and geese floating down the river with a trail of their babies following behind them. Of course, these woods are filled with all kinds of birds to watch. You might even see the occasional ermine scurrying in and out of the large rocks on the riverbank. I’ve seen all of these things down by the river. To some this bench might be an oasis in the middle of a busy city… one of the few places to escape the steel and concrete, the noise, and the litter. That might mean a lot to someone who needs that.

I created this painting about a week after a friend of mine unexpectedly passed away. I mostly thought of him as I painted it. He appreciated nature and places such as this. He even once helped save a beautiful natural place much like this from being sold and paved over by developers. Perhaps the empty bench symbolizes the void he has left. Because I know he would have told me that he liked the painting. He was always a supportive friend like that, and he enjoyed my art. Or, on the contrary, the empty bench might remind us to continue enjoying life, to keep pondering and planning and enjoying our blessings. To use the bench – to accept the ebb and flow and be grateful for the different seasons of our life.

In my painting the sky is gray, and the dormant woods are bare and colorless and struggle to shake off the final days of another cold winter. Here and there, snow still lies within tiny patches of shade, where the sun doesn’t reach it, but the river is running high and fast from the thaw. The trout and salmon are running upstream to spawn and create more life. Spring is here. The daylight will stick around longer each day throughout the coming months and the air will get warmer. Soon the woods will be green again and rife with life. The sunshiny days of Summer always return and that is when the bench is empty a lot less.

You can watch a time lapse video of the creation of this painting on my youtube channel. Here’s a link to that. If you enjoy the video, you can subscribe to my channel so that you will receive notifications of when I post more art videos.

Thank you for reading this. I hope the painting does something for you.

I painted the other piece, “Burger Friends”, in the weeks before the 4th of July (Independence Day, in the USA). I had to step away from the painting many times to work on projects around the house, so it took longer than it should have to complete it. ”Burger Friends” is evocative of summertime grilling and the toppings we put on a burger around here. I enjoy smoking and grilling food and I do a lot of it for my household in the summertime. Aside from brisket, ribs, kabobs, chicken, grilled hot dogs and hamburgers are a common staple food during the summer months. It’s easy and delicious. Who doesn’t love hand patted quarter pound “Dad burgers”? I particularly like lettuce, tomato, red onion, cheese, and mayo, on mine. I can’t help but admire the beauty of freshly sliced vegetables, brightly colored, crisp, and juicy, just before I destroy the presentation by piling up my cheeseburger.

I’ve already started a timelapse video of another new painting, in between painting my bathroom and garage (different kind of “painting”). The projects keep coming.

Prints of “Early-Autumn Zinnias” and “Burger Friends” can be purchased in my online store. Thank you for stopping by and reading my blog!

I’ve made several new paintings over the past few weeks. I began filming timelapse videos showing the creation of these paintings. My first painting was a garden gnome standing next to some black eyed susans. I painted it with gouache paints on paper and named the piece “The Gardener”.

The next one, also gouache on paper, was a grasshopper.

And the painting after that was some bleeding heart flowers, which I painted on a larger stretched canvas with acrylic paints.

The bleeding hearts was a painting that I had started about a year ago, but I lost interest in it as I instead got into a different painting. So I decided to break it out and finish it finally, and I made a timelapse video of it, and started a YouTube channel to collect the footage and more timelapse videos of my paintings, for people that like that sort of thing. I think it’s interesting to watch a piece develop and morph in fast motion. I try to put nice music to the videos or some pleasant ambient background noise. You can watch the full videos from beginning to end on my youtube channel at www.youtube.com/@marjasallproductions. Subscribe to my channel and you’ll receive notifications of when I post new videos.

These new paintings I just mentioned, “The Gardener”, “A Grasshopper”, and “Bleeding Hearts” are now available as archival prints in my store.

I put together a slide show several weeks ago of most of my current collection of artworks. I think it’s an entertaining way to view the collection quickly in one place. Enjoy!

I’m about to begin work on another yet-unfinished painting and time-lapse video. I want to keep the creative momentum going. It’s another painting that I started about a year ago and I’ll reveal what it is when I release the video.

April is the time when nature gets creative. It’s planting season and nature comes back to life. Summer will be here before we know it. The warm weather gets me outdoors more, which means more energy, and that I will be surrounded by inspiration and new things to paint.

That’s all the news I have for the month of April. Peace to you and have a blessed day! Thank you for reading my blog!

The ladder-back chair belonged to my Grandma Allen. This is a fitting focal point, as it’s an empty chair (in reference to the poem), but it’s still present and ready for use, representing the passing of still relevant knowledge to future generations. So, it’s a wise old chair, or it once belonged to a wise lady. It had no seat on it when I received it. I don’t know what happened to the original seat. I imagine it was probably wicker or some kind of caning material and that it might have fallen apart with use. My Dad had the chair, and meant to put a new seat on it, as a project to keep himself busy and to save his mother’s old chair. But he never got around to doing it. After he passed away, at the age of 78, the chair was given to me. I had never woven cane on anything before, so caning a chair seat was a cool and useful thing to learn. I acquired the materials and the tools needed, and I learned how to do it and I was very happy with how it turned out. Now I know how to cane a chair. We use the chair and it’s been a good chair. I sit on it to put my shoes on, and it also conveniently holds dust, coats, and many other items that don’t really belong there.

My wife wears a straw-weave hat when she’s working outside in the gardens. It breathes but keeps the sun and rain off of her head. It hangs off the back of the chair. The other ornament hanging off the back of the chair is an oddly shaped piece of metal. I don’t know the placard’s origin or intended use. It has a capital letter printed “A” on it, and three holes drilled along the top edge of it. It has a strand of brown jute cord tied through the center hole, into a loop, like a hanger. It was a gift to us from my sister-in-law (my wife’s sister), and the letter “A” obviously represents “Allen”. We like it and the back of the chair seemed like the most natural place to hang it.

An empty wicker wine basket, which can hold two bottles of wine, a corkscrew, perhaps a towel, and a couple of flute wine glasses, occupies the space beneath the chair. Underneath the chair seemed like a perfect out-of-the-way space for it. I believe it belonged to my mother-in-law. We end up with peoples’ things eventually. We inherit said things or they are dumped upon us, and sometimes they end up in a painting.

You will notice that stacked next to the chair there are three cylindrical vessels. On the floor, is a 6-gallon Red Wing stoneware crock. At one time I had planned to ferment mulberries from our backyard in it, to make wine. In this painting it’s holding up a couple of metal pots. Atop the stone crock is a steel 20-quart water bath canner, and atop that is a 15-quart aluminum stockpot. On the floor, on the other side of the chair, are some glass jugs which at one time contained apple pie moonshine out of Harmon, Kentucky. They’re empty now, but the jugs are unusual and useful. Towering over the jugs is a butter churn which has been around longer than me. When I was a child, I played with my toys on and around that old butter churn. My Dad gave it to me before he passed away. Oddly it’s like an old familiar friend. Maybe you have an item you can relate that to.

“Canning Season” reminds me of old-world ways – maybe a harder life, but a more simple and gratifying life – the lifestyle of my ancestors. It makes me think of domesticity… the smell of vinegar… gardening fruits and vegetables… food preservation… and self-sustenance. Taking care of family and oneself. Particularly in these uncertain times, I think gardening and food preservation are good things to know how to do.

Thanks for reading!