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I was doodle-sketching a man looking vaguely like a bald Vincent Price. He looked like he needed a friend, so I added a waifish-looking woman, scaled differently so she would fit, and that enabled me to put her right arm around his head, rather protectively.

Then came consideration of a double-acrostic poem to go with the drawing, and “Scale Model” came quickly to mind: a Model built to Scale, punnish but (I hope) not too punishing.

I have done four acrosticizations of “Scale Model” and they all miss the mark but all have merit. If I did a dozen more I’d undoubtedly be nearer the mark, but there would go another few hours. I have a few other projects trying to be done, so the ghost of Robert Frost whispers

“Oh, I marked the first for another day!/But knowing how way leads on to way,/I doubted If I should be coming back.”

Scale Model

She and he have made a team

Cast and crew are oyster-steamed–O

At the wrap they’re all redeemed

Latent talent makes the theme

Ending well means what that hell

..

Scale Model

Sally 4th 4 new gigs loom

Comes the dawn we worry so

Angst is up til we feel doom’d

Lava flows and ice ergs floe

Every set’s a grassy knoll

..

Scale Model

She is small & he’s her gem

Cowardice has made him moo

And she haws as he has hemm’d

Lady’s skein’s a villanelle

Egomaniac doth swell

..

Scale Model

Sarcasm

Cameo

Adenoid

Lagniappe

Enamel

Moving Ground

May plowed Earth goodness bring

Or probe with metal finger

Vivacity–trade too

In circulation you

Need stagnate ne’er again

Go Under now & wend

..

n.e.s. #181 of 480

the lady flings her arms persuasively. her left word balloon says “stablize” (not “stabilize”) and her right word balloon says “Zing!”

I love the look of land shifting beasts, and when one of them parked in front of the house I took a picture of it, and have started a sketch of it, and now I have the spine of an acrostic poem about it. The sketch and the poem will come around in due time, but when they do these early stages, fresh with undeveloped DNA, will be gone. I thought the balanced simplicity of them was worth preserving, just as photos are taken of a construction sote’s groundbreaking ceremony.

My endeavors as a pencil artist have been fraught with stutterstep start-stopping. It is only when I get stubborn that, rusty and arthritic as I am, I put in enough time on a single drawing to get beyond the teeth-clenching frustration and into some true joy, building tones and feeling the image stir with life.

This drawing was only supposed to take a day or so, but I kept hesitantly scratching at it, almost throwing it away a couple of times. Now the graphite is finally beginning to cooperate, and the path to completion has clarified. Three or four more hours ought to do it, maybe, depending how the erasure phase goes.

Glad to be back yet again. Here’s hoping the next few days see a new, different drawing well started.

Change a month & catch a Thrill/Sketch a drooping Daffodil/Plan some stuff you never do/Don’t be scared–it’s only New

Monthly Renewal

My O my, the Calendar has flipp’d a fresh page over

Out goes August; in September; cooling may ensue

Nonetheless the night sky now includes a blown-up Nova, ‘n

There in Horsehead Nebula some brand new stars are due

Here on Earth’s September we obey unwritten law

Let the lightning flash & thunder growl with sis boom ba

Yay for fresh new months that well reward our wherewithal

This year I have resolved to take more time with my drawings. With this drawing I turned my resolve into reality. I have worked on this drawing for several days. I stopped when it seemed not to benefit from further fussing. I do suspect, though, that when I look at it later I’ll see a few things I will want to fiddle with–but I won’t; this one stands as is.

2022 0107 drawing tabletop