The knee joint a la plastic model

Here is what a knee should look like on the inside. My right knee doesn't look like this...it is bone on bone so the muscle over the top is cut, the joint pulled apart and plastic and titanium inserted into the femur and the tibia so that the joint will roll as smoothly as glass. And you should see what I can do to the security checks at the airport!!! Major surgery and very painful because of the muscle incision but it works! Worked great on my left knee, now for the right one. 

The Adventure begins

Today was spent at the hospital doing all the pre-op stuff. I've decided to make the best of this and draw all I can about this experience of having my 2nd knee replacement. So I have more drawings of folk in the waiting room, etc. The doc says my leg isn't silly, just crooked from years of being knock-kneed and he is going to fix it. Yay! Imagine that...69 years of knees wanting to meet each other head on and I am going to have two straight legs.
So here I am after a chest x-ray, an EKG, blood work and a little band on my wrist that tells my blood type (I was told I would be struck by lightning if I took it off before the Tuesday surgery).

Now if we can just make sure that that darling little tropical storm headed to the Gulf disappears into nothing and definitely not Seabrook/Galveston I will have it made in the shade. 

Failing Clouds 101

Oh dear...my first attempt at clouds with water color crayons and Inktense pencils. Early this morning traveling down a local highway I saw this amazing huge thundercloud with this brilliant light from the sun around its edge. It had a dark line as storms frequently do on the bottom edge.
But this doesn't even come close to what I saw. I know why I have avoided landscapes...clouds are HARD...at least to me.
Should I be started with something simpler? Is it my media? Are they easier with watercolor paints? Is it the composition or all of the above.
Frustrated but determined in Seabrook, TX where it is thundering right now. 

EDM Challenge 79 Ears

Finally I found an "ear" model or rather I coerced my husband into some still time in front of the TV. This was an interesting challenge and I realized a couple of things in the process. (1) I had paid more attention to eyes than ears and that there is great variety in ears.
(2) the first drawing was from a live model with a Sharpie Extra Fine Point pen and the second from a magazine picture with a Lamy Safari pen. I am discovering that I draw much better I believe from a live model than from a photo. Any one else have this experience? Is it some sort of energy exchange? Just curious (the therapist in me rising to the front) as to what that is about. 

Challenge 78 - A souvenir

These masks are souvenirs of a trip to Bali where I was privileged to meet and work with Amon, an honored mask maker in his village. These are two of the four I purchased. Amon arranged for our group to dance with our masks accompanied by a gamelon band. I wore the mask of the old man and danced as an elder. I was in Bali to co-facilitate a workshop orginally planned by my friend, Lucia Capacchione. We visited shamans and were witness to many village dances including the amazing Kris dance to purge the evil from the village. Too bad Western cultures can't adopt these rituals instead of sending rockets and dropping bombs.
I collect masks from all over the world as I am fascinated by the representations of the psyche by different cultures. Many other souvenirs I have disposed of, used up or given away but my mask collections stays as a reservoir of my experiences.