Bye for now!

FINALLY got ahold of the folks we're visiting, and Jenn's in Dundee, and Chris is in Sherwood.

Ok. I don't know why Joe thought he lived in oregon city.. goof. ;p

Ok, so yea.. we've got everything packed up, directions printed out, cooler filled, snacks bought ect ect.. Got my email set up to go through Joe's laptop's outlook express, so that's most excellent :)

My friend Yesi came over last night and got Cookie, but left jan and muffins for thismorning.. she was supposed to come over at 9 thismorning, and its about 2:30 now and she just got up. she's got to work at three, so... yea. She'll come over at midnight when shes done, and after getting the chins packed up, we'll be heading out at about 1am.

WOO! To Oregon we go! I hope we make it by noon.. last time we went up it took forever and a day.

Nintendo Goodness

Something a friend sent me.. ;)

*yawn*

Hey gang.
I just sent out some replies to emails, and am now just sitting here waiting for the hubby to get home.. *yawn*
Ran over to the library this morning intending to return all the books I'd checked out, did so, but also got one more out.. good thing I did though, because somehow it reminded me that I left one on my desk.. (see, I have to return it tomorrow afternoon before we leave..otherwise I would have forgotten about the other book, left without realizing, therefor conjuring up late fees and angry military librarians..)

Ok, that's boring.. what else.. not much going on, really.. I suppose I should go finish doing dishes..
bye-o

pics from yosemite

When my mom and dad were out here visiting earlier this summer, we went to some state parks..
Here are some of my favorite photos









check out the guy with the frozen legs.. *shudder*



and mister joe holding a cute little salamander. :)

steps of a colored pencil drawing

Before we begin.. I'm mad at my computer.. it's having issues right now.. I think I just need to replace the power supply, but it's making a horrible clacking, creaking and groaning noise, and half of my usb ports have died.. I hope I'm not going to have to replace too much..

My tablet hasn't been working, either, so I decided to sit down and use some stuff my hubby bought me for my birthday..


Ok, here we go. I've NEVER done anything in colored pencil-onto colored paper before, so this was an experement.. Used SUPER HEAVY textured burgundy paper, and Walnut Hollow oil pencils..

1) my chaotic workspace. Normally I would sit at my drafting table, but I wanted to watch Mike Roe's Dirty Jobs while doing this.


2) Ok, drew a cute little papillon with pencil

3) Pick up a stick of charcoal, and start scratching heavily onto the drawing. I want alot of buildup

4) more of the same


5) all done with that step..


6) I pick up my colored paper




7) Turn it over, and position it to where the fluffball dog is.




8) grab my masking tape, and adhere the regular paper to the colored.



7) I am so incredibly high-tech. I use my remote to squash down the top paper and press the charcoal onto the colored paper.. I REALLY need to find some graphite transfer paper, cause' this is crazy.




9) I peel off the drawing carefully, and as you can see, it left a nice residue on the colored stuff.


10) Mm'k.. grab a nice creamy white and start coloring..

11) skritch skratching away.. boy this paper has ALOT of texture..



12) added in some red, more of the long fluffy strokes of white..


13.) added in subtle blues and pinks, peaches, white, and brown..




14) Added alot more white, and also black around the eyes and muzzle.. all done!



After I clean up ...

Rawrrrr..

Oooh I am so mad. last night, at freaking 10:47, D' came over with Chinny-San and woke us up.
We were supposed to go over and pick her up thismorning, because he's going out of town.

Anyway, he has her in this TINY cage, shes literally smashed in it, and has no shavings in there either.. Has horrible horrible diarrhea, and is soaking wet with water. He apparently ran out of her regular food, and rather then tell joe, who he works with every day, he goes out and buys Charlie Chinchilla brand.

This is the absolute worst food you can find. And when we sold her to him, I wrote up a care manual with pictures in it, explaining the dangers of feeding that crap.

I know you guys all have doggies, so.. let me think..a direct comparison...
It would be like having your dog on a diet of brownies, dark chocolate, onions, donuts and a jumbo box of raisins mixed in.


If he hadn't been going out of town and had an excuse to bring her over, she probably would have died this week. I am so pissed.

So I stayed up late last night taking care of her, pulled her food, gave her blackened toast for the charcoal first off. she didn't want to eat it though. Can't say that I blame her. Didn't smell too good. Anyway, by about 2am, got her down to only slightly tacky poo's (chinchillas need to have dry waste when healthy)

We also had him give us some money last night, and went out and bought her hay and a smallish cage thismorning for the next couple weeks. (she has a 4'x4' cage at his place, that joe and i made by hand)

Now what do I do.. neither one of us can safely lecture him, he's joe's boss, and greatly outranks him.. But c'mon, he could have killed her!!! AGH.

Anyway, she's now in her new cage with nice soft shavings and I made her a new fleece hammock to lay in.. has her timmy hay, our regular food and she seems to be doing quite well :)


We also got two more of the above travel-friendly cages.. one for Mika, a slightly bigger one for Jan + Muffs to stay in, and a pet carrier for cookie.. She likes dark spaces ya'know.

Mika is coming with us up to Oregon, (she likes traveling) and the others are staying with a friend.


So yea..


Oh, I finally finished that picture I've been working on for the past few weeks yesterday! I can't wait to post it.. I have to wait until after her birthday


Okey-dokes.. that's all for now. Gotta go help joe put something together..


Oh yea, also, this morning we brought the dog shelter a 50lbs bag of Purina dog chow and a huge box of doggy biscuits.
They were pleasantly surprised ^^


_________________________________________________________________


the princess mika in the bottom story of her cage.. She was not happy that the sun came out, and was sitting there squabbling at me about it.. had to take a picture..

Eukanuba

Woo! Did I ever mention how much I love watching dog shows??

There are some gorgeous dogs thus far.. Can't wait to see my favorites come into the ring*wink wink-corgis wink*


I know, I'm obsessed.. Must go back to watching!

*update* OMG I'm so po'd.. they showed the cardi during commercials.. >< *shakes fist*
from the teeny tiny glimpse we got to see of him, looked nice..

paintings and photos

I am amazed. It's actually cloudy today.. I think it may have even rained a tiny bit..
the area of cali we live in right now has gigantic dry spells.. its a rare thing when it's cloudy out. I really don't like constant sunshine.. seriously, 5 months in a row, every single day hot and sunny.. not fun. I'm going to be so happy when we move up to Oregon.. I love it up there..

here's a photo I snapped out the back door.. don't have a fence yet, but we will install one once we know when we'll be able to get a puppydog.



Here's a photo of Joe's flight suit I took yesterday while we were outside studying.. I love his call name.. *giggle*
by the way, in case anyone's curious, Joe's in the space section of the a.f. ..*super-basically* he makes sure that we don't get hit by things and that stuff doesn't collide in space That's all I can really tell you without getting in trouble.. secret stuff ya'know.




AND NOW!!!
on to art stuffs..

I don't know who this doggy is, just a picture I found on a google search several months ago..

did this for practice this morning

.. took me about an hour alltogether.. experimenting with sketching..
drawn and painted in photoshop cs w/ wacom tablet, as usual



not doing much today so far.. Joe did pretty well on his cdc's, and I sat and read dog training books at the library while waiting for him..

here's a few more paintings from this month..
this one I just finished up yesterday, was a commission.. for Alli713



here's it's partner. sorry for the extreme watermarking. it was at the request of the commissioner. for Alli713

alex'ndria's cat


a shelter doggy..
My dog Chuckie, for my mom.. she didn't like it though.. said he didn't look like chuckie.

I spent over 12 hours solid working on all of the little curls, so I myself am happy with it..



And last, my best friends kitty, who passed away due to liver failure..

super fast sketches -pink cats-

So this morning I grabbed some paper out of my printer tray, a pink highlighter sitting on my desk, and timed myself sketching.

My goal for most was under 30 seconds, but I gave myself a little more time on the last one.
(click to see them bigger!)

Todays agenda:

• going to go the grocery store, all out of bread, chicken and fruits.. could use some veggies too.
• take joe to the library for his cdc test
• go ooooh shiney at all the books
• leave, come home for a bit, and then
  
• take him to work again..

Gotta go, he's needing me to help him study again..

Soupy goodness

Managed to stay up until about 6 last night, and woke up at about 1:04am..Just spent the morning cleaning the chinchilly cages, cleaning the kitchen, watching animal planet.. Made chicken noodle/carrot/celery soup.. yum yum
Also, I made a cake for Joe after he went to work, he got to teach today, and will some more too. I thought it'd be nice.. *laughs* he just called his best friend, Chris, up in Oregon , and he is apparently jealous of my cake-making-ability.

We're going up there so soon!! I'm so excited! Joe hasn't been able to get any vacation time in over 2 years now! :D We'll be around Oregon City. coming up on 5. I love that road.. We managed to go up on a long weekend last September. and it proved to be the easiest road trip I've ever been on..

I'm originally from the Chicago, IL area... and boy was it hard to not get lost going to southern Indiana to visit family.. My gosh.. so complicated..

But yea.. looks like we'll be heading out around the 23rd, and then heading back on the 4th of October..
We're taking Mika up with us, but Ashley & D. (a couple folks joe works with) are watching the other chins, as they can't handle the stress of traveling.. D's already used to taking care of chinnies, as he adopted a violet girl from us awhile back, and loves her to bits. (also a rescue.)
She's now known as Chinny-San Woo Tang .. he's such a goofball. here's a picture of her.. absolutley adorable little girl ^^ so soft, too! We got her at the Santa-Rosa MCBA state chinchilla show in January from a breeder who was selling out half of her breeding stock. She has a weird cow lick, thus giving her only a 2nd show/ & place best of breed... because of a tiny whirl pattern on her butt, and perhaps not the best confirmation in the world (thats thickness of fur)
not that bad, right? .. well ->

She was going to be made into part of a chinchilla-hide teddy bear to be auctioned off because of it... poor baby.. :(
I stepped in and bought her instead, (very politely mind you) thus causing a large about of scowls and murmurs and finger pointing, general loathing, etc in my direction. Whatever, I saved her life. I'm never going back to that show locatuion. I don't know if I'll go to another chin show for awhile.. It was really an unpleasant experience.. Most everyone was really rude and full of crap, and well.. I won't go on about it anymore.. There are a couple nice breeders I've met so far out here.. I'll leave it at that. Ah, and you should hear the poor little creatures scream when they're groomed by the long razor-sharp nail brushes.. It's horribly sad.. being held upside-down by the end of your tail, or an ear perhaps, and having needles raked through your skin.. It was such a sad sound.. Mika still grumbles and chirps sometimes when I gently groom her with a dog grooming comb, --firmly grip base of tail while chin is sitting on your leg, push comb straight down, tilt till perpendicular with skin, and then bring comb up-repeat... loooong process, but it's not torturous.. She generally enjoys it ^^

Anyway, she's in an extremely loving home now with a huge hand-built cage with four fleece hammocks, a bunch of ledges to hop on, and lots of toys and chewies, and is always quite happy when we go over to say hi ^_^


*yawns* I've had this window open for a long time.. I wonder what time it will say when I post it.. It's about 4:26pm right now, and I'm really starting to get tired.. that's what I get for waking up at freaking midnight.. I really need to stop following Joseph's shifts. . it can't be good for me..

Speaking of JoJo, he got to teach a classroom today! He was so happy about it.. He's not getting the primary instructor position like he wanted to, unfortunately, but he will after awhile.. He and this other guy are the same rank, went to tech school at the same time, and have all the same qualifications.
Problem is, the other guy's not certified to teach, and joe is, but yet the other dude got the job instead. *shrugs* it seems things like that happen alot.. poor joe was so sad when he came home.. -_- had to cheer him up with some yummy dinner and a good rant.

We've been sitting out in the backyard for the past couple hours going over exams together, me acting as teacher.. He's got a ton of tests this week for his cdc's I think after this he'll be done for a while, but ya never know..

He's just really sick of the whole working 7 or 8 12/14 hour shifts in a row with one day off inbetween, I can't blame him... It also sucks for me because I'm home alone allll daaaay loooong..

I read alot.. a whole lot. I recently got brave and bought some Stephen King books *laughs* Ususally I try to avoid any kind of scary stories, as I live in a creaky old house smack dab in the middle of nowhere land, and I tend to get paranoid about things..


Part of the reason I'm wanting a doggy so badly.. I'm so lonely.. and I really miss having a doggy to love on and talk to...

I've had a dog for a good part of my life (well, my parents did I spose.. chuckie wasn't ever "my" dog..) but I miss him just the same.. he's a lazy old geezer now, and when I want home to visit in the spring, I saw him, he had terribly sad old doggy eyes.. kindof milky and far away looking, like he's not there anymore..

that's a big difference inbetween the time that I left home -october- still happy and somewhat energetic, dark alert eyes, ....... and then come springtime when I flew out there.. saw him after a big surgery to remove poodle cysts and tumors -some kindof poodle thing I'm told. they get these weird warts when they age) And the difference was astounding. So tired, does nothing but sleep.. he still got up when you came to the door though..

Mom, Dad and Chuck drove out to visit us in june, and... well, he just isn't the same dog.. Once happy to sit and waggle the tail like crazy and yap at joe, playfully pouncing around him, he just gently wagged his tail and pawed at his leg to climb up into his lap and fall asleep yet again..
His vet thinks he has some kind of disease now that's making him rapidly age, but the tests apparently cost too much, and not enough time, etc etc among other things, so they have to wait till they can afford it.. At least that's as far mom told me.. *sighs* I can't do anything to help my boy.... I don't know what to do. . -_-. *goes foraging for photos* ...4:50 now.

please click to get a better view..




man... now I'm all sad again. *heavy sighs*

that was a long journal..
5 now. I'm going to go watch a movie or something. .

*yawn* trying this again

Ahh, what a slow night.. Been looking up Cardigan Welsh Corgi information all night. . and the night before, and many nights before that too. For those who don't know what breed exactly I'm talking about, here's an adorable video of cardigans on the beach




I'm terribly bored today.. I really hate being on this sleep cycle. can't do anything when I've got freetime, its the middle of the freaking night.. Joe and I were going to try staying up all through the day yesterday, in an attempt to get back on a day schedual but pretty much passed out at noon. (i'd gotten up at 11am the previous day)
Today we've got to do it though, he's got to teach class at 0700 tuesday morning..

Anyway... I'm going to try calling some breeders up in oregon and washington later when it's a more reasonable time. Joe and I are going up to Portland to visit friends and his family, and it just so happens there are alot of cardi breeders in the area. We just want to go say hi to the pups and dogs, and get to know some things about the breed from um, live breeders I guess you could say. Some times Q+A time is just better in person. :)


*art stuffs*
Just working on some commisions.. I'll post them when they're done. . For now, on one anyway, I've hit a bit of a road block.. Not fun.
Last night I did this.. it's not done yet, but the main body's looking really nice so far. I need to refine the face mainly..



that's all for now. I'll probably be back on later.
ciao!


*later rolls around*

I decided to put this up here too! One of my favourite doggy portraits that I've ever done... I have it framed and up above my drawing desk.. A little pemmy in agility training.

Introductions

Hey, all! My name's Kat, and I'll be posting photos of my life and such here, as well as art that I'm working on, and all of that fantastic jazz. If you want to go check out my site, it's called Neutron Arts you'll find artwork and photography there, and some other stuff coming up soon!

Here's a fairly recent picture of me and the hubby :)


To start off today, here's a quick sketch of the Disney chipmunks, Chip & Dale. (sorry for the watermark, I have a problem with art thieves.)


One other thing you ought to know is that I have four chinchillas. not chinchilla cats. Just Chinchillas.

This is Mika, my little sweetie. ^^ We adopted her at a tiny 6 weeks old, and I love her to pieces. She is definitely the smartest of the bunch, and has the biggest personality you've ever seen.


Next up is Raggamuffin, (called Muffins) who is a rescue. Incredibly self-absorbed, she just adores staring at herself in the bathroom mirror. *giggles* When she and her cagemate Jannie came to us, they were in horrible health.. sick, scared, underweight, huge patches of fur missing and the smell coming off of her was terrible.. She and Jannie were also slimy.. Yuk.



I don't really have a good picture of Jannie at the moment. . I'll get back to you on that one.

This is cookie, the biggest spaz in the universe. I also consider her to be a rescue.. Has mental issues, we think. She's perfectly healthy and everything, but.. she is also the most paranoid creature I've ever seen.. hates to be touched or talked to, just hides in her tube all day, whereas everybody else loooves getting attention.




alrighty that's enough of chinchillas today. ^_^

see ya'all later