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Mother’s Day weekend was pretty momentous. The Greenbelt Green Man Festival was held for the first time since 2019. (It was canceled for the last two years due to the Coronavirus pandemic.) Once again it was scheduled for Mother’s Day weekend but, with the weather being the way it was that weekend, maybe the organizers should’ve waited and scheduled it for Father’s Day on the following month (especially since the Green Man is traditionally a male deity).
The first day of the festival was very cold (the temperature didn’t even go above 50 degrees Fahrenheit) and it rained a lot. The awful weather was among the reasons why I chose to go to the indoor Free Comic Book Day event at the nearby Beltway Plaza mall instead of the first day of Green Man.
The day before the festival I submitted this fan art that I did to the Green Man Art Show that was also launched at The New Deal Cafe on the same weekend as the festival and it ran for several weeks afterwards.
In the Field of Sunflowers (Care Bears Fan Art)
Watercolor, gouache, ink, acrylic, water-soluble wax crayons
8 inches x 10 inches
20 cm x 25 cm
You can learn more about the making of this piece right here.
As for Mother’s Day itself, it had stopped raining but the weather was very cool with temperatures being in the high 40’s. I initially went to the Farmers Market since it was the first day of the 2022 season. (The Greenbelt Farmers Market generally runs on Sundays from May-December.)
They had live entertainment at the Farmers Market featuring a singer and an accordion player.
I shot a short video of their performance, which I uploaded on to TikTok, Clapper, and YouTube.
The Farmers Market had a booth known as the Tea Fairy. One of my friends was staffing it (she was helping out the woman who portrayed the Tea Fairy), which was why I took a few shots of that booth.
The Tea Fairy had this deal where you could get a free balloon animal or flower in exchange for a $5 donation. I made the donation and chose a dog as my balloon piece.
Afterwards I walked over to the nearby Greenbelt Green Man Festival. It was sparse compared to previous years with fewer vendors, exhibits, and performers overall. Part of the reason was because it was being held for the first time in three years (since COVID-19 had prompted the cancellation of the last two years) and part of the reason was because the weather was so cold and wet. (The ground was still wet from the previous day’s rain.) The live acts were originally scheduled to perform on an outdoor stage but the performers were moved indoors to the nearby New Deal Cafe because the weather was so incredibly cold. But the empty stage became a play area for some energetic kids.
Other years I’ve seen people wear festive clothes like flower crowns and Renaissance-style clothes. I decided to wear a glitter Minnie Mouse headband that I bought at Walmart with a pair of fairy wings that I purchased from a Spirit of Halloween store a few years ago. I was one of the few people who actually dressed up for this festival because the weather was cold and rainy.
And here’s me with my new balloon dog that I got from the Tea Fairy booth at the nearby Greenbelt Farmers Market.
One of the festival volunteers was urging people to see the live acts in the New Deal Cafe.
Here are some various shots of the festival where you can see the few people milling around wearing heavy clothes due to the cold weather along with just a few of the handcrafted items that were on sale. (I noticed that there were fewer vendors than in previous years.)
The last few photos are of the things I purchased from the Farmers Market and Green Man Festival. They basically consisted of the balloon dog and five bars of handcrafted soaps that I purchased from two different vendors. (At least I won’t have any problems with keeping myself clean for the next few months. LOL!)
Here’s a shot of my balloon dog.
Two of the soap bars came from Mystic Water Soap, which is based in Riverdale Park, Maryland.
The other three bars came from another local vendor known as Root Down Cleansing.
Here’s a silly photo I shot of the balloon dog with my two Disney Nuimos, Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse.
I’m currently participating in the Green Man Art Show that’s being held at the New Deal Cafe in Greenbelt, Maryland. Here is my work that is currently on display.
In the Field of Sunflowers (Care Bears Fan Art)
Watercolor, gouache, ink, acrylic, water-soluble wax crayons
8 inches x 10 inches
20 cm x 25 cm
You can learn more about the making of this piece right here.
Both the art show and reception will be held at this location:
The New Deal Cafe
113 Centerway (located in Roosevelt Center)
Greenbelt, Maryland 20770
Directions can be found here.
This Sunday, June 5, 2022 there will be a reception for the Greenbelt Green Man Art Show that I’m currently participating in. This is the same art show that began to coincide with the Greenbelt Green Man Festival, which was held a few weeks ago. The reception will run from 2-4 p.m. and you can not only see my art in person but you’ll have the chance to meet me as well. My art is currently available for sale so it’s an opportunity for you to ask me any questions you may have about my work. Here is what I’m currently displaying in the show.
In the Field of Sunflowers (Care Bears Fan Art)
Watercolor, gouache, ink, acrylic, water-soluble wax crayons
8 inches x 10 inches
20 cm x 25 cm
You can learn more about the making of this piece right here.
Both the art show and reception will be held at this location:
The New Deal Cafe
113 Centerway (located in Roosevelt Center)
Greenbelt, Maryland 20770
Directions can be found here.
I’m participating in an art show that’s being run in conjunction with this past weekend’s Greenbelt Green Man Festival. The festival itself is over but the art show will continue until next month. You can not only view my art in person but you’ll also have the opportunity to buy it as well. Here’s a preview:
In the Field of Sunflowers (Care Bears Fan Art)
Watercolor, gouache, ink, acrylic, water-soluble wax crayons
8 inches x 10 inches
20 cm x 25 cm
You can learn more about the making of this piece right here.
Here is where you can view and even purchase my work:
The New Deal Cafe
113 Centerway (located in Roosevelt Center)
Greenbelt, Maryland 20770
Directions can be found here.
Starting this week you can have the chance to both see and purchase my most recent work in person. Here is my contribution to a special exhibit, which is a tie-in with this weekend’s Greenbelt Green Man Festival.
In the Field of Sunflowers (Care Bears Fan Art)
Watercolor, gouache, ink, acrylic, water-soluble wax crayons
8 inches x 10 inches
20 cm x 25 cm
You can learn more about the making of this piece right here. It is being displayed as part of a special exhibit that is being opened at the New Deal Cafe concurrently with this weekend’s Greenbelt Green Man Festival and will run through the months of May and June. Here is where you can view and even purchase my work:
The New Deal Cafe
113 Centerway (located in Roosevelt Center)
Greenbelt, Maryland 20770
Directions can be found here.
I decided to enter a Care Bears fan art contest that was being held on Threadless. This contest was held to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Care Bears (which makes me feel old because I remember when they were first released in 1982). The contest rules were basically simple in terms of how each bear was to be displayed and also included a ban on violence and explicit sexuality.
So I did this piece using the following materials: acrylic, watercolor pencils, water-soluble wax crayons, ink, and gouache. I call it In the Field of Sunflowers.
In the Field of Sunflowers (Care Bears Fan Art)
Watercolor, gouache, ink, acrylic, water-soluble wax crayons
8 inches x 10 inches
20 cm x 25 cm
Here’s the story behind this piece. Ever since Russia decided to invade Ukraine over a month ago, a whole bunch of Ukrainian-themed art have suddenly sprouted online. Many of them incorporated one or more of the following: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, sunflowers (which is the national symbol of Ukraine), the Ukrainian flag, and even the flag colors of yellow and blue.
I basically jumped on the bandwagon but I decided to be more subtle in my work in that it depicted two children dressed in traditional Slavic clothes that are in the colors of the Ukrainian flag. They are being hugged by Tenderheart Beart, who is the most paternal figure of all of the Care Bears, while hiding in a field of sunflowers. I even had sort of a backstory where these children have seen the horrors of the Russians invading their country and they meet up with Tenderheart Bear who whisks them away into a field of sunflowers where they hide away from the invaders and the horrors of war. Tenderheart Bear is basically comforting the children while protecting them at the same time.
For the execution of my piece, I decided to use the supplies that I already have on hand, with the exception of a pack of gouache that I purchased on sale at Jo-Ann’s Fabrics & Crafts for around 40% off. (I had a coupon.) I’m trying to control my spending while making an effort to use what I already have before I even think about buying more supplies. I ended up using a thin layer of acrylic paint for the clouds and the color of the children’s skin because I wanted to save money on buying those colors in watercolor and I already had those colors in acrylic so I might as well use them. It was the same reason why I used black ink, watercolor pencils, and water-soluble wax crayons in my piece: I already owned them.
I submitted it to Threadless and I’m waiting for word on the outcome of the contest. I had to take out a store account on Threadless in order to submit my design. You can see it online right now but I’m currently not able to sell t-shirts, phone covers, or other products because I’m waiting for approval from the copyright owners of the Care Bears. If and when I get such approval, I will be selling them as merchandise. (If that happens, I will definitely let you know.)
I made a video of my design, which you can view on TikTok, Clapper, and YouTube.
I’m still awaiting the outcome of the contest so I will update this post if I win anything.
The stolen, enslaved African who became Queen Victoria’s goddaughter.
She drew millions of TikTok followers by selling a fantasy of rural China. Then politics intervened.
Miniature watercolor works by Ruby Silvious are painted on stained teabags.
Forty times corporations failed so hard that they were shamed online.
Yesterday Rush Limbaugh died of cancer at the age of 70. I normally don’t take glee at a person’s death unless the person in question is one that is as odious as Rush Limbaugh. I once featured him in my artwork called Alice at the Tea Party, where I portrayed him as the Cheshire Cat (located in the lower left corner).
You can read more about this artwork here.
I was first familiar with him when my sister-in-law’s Republican then-husband told my own then-husband about how funny and entertaining Rush’s show was. We decided to give Rush Limbaugh’s show a chance when we were making one of our eight-hour commutes from DC to Rochester (where my sister-in-law lived at the time) and we were looking for something to listen to on the car radio. I know it was sometime in the late 1980s-early 1990s because his show started with this statement where he said “Day ______ of America held hostage!” I’ve since forgotten the number of the exact day but my mathematician husband quickly figured out that he was counting the number of days that America was supposedly being held “hostage” from the day that Bill Clinton was elected president.
It was downhill from that opening statement. Apparently Rush Limbaugh had recently attended some kind of red carpet event in Hollywood (I forgot exactly what event it was) and he was talking about how he was there and he was constantly name dropping celebrities he encountered at that event. This went on for over a half-an-hour where he just talked about himself meeting these celebrities. He just came across as being so boring to listen to. My husband soon changed the station to one that played music. We were both turned off of that guy that day.
I would occasionally hear snippets from Rush’s show on other programs and there was nothing he said that made me change my low opinion of that guy. There was the one time years ago when my neighborhood had electrical problems and Pepco sent a truck to check out the wires. The truck had Rush Limbaugh’s show playing on the radio and it was cranked up loud enough so that not only the employees could hear it but I could from inside of my house. I ended up playing music in order to drown out that show.
Rush Limbaugh was a man who became famous for constantly bashing women, people of color, the LGBTQ community, Democrats, and numerous others. As this Wonkette article explains:
Limbaugh was a bully and a coward (his entire show was a “safe space”). He taught a generation of white people that it was OK to laugh at the vulnerable and ridicule the already despised. He never articulated a coherent philosophy other than liberals and minorities bad. One of his most enduring contributions to the political discourse is calling feminists “feminazis,” presumably because feminists support abortion rights, although that’s ascribing too much nuance to his name calling.
If you need more evidence on how bad Limbaugh could get, this link has a timeline of his most racist moments.
When Rush Limbaugh admitted back in 2003 that he was seeking treatment because he had become addicted to painkillers, you’d think that it would humble him enough to make him start to feel empathy for others. Nope, he was still just as hateful on the air after he left treatment as he was before. Having Elton John perform at his last wedding while even maintaining a friendship with him wasn’t enough to change his attitude towards LGBTQ people.
Yesterday Keith Olbermann tweeted this: “All I can think of is the Sunday circa ’94 I arrived at my desk at ESPN to find an awestruck Rush Limbaugh standing there looking into the ESPN Newsroom, gushing over our work, and quietly saying ‘I’d trade everything I’ve ever had if I could co-host SportsCenter.’ Wish he had.”
Actually Rush Limbaugh had a sports announcer gig on ESPN in 2003, which turned out to be very brief when he went on that network’s Sunday NFL Countdown and he went off on Philadelphia Eagles African American quarterback Donovan McNabb by saying that McNabb isn’t really that good of a player and he only got as far as he did because he’s black. Limbaugh ended up resigning from ESPN after a public outcry rose up over his remarks.
That outcry was justified if you take a look at McNabb’s career up to the time of Limbaugh’s remarks and conclude that the Philadelphia Eagles was right in making McNabb its quarterback. Sports is one of those things where one can objectively rank a person’s performance on the playing field without having to consider race, class, or other social factors. And that person’s performance is frequently made in the public eye and recorded by the media so it can be referenced later. You can’t hide or try to gloss over anything in sports. You either catch the ball or you don’t. You either stay in bounds while having the ball or you go out of bounds and get stopped by the referee. You either make that touchdown or you don’t. Limbaugh was clearly out of bounds when he attempted to criticize McNabb on the basis of his race.
He even went after companies who tried to treat their workers with dignity. When Dan Price, the founder and CEO of Gravity Payments, decided to take a pay cut so his workers can get raises, Rush Limbaugh decided to talk about it on his show. As Price recounts in this Twitter thread, Limbaugh said “I hope this company is a case study in MBA programs on how socialism does not work, because it’s gonna fail.” It turned out that Limbaugh was only partially correct. Gravity Payments did become a case study in MBA programs but it was on how the CEO taking a pay cut and providing raises to workers had resulted in a triple in revenue while retention and productivity skyrocketed. Limbaugh never mentioned Dan Price or Gravity Payments on his show again nor did he invite Price to come on his show to discuss the issue. Price said that, to this day, a sizable number of Limbaugh’s audience has incorrectly assumed that Gravity Payments is now defunct and that one of the top auto-complete Google searches for Gravity Payments is “out of business.”
The biggest joke about Rush Limbaugh is that he talked about family values. He once condemned a law student named Sandra Fluke as a “slut” and a “prostitute” because she gave testimony on Capitol Hill in front of lawmakers in support of mandating insurance coverage for contraceptives. For all his talk about family values and morality, Rush Limbaugh had been divorced three times and was in his fourth marriage at the time of his death.
He has never apologized for any of his excesses (which includes making fun of a then-12-year-old Chelsea Clinton by referring to her as a “dog”). What’s more, his radio show has directly contributed to a coarsening of American discourse where it’s okay to call people awful names and make fun of any disabilities they may have. Here’s an example: Back in 2006 Rush Limbaugh made fun of actor Michael J. Fox having Parkinson’s disease.
One doesn’t have to be a rocket scientist to conclude that what Rush did has paved the way for others to emulate him, such as Donald Trump making fun of a New York Times reporter’s disability during a 2016 campaign rally.
Despite that grotesque lack of sensitivity on display, Trump managed to not only have his campaign survive the outcry from that incident but he was elected president.
I consider it to be a travesty that President Donald Trump had decided to award Rush Limbaugh the Presidential Medal of Freedom last year. Previous recipients (such as E.B. White, Walt Disney, Neil Armstrong, Georgia O’Keefe, Jonas Salk, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, Lucille Ball, Arthur Ashe, Rosa Parks, Fred Rogers, and John Glenn) had made positive contributions that changed America for the better. Limbaugh, with his hateful rhetoric, definitely sticks out like a sore thumb among these previous recipients.
For years his opponents had tried everything to get his show off the air by doing things like boycotting his show’s advertisers. Yet his program didn’t leave the air until December when he felt too ill to continue. What finally did Rush Limbaugh in was the fact that he loved cigars so much that he was once featured in Cigar Aficionado magazine while claiming that “Smokers aren’t killing anybody.” He died of lung cancer so it was obvious that he was wrong about smokers not killing anybody.
The only positive thing I can even say about Rush Limbaugh is that he was once the subject of a hilariously brutal yet accurate Beavis and Butt-head parody called “Right On!” You can view the animation right here but, just in case it gets wiped off-line in the future, I’ll provide a link to a text synopsis of it.
As for Rush Limbaugh himself, I say good riddance to bad rubbish.
Last week I finally mailed off my entry in The Brooklyn Art Library’s ongoing Sketchbook Project. The origins of that one can be traced to my involvement in last year’s Inktober 2019 (where the object is to create one new ink drawing then share it on social media evert day from October 1-31). One of my Facebook friends who is also my neighbor saw some of my work that I posted on that social media site and she messaged me with this tantalizing proposition. A few months ago she had decided to take part in The Sketchbook Project and she even sent away for the sketchbook, which also included a few ink pens (one was a black fine line pen and the others were brush-like ink pens in black, brown, green, and red). Then she was distracted by other things in her life and she hadn’t started her sketchbook by the time October came. She asked me if I would take over her sketchbook for free. I said yes and she gave me the sketchbook, the included ink pens, and her log-in information for the website.
Since I had already planned and started work on the bulk of the sketches for Inktober, I couldn’t begin work on this new sketchbook immediately. I decided to continue with my current sketchbook for the rest of Inktober then immediately switch to the new sketchbook after the month of October ended.
I finally took a look at The Sketchbook Project in early November and I saw that it had a February 1 deadline, which meant that I only had three months to fill it in then mail it to New York City. I hit upon an idea where I would do The Twelve Drawings of Christmas for the second year in a row while using this sketchbook for the drawings. (Which means that longtime readers of this blog will recognize at least half of the drawings in this post.) While I focused exclusively on winter/Christmas themes for the 2018 edition, for the 2019 edition I decided to include fewer Christmas-themed drawings since I was using a sketchbook that would ultimately be sent elsewhere and it would be looked at by other people (some of whom may not even celebrate Christmas at all) at other times of the year besides the winter holiday season.
I began doing the first of the drawings in this new sketchbook using the included pens only to discover that the paper was a bit on the thin side so the ink would bleed through to the other side. I initially thought about switching to just pencils so I could use both sides of each page but I only had three months to fill in this sketchbook before it was time for me to mail it back in and I had other things going on in my life so I really couldn’t devote 40-60 hours a week on this project.
So I came up with the idea of pasting my own photographs on the other side of each bled-through page once I finished with each ink drawing. Using photographs definitely cut the amount of work on that sketchbook since printing and gluing the photo on a page is way quicker than drawing. This sketchbook would highlight my talents as an artist and photographer just like this blog.
For the photographs I decided on a theme. This year is the 10th anniversary of this blog so I decided to use only those photos that I had previously highlighted in this blog. Despite putting that limitation on myself, I still had a challenge of sifting through hundreds of photographs from the last 10 years in order to decide which ones I would actually use. For every photo I decided to use, there were probably hundreds of others that I could have also used. I also made an effort to have a variety of photographs so I wouldn’t get pegged by others as being only a photojournalist or only a portrait photographer or only a nature photographer, etc.
Once I finished my sketchbook the first thing I did before I sent it back to New York City was to make a YouTube video. If you like to listen to music while viewing my work, here is the video.
If you prefer to viewing still photos, I’ll list them here in the order that they were placed in the sketchbook. Every drawing and photograph have previously been mentioned in this blog so I’ll provide a link to the post in case you want to read about the story behind each visual. (The link will open in a new window.)
OUTSIDE FRONT COVER
INSIDE FRONT COVER
PAGE 1: THE JOKER AND ARTHUR FLECK
PAGE 2: MADONNA GIRL DALE
PAGE 3: A COSTUMED PERFORMER AT THE 2010 PIGTOWN FESTIVAL IN BALTIMORE
PAGE 4: HOWARD THE DUCK FAN ART
PAGE 5: MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN
PAGE 6: CLIMATE STRIKE PROTESTER WITH TRUMP BABY BALLOON, SEPTEMBER 20, 2019
PAGE 7: BRUNI FROM FROZEN 2
PAGE 8: BLUE HERON IN PALMETTO, FLORIDA
PAGE 9: VOLKS DOLLFIE DREAM DOLL PEEKING FROM BEHIND CHERRY BLOSSOM TREE
PAGE 10: UNDER THE ZENTANGLE SEA
PAGE 11: BABY YODA IN MEAN CUTIES
PAGE 12: VOLKS DOLLFIE DREAM DOLL IN CHERRY BLOSSOM TREE
PAGE 13: FALL FOLIAGE AT CLARK’S ELIOAK FARM IN ELLICOTT CITY, MARYLAND
PAGE 14: HATSUNE MIKU AND THE CLAUSES
PAGE 15: A PENGUIN NATIVITY SCENE WITH LINUX
PAGE 16: 2014 COWBOY AND INDIAN ALLIANCE PROTEST AGAINST THE KEYSTONE XL PIPELINE
PAGE 17: COPS IN RIOT GEAR AT THE INNER HARBOR IN BALTIMORE DURING THE BALTIMORE UPRISING PROTESTING THE MURDER OF FREDDIE GRAY BY THE BALTIMORE CITY POLICE IN 2015
PAGE 18: UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST FLAMING CHALICE
PAGE 19: ROSCOE THE ROOSTER MEMORIAL IN TAKOMA PARK, MARYLAND
PAGE 20: STATUE OUTSIDE OF ANN’S DARI-CREME IN GLEN BURNIE, MARYLAND
PAGE 21: BABY RAFAEL
PAGE 22: KRAMPUS TAKING DONALD TRUMP AWAY
PAGE 23: JOLENE SUGARBAKER
PAGE 24: COUNTER-PROTESTERS AT THE 2018 UNITE THE RIGHT 2 RALLY IN WASHINGTON, DC
PAGE 25: THE MAY DAY 2015 PROTEST AGAINST THE KILLING OF FREDDIE GRAY BY THE BALTIMORE CITY POLICE AT THE INNER HARBOR IN BALTIMORE
PAGE 26: EDGAR ALLAN POE AND THE RAVEN
PAGE 27: UNDER THE ORANGE SKY
PAGE 28: OCCUPY DC (PART OF THE LARGER OCCUPY WALL STREET MOVEMENT), MCPHERSON SQUARE, WASHINGTON, DC, NOVEMBER 5, 2011
PAGE 29: BUTTERFLY ON A FLOWER AT BROOKSIDE GARDENS IN WHEATON, MARYLAND
PAGE 30: DONALD TRUMP AND HARLEY QUINN
PAGE 31: COBB ISLAND, MARYLAND
PAGE 32: RAINBOW OVER NORTH BEACH, MARYLAND, SEPTEMBER 12, 2019
INSIDE BACK COVER
OUTSIDE BACK COVER
I felt a really great achievement in finishing this. There was a part of me that felt sorry that I had to mail it to New York City but that’s the way it goes. In a way working on this project is like having a child. You nuture it and make your own imprint on it but ultimately you have to let it go out into the wider world on its own as a completely independent entity. I don’t know if I’ll ever see my sketchbook again in person (let alone actually hold it in my hands one more time) but it was time for me to let go of it. At least I shot enough pictures and video footage so I can at least look at it again if I ever begin to feel sad over no longer having that sketchbook in my possession.
Yesterday I received an email from The Sketchbook Project informing me that my sketchbook has been assigned a new call number:
383.10-4
So if anyone ever goes to the Brooklyn Art Library and wants to see my sketchbook in person, you now know how to look for it.
From time to time I’ll probably log into the official website to see if anyone has checked it out or if the Brooklyn Art Library has sent it out on a road trip of some sort. It would interesting to see in the future whatever happened to that sketchbook. But right now I’m going to move on from that project and focus on other things in my life that needs attending to.
I did my final art on the last page of the sketchbook, which I did for the Brooklyn Art Library’s Sketchbook Project.
This art is based on a photo I took last September while I was visiting Cobb Island, Maryland as part of my job with the Census Bureau. I did the initial work in ink but then I decided to give watercolors another try. (I used watercolors previously when I worked on my Raven page and it was a near disaster because the pages in this sketchbook are so thin that the water began to bleed through. I caught this in time before it bled on to the other art so much that they got ruined.)
I felt that since it was the last page of the sketchbook before I hit the back cover (which I hadn’t worked on yet) so I decided to risk it. I used a watercolor pencil dipped into water (because I didn’t have a tube of grey watercolor paint) and the results were initially okay. Once the art dried I used the watercolor pencil without dipping it into water in order to make both the sky and water darker. (Like I wrote earlier, I based this on a photograph. It was cloudy the day I visited Cobb Island, which showed in the photo I shot.)
The reason why I picked the boats and docks of Cobb Island is because I realized that throughout the sketchbook I had done mainly fan art, with the exception of this portrait I did of YouTube cooking star Jolene Sugarbaker. Since this sketchbook will ultimately be sent to New York City and other people will view it, I felt a need to show that I can do more traditional art so I decided to finish that sketchbook with some landscape art.
Sagittarius Dolly 
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