You are currently browsing the tag archive for the ‘fairy’ tag.
This year I spent both days at the Greenbelt Green Man Festival. At least the weather was way warmer compared to last year even if it rained on the first day of the festival.
Day 1-May 13, 2023
The weather was in the low 70s but it was very cloudy with an occasional brief shower. I decided to go to the festival despite the less-than-ideal weather because a lot of my friends were going to be there and I wanted to meet with them. The festival also gave me a chance to take some more photos and videos with my new smartphone that I had only recently purchased. Here are a few still photos I took on that day.
I shot more videos on that first day. I made this one video that focused on a person who was dressed as the Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz and a woman on stilts who was dressed as a fantasy sprite person who formed various objects with balloons, such as swords. I uploaded it on TikTok, Clapper, Instagram, and YouTube.
I shot one video focusing on the drumming circle, which I uploaded on TikTok, Clapper, Instagram, and YouTube.
I shot a video featuring the drumming circle with dancers, which I uploaded on TikTok, Clapper, Instagram, and YouTube.
This year they had a group of women performing known as the Green Man Singers. Some of them are my friends and they sang really well. I shot one song that I uploaded on TikTok, Clapper, Instagram, and YouTube.
I shot another song by that same group, which I uploaded on TikTok, Clapper, Instagram, and YouTube.
I shot the third and final video of the Green Man Singers, which I uploaded on TikTok, Clapper, Instagram, and YouTube.
The last video I shot on the first day of the festival was the Green Man Parade, which went its way through the festival fairgrounds. I uploaded it on TikTok, Clapper, Instagram, and YouTube.
The weather started to drizzle yet again so I went to the nearby New Deal Cafe where I ate lunch and uploaded the photos and videos I shot on my social media sites. By the time I was finished with eating and uploading the cafe suddenly grew more crowded with people. I looked outside and saw that the weather had turned into heavy rain, which basically cut the festival short. (The live entertainment moved indoors to the New Deal Cafe while many of the outdoor vendors decided to pack their wares and leave early.) I drove home when the cafe got really crowded.
Day 2-May 14, 2023
The next morning I headed back to the festival. The weather was the opposite of the cloudy and rainy weather on the previous day. That day the weather was sunny with no hint of rain of any kind. It was warm but not too hot. It was perfect spring weather.
It was Mother’s Day and the first day of the new season of the weekly Greenbelt Farmers Market. The festival was very crowded as the day went on. I took more photos on the second day than on the first day, starting with this selfie of myself.
It was the second day in a row that I wore my glitter Minnie Mouse unicorn ears headband. Thanks to the warm and sunny weather I was able to wear my fairy wings, which I didn’t feel comfortable wearing the day before due to the rain.
I shot these two photos of a guy who said that he was dressed up as Krampus the Christmas demon.
I took photos of various people in costumes and other types of interesting clothes.
A friend of mine was running a floral booth with his wife. The flowers they sold were gorgeous.
Here are other shots of various sights at the Greenbelt Green Man Festival.
I shot some videos on the second day as well. When I first arrived the drumming circle was going on for the second day in a row. This time someone was shooting bubbles from a bubble gun while people were drumming. I shot a video and uploaded it on TikTok, Clapper, Instagram, and YouTube.
The Green Man Singers joined the drumming circle for the second day. I shot one video of their performance then uploaded it on TikTok, Clapper, Instagram, and YouTube.
After the drumming circle ended it was time for the Green Man Parade. I filmed the beginning of the parade as it walked through Roosevelt Center. Then I walked over to the first day of the Greenbelt Farmers Market where I saw the same parade walk through on the way to the end point at Roosevelt Center. I uploaded that video on TikTok, Clapper, Instagram, and YouTube.
One of the booths had a constant stream of drummers who were jamming throughout the entire day. I shot a short video that I uploaded on TikTok, Clapper, Instagram, and YouTube.
I managed to stay at the festival a little later than the day before because the weather was so wonderful. I didn’t buy anything other than food and drink this year so I have no photos or videos of my latest haul. I don’t always feel the need to buy something in order to have fun at an event. It’s possible to have fun without buying anything at all.
For the past few Thursdays (see my posts on June 18, 2020, June 25, 2020, and July 2, 2020) I’ve been highlighting old sketchbook drawings that I found while I was decluttering my home. I found these cartoony drawings, some I did in pencil and some I did in ink. The first two are a bunch of faces.
The third is my commentary on the O.J. Simpson murder trial where a living room has a TV that tuned to the coverage of that trial along with a poster advertising The Naked Gun movies (which Simpson appeared in). The TV has what looks like VHS boxes (they have to be VHS tapes because DVDs weren’t around back when O.J. was on trial) that are all about O.J. Simpson. The coffee table had various books about O.J. Simpson, which had the one title that O.J. Simpson actually wrote (I Want to Tell You) and others whose titles I simply made up to be funny (I Had O.J.’s Alien Baby, O.J. Must Die, and O.J. is a Victim). The floor is littered with two tabloids with headlines about O.J. Simpson and his murder trial.
The third shows a donkey and an elephant dancing close together. It’s likely some kind of a political commentary on how close these parties actually are since those two are the symbols of the Democrat and Republican parties.
Last, but not least, here’s a drawing showing a little girl arriving home with her mother freaking out because the girl is accompanied by a fairy, a fire-breathing dragon, an elf riding a unicorn, and a satyr. The caption reads: “Gee, Mom, can’t I keep them? They followed me home.”
Unfortunately I didn’t put a date on any of these drawings. Judging by the O.J. Simpson murder trial references in one of my drawings, I probably did all of them sometime in the mid to late 1990s. As to why I did them, I’m trying to pick my memory and the only thing I can remember is this. At one point in the 1990’s I took a cartooning class that was offered through Glen Echo’s art program. The class was open to all ages and the participants ranged from teens all the way to this one woman I remember being old enough to be my mother. It’s very likely that I did these drawings during that class since it would explain why I did a series of faces in the first two drawings. (It was likely an in-class assignment.) I just only wished I had written down the date that I did them.
That’s it for the old drawings I found while I was decluttering. If I find any more, I’ll definitely share them in this blog.
If you take a selfie through a toilet paper tube, you’ll look like the moon.
Barbershop gives students free haircuts if they read books aloud to barbers.
The forgotten “China Girls” hidden at the beginning of old films.
This artist uses snowshoes to carve massive artworks into the snow.
Trump is inspiring a generation of kids to be racist bullies at school.
Some of the deadliest samurais in history were women.
Old British people declare their love of marmalade in letters to the editor.
What working class and poor white people need to understand about rich white people.
Once again I took part in the Changing Focus Yard Sale, which was held on the grounds of the Prince of Peace Presbyterian Church in Crofton, Maryland. Like the previous times I attended, I collected money from people who wanted to buy the used items that were donated from the members of Changing Focus (which is a non-profit organization dedicated to helping people deal with being separated, divorced, and widowed). In-between handling the money and interacting with the customers, I took these photos of a few choice items that were on sale this time around.
This porcelain doll looked like the late Princess Diana having an incredibly bad hair day while wearing a dress that looked a couple of sizes too big for her.
These two Victorian-style dolls were snapped up about a minute or two after I took this shot.
The weather was warm and gorgeous outside. It was the perfect day to hold a yard sale. The flowers were at their peak bloom as well.
These kids were playing under one of the flowering trees while their parents shopped at the yard sale.
This is definitely the epitome of kitsch: a porcelain Avon Lady figurine dressed in Victorian-style clothes.
There were plenty of other things on sale that were definitely kitschy.
Most of the time I participate in these yard sales, I come across at least one item that belongs in a museum. This time it was a film cartridge for the Kodak Pocket Instamatic camera (which was my first camera I ever owned—this post I wrote over two years ago has photos I shot with that camera when I was trying to earn a photography badge in Girl Scouts). What’s even more amazing is that this film was still in its original foil cover, which has never been opened.
Here’s another view of the wrapped Kodak film cartridge that has the words “Open at Cut.” (There’s a little cut along the center seam where one is supposed to rip in order to open the package.)
I don’t know if anyone bought it. I have no way of knowing if that film would be usable since it was probably manufactured during the Pocket Instamatic’s 1970s heyday. When I was doing a quick Google search about the Pocket Instamatic, I came across this website that was not only selling vintage Pocket Instamatic cameras but it was also selling newly manufactured 110 film cartridges just for that camera. (Which proves that there’s a market for just about anything these days.)
But that wasn’t the only Kodak film product I saw on sale that day. There was also a Kodak 35mm camera gift box set that was definitely for those who miss the days of shooting with 35mm film.
I saw a vintage Soviet Union sports pendant (note the hammer and sickle in the center).
The Prince of Peace Presbyterian Church has a labyrinth on its property. A young boy was walking along the labyrinth while his father was watching the child while sitting on a bench on the far left side of the photograph.
At one point I went indoors where I checked out the Prince of Peace Presbyterian Church’s used book sale.
I saw boxes full of vintage Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys mystery series.
The church sold more than just used books. They had boxes full of VHS tapes. (I saw people actually browsing and buying them.)
I purchased two books at the used book sale. One was Dan Brown’s Inferno, which is another novel in the historical series featuring Robert Langdon. (I had previously read Angels & Demons, The Da Vinci Code, and The Lost Symbol.)
I also found this book on puppet making, which I bought on impulse. (It only cost $1.)
Both the yard sale and the used book sale were scheduled to coincide with the Festival on the Green, which is usually held on the grounds of the Crofton Country Club that’s located next door to the Prince of Peace Presbyterian Church. The festival had all kinds of handcrafted goods made by local artisans while providing entertainment (some of which included people dressed in costumes). I browsed through the various tables but I ended up not buying anything because money was very tight for me.
Many of the items on sale were displayed with the upcoming Mother’s Day holiday in mind.
This year is also an election year with the midterm elections coming up in Maryland. There were plenty of political candidate signs on display.
This event was the first time I ever shot a video at the Festival on the Green. There was a woman who wore fox ears and a fox tail who was playing the ukulele and singing “Hickory Dickory Dock.”
All in all it was a pretty glorious day. I learned that Changing Focus managed to raise $1,600 from that yard sale. Sweet!
The Saturday before Halloween was definitely jam-packed for me. In the afternoon I went to Annapolis to check out a few things. The night before I promised someone that I would film a portion of a performance at the New Deal Cafe that was happening a few hours after I returned from Annapolis. That performance was scheduled to begin until later in the evening. Earlier that evening there was the annual Greenbelt Pumpkin Walk through the woods. I decided that I could squeeze it in before the performance at the New Deal Cafe.
I’ve gone on that walk other years (in 2012, 2014, 2015, and 2016) but I have gotten very few decent photos from the walk itself. This year I purchased a used Canon digital camera from eBay that has special low light settings so I decided to use it on the pumpkin walk in an effort to take pictures in the dark woods. I have to say that I have gotten the best photos ever from that Canon camera. Here are the photos I managed to shoot successfully.
The wooded path has fallen tree logs and exposed roots that can make this path a challenge to walk on at times, which is why I always carry a hiking stick and a flashlight with me when I go on that pumpkin walk.
I encountered a ghoul on the walk holding one of the jack o’lanterns.
You can’t get more self-referential than a headless horseman carved on the side of a pumpkin. (LOL!)
Here’s a pumpkin for Minecraft fans.
Here’s a little bit of humor.
The legendary Goat Man greeted walkers on the wooded path.
The Halloween fairies greeted visitors as well.
The next pumpkin references the upcoming Greenbelt municipal election, which was held soon after the Greenbelt Pumpkin Walk.
I have to say that this year was the best year I ever had picture-wise. Other years I would’ve been lucky to get at least 10 photos to turn out well but to have the vast majority turn out well really thrilled me. Having the right camera for the job makes all the difference in the world.
This is the fourth year that a maker event took place in Greenbelt, Maryland. (It used to be known as the Greenbelt Mini-Maker Faire until this year, when the organizers decided against renewing the license with Make magazine, which holds the rights to the name “Maker Faire”. One of the reasons I heard is that the organizers of this event has always insisted on it being a non-commercial, non-profit community event which is the opposite of most Maker Faire events, which tend to have all kinds of corporate sponsorships.) After sitting out last year, I decided to return as a participating vendor with my own table.
Makerspace 125 is the main spearheader of this event. This is what it looked like on that day all decked out in balloons and hoops wrapped with yarn.
Someone draped the nearby Mother and Child statue with long strings of beads.
Here is my vending area at this year’s event.
A few days earlier I created a video slideshow of my sketchbook drawings I made over the years (I only admitted the ones that depicted partial or full nudity because this festival is an all-ages family-friendly event). I made a little brochure explaining about myself. I also offered free Oreo cookies.
This section shows the comic book coasters I made by cutting up the comic book collection that my ex-husband left behind. (I attempted to sell them but comic books are worth squat these days, especially if they were published after 1985.) I first debuted them at the 2015 Greenbelt Mini-Maker Faire and I still had a few left mainly because I haven’t worked as many art shows and craft fairs in recent years as before the economic meltdown of 2008.
Last, but not least, here is my Barbie doll section.
The one in the front is the Barbie that I customized into the Unbeatable Squirrel Girl (which I also documented in my four-part DIY video series).
The three other dolls in the back are ones I originally found in thrift stores and I converted them into fairy dolls.
Since this event took place the day before Easter Sunday, there were plenty of eggs on display this year.
Here are my photos of the rest of the festival. The day started off cloudy and cool but then the sun came out and it got progressively hotter until I took off my hooded sweatshirt and just walked around in a t-shirt instead. The cream in the middle of the Oreo cookies I was giving away started to ooze from the middle of each cookie. (I ultimately had to put the entire pack in the refrigerator when I returned home.)
Even though the weather was ideal, the event drew a smaller crowd this year than in previous years. I have a feeling that the fact that this event was scheduled on the day before Easter had something to do with it. I only made a total of $25 in sales throughout the entire six-hour event. I was sort of disappointed because I really wanted to get rid of some excess crafts that have been stored in my home for the past few years while earning extra money. Oh well. At least I got to see a lot of my friends at this event so that’s something.
I also shot a short video of some parts of the festival, which you can view below.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
Part 10
This latest installment in my 12-part Tabletop Christmas series focuses on other tree ornaments that I haven’t featured in this series so far.
The ornament in the next photo was one that was released in commemoration of the 500th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’ voyage to the New World in 1992. That commemoration was controversial mainly because Christopher Columbus’ role in history has become extremely controversial in recent years. I remember when replicas of the Niña, Pinta, and Santa Maria docked at the Inner Harbor in Baltimore, which drew some protests. I saw those ships myself and I was disappointed to learn that only the top deck was opened to the general public while the rest of the decks were roped off. I purchased the ornament because I thought it was very cute, which was the same reason why it survived my purge of excessive ornaments.
This next photo shows a very stylized reindeer that I purchased from the Christmas shop at Valley View Farms years before I started this blog. I’ve always loved the design of this reindeer, which was why that one also survived my ornaments purge.
Here’s a cute Hallmark ornament in the form of a bull-shaped piñata that has “Feliz Navidad” written on the sides.
Here’s a glittery gold snowflake ornament that was given to me by one of my relatives years ago. I especially love the way it reflects when the lights are on.
Here’s a gold heart that I purchased years ago because my then-husband said that he loves hearts. I kept it after he left and I made my ornaments purge because it looks lovely in the Christmas tree, especially when viewed from afar.
The two ornaments in the next photo feature a gold leaf and a dolphin. I know the gold leaf was given to me and my then-husband by a family member but I don’t remember if it came from my parents, my mother-in-law, or my sister-in-law. The dolphin ornament was a Hallmark ornament that I purchased for my then-husband not long after we were married because my husband really loved dolphins. Naturally he left that one behind when he left me but I kept it because the dolphin looks really cute in the tree, especially with it looking like it’s in the middle of a mid-air jump through a Christmas wreath.
This stylized wood star came from a relative from my then-husband’s side of the family but I don’t remember if his mother, sister, or his late Aunt Sue gave it to us. I usually hang this one towards the bottom of the tree.
The next photo features two small ornaments. The pink elephant is made from glass and I purchased it from the Christmas shop at Behnke’s Nurseries years ago because it reminded me of the famous “Pink Elephants on Parade” sequence from the Disney movie Dumbo. This ornament even came with a tiny plastic champaign glass but, unfortunately, the champaign glass snapped off a long time ago and I couldn’t find it. The pink elephant still looks nice without the champaign glass so I kept it. The cat is a Hallmark ornament that was given to me by my parents when I was a teenager.
The next photograph shows a Hallmark Mistletoe Fairy that I purchased mainly because when I was married my husband and I had a tradition where we hung mistletoe above the kitchen door and we used to time our meetings at the kitchen door so we would kiss. (LOL!) We didn’t get mistletoe in 2011 mainly because I was recovering from hip surgery and my husband was sick with bronchitis at the same time. I also didn’t know that he was planning to leave me three days after Christmas (and three months after my hip surgery) for a seriously mentally ill friend of ours. I thought about getting rid of that ornament when I was doing my ornaments purge but I ended up keeping it because this fairy looks really nice in the tree. I no longer keep mistletoe in my home so this ornament is about as close to having mistletoe as I get these days. (LOL!)
This next ornament is a ceramic peppermint unicorn ornament that I purchased from a Hallmark store at a clearance price during a post-Christmas sale one year. That’s another ornament that I’ve always loved to hang in my tree.
Remember the Beanie Babies craze of the 1990’s? At one point Ty came out with a line of Christmas ornaments that were smaller versions of the Beanie Babies. I selected Peace the Tye-Dyed Bear because I thought he was cute and I also remember the traditional “Peace on Earth” greeting at Christmas.
The next few photos are small greeting cards that double as Christmas ornaments, which were given to me by my parents. Each of these greeting card ornaments have the same Victorian Era illustrations on both sides along with a tiny string to hang them on. Here is one of these card ornaments that I still have.
The inside of this card says “A special gift from you to me to hang upon your Christmas tree. From: Mom & Dad To: Kim”.
Here’s the other greeting card ornament that I still have. This one also has the same Victorian Era illustration on both sides.
The inside of this card says “A special gift from you to me to hang upon your Christmas tree. From: Mom & Dad To: Kim.”
Last, but not least, is this red bell that’s currently hanging on my tree as a Christmas ornament. Here’s some background. I’m currently involved in starting a new local chapter of the National Grange in my hometown and I’m serving as the Vice President mainly because this new chapter desperately needed officers and I stepped up to the plate. We decided to walk around town singing Christmas carols one evening before Christmas as a way of both publicizing the new group and spreading Christmas cheer in general. One person brought a bunch of bells that we could ring so that was how I ended up with this red bell. The high point came when we walked around the hallways of this apartment complex that’s designed for senior citizens and disabled adults singing Christmas carols and the residents there really loved it and they all smiled. At the end of the evening I attempted to give my bell back to the person who brought it but she told me that I could keep it. So I hung it on the Christmas tree.
I especially like the snowflake cutout at the bottom.
Before I headed over to The Wind-Up Space where I attended another session of Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art School, I took advantage of the increasingly longer days to walk around the Station North Arts District. I haven’t been to that area in a few months (mainly because I got involved with a book discussion group that met on Mondays) so I’m noticing the changes that the area has undergone. There are all kinds of new businesses and art murals popping up in that area, which is pretty cool. It’s quite a contrast to when I attended my first Dr. Sketchy’s event way back in 2011 and the area was still pretty marginal and run-down at the time.
There are also tributes to Freddie Gray, whose senseless murder at the hands of the Baltimore police and the riots that followed that incident has just passed its first anniversary.
There is also this really cool mural that no longer exists because the building it was painted on was torn down. Here is what the mural once looked like when I took these pictures on previous visits.
Here is what the building site looked like on May 9, 2016.
There is also a Harriet Tubman Solidarity Center, which, judging from the signs in the windows, are definitely involved with the Black Lives Matter movement.
It’s located directly over what looks like a sex shop known as Pervfect Playground Boutique. (Both places were closed when I was there.)
The last time I was in the area was during my ill-fated attempt to catch up with a Bernie Sanders march that was happening in Baltimore. I checked out the BAMF Cafe, which had opened last year, but I didn’t order anything at the time because I was short on money and I had brought my own lunch (which I ended up eating in Penn Station). I did plenty of gawking at the geek-themed decor. On this trip I not only returned to the BAMF Cafe but I actually ordered a sandwich and iced tea (both of which were pretty tasty) and I took advantage of its free wi-fi. I also took a few more pictures of items that I somehow missed on my last visit.
After dinner I headed over to The Wind-Up Space where I switched to my pencils. The model for this Dr. Sketchy’s session was a burlesque performer known as Tempete La Coeur. At this point is where the NSFW drawings begin.
I took part in two contests that were held that evening. One contest was based on the fact that May 9 was the birthday of J.M. Barrie, who wrote Peter Pan so we had to somehow incorporate Peter Pan into our drawings. I made this effort where I portrayed Tempete La Coeur as Tinker Bell but it didn’t make it among the finalists.
The next contest was one whose theme the organizers were stumped on and they asked the audience for suggestions. One guy called for justice. I decided on something even better. Lately I’ve been reading the newer issues of the Howard the Duck comic book series and I’ve been doing the Throwback Thursday series devoted to the original 1970’s comic book series. So I called out “Howard the Duck” and they decided to do a combination where people could incorporate justice or Howard the Duck or both. For added measure, they even played the theme song from that notorious bomb 1980’s Howard the Duck movie. I made this effort but it didn’t make it among the finalists.
I drew one last picture before I headed home for the evening.
A few weeks ago I was going through my Flickr account when I found this album I created back in 2009 that has brought back memories for me. Here’s some background.
In late 2008 I underwent a hip replacement followed by several months of physical therapy. By early September I was starting to feel like my old self again. One day I was browsing through both the This is Blythe website and forum (both of which sadly no longer exist). I saw a notice in the Meetups section of the forum announcing a meetup of Blythe doll owners at the Southern Maryland Doll Club Show that was held at a school in Waldorf. I was intrigued by the announcement so I went. I took my camera with me (this was long before I had received my first smartphone) and I also brought this doll, who was the model in this photograph that I actually exhibited in a few local art shows.
This particular Blythe is an Ashton-Drake Galleries reproduction of an early 1970’s Blythe doll that was manufactured by the now-defunct Kenner Toy Company. If she had been an actual Kenner Blythe, she would be sold on eBay for at least $900. But since that doll is a reproduction, I bought her off eBay for around $60.
The notice on the original forum didn’t specify what time everyone was going to meet nor did anyone respond with saying that they were going to be there. I decided to pack the doll while thinking that if no one showed up for the meetup, I could still peruse the doll show itself so it wouldn’t be a total loss.
Basically I met other people (I remember that it was all women there) with their Blythes so I took out my doll and introduced myself. We all took photos of each other’s dolls and someone urged us photographers to post our pictures on Flickr then post the link to our albums on the forum. I did that.
In addition I also wrote some notes about the event shortly after the doll show, which I found on my hard drive. I think I took those notes around the time when I was considering starting a new blog so it would’ve made sense for me to take notes so I would have some content for this new blog. I think I may have even considered it starting it in the fall of 2009 but I ended up not doing it. I think it was probably because I still didn’t feel ready yet and I was still getting over the last vestiges of that hip surgery. In any case I didn’t take the plunge and start this blog until January 6, 2010—four months after the Blythe meetup took place.
Thanks to the current trend of having Throwback Thursdays on the web, I can now revisit that event using the notes that I took back in 2009. Basically I went to the Southern Maryland Doll Club Show exactly 10 months after my hip replacement surgery. I carried my Blythe doll in a bag because I wasn’t sure if the meetup was really going to take place or not since no time was specified. (My notes said that the doll show itself took place from 10 a.m.-4 p.m. on September 12, 2009.)
I arrived at the doll show where I paid my admission fee and I was encouraged to fill out this ticket for door prizes that were being given away. A new name would be drawn every hour until all of the prizes were given away. I began to peruse the various vendor tables filled with all kinds of dolls when I saw three women who were openly toting their Blythe dolls. So I pulled out my Blythe doll and introduced myself. The other women were very nice and friendly and their Blythes were all very lovely.
I remember we all started to peruse the vendor tables together when one of the women who was working the doll show was walking around calling my name. I caught up with that woman and she said that the other women had just had the hourly raffle prize drawing and they pulled my ticket. So I walked over to the table that was near the entrance to the doll show and I had my choice of prizes. I remember that the prizes weren’t much and that was my only memory. I ended up picking this Asian doll that was encased in a plastic box.
I attempted to remove her from her box but her feet just wouldn’t budge so I figured that she was meant to stay in her box forever. There was some Asian writing on the bottom of the box but I didn’t know what it said since it was in a language that I was not familiar with.
After I picked up my new doll, I caught up with the others from the Blythe meetup. (I remember that it wasn’t a very big doll show so I had no problem with finding them.) At one point we decided to temporarily leave the doll show and eat lunch. We all carpooled over to a nearby Texas-themed BBQ restaurant where we displayed our Blythe dolls (and my newly won Asian doll) at our table.
We returned to the doll show after lunch where we shopped among the tables. A lot of vendors asked us questions about our dolls and seemed genuinely interested in Blythe. One of the vendors was kind enough to let us put our Blythe dolls among her merchandise and take pictures of them.
I also took a lot of photos of dolls other than Blythe. The show itself was held in a high school and the vendors were all set up in the cafeteria. The school cafeterias I used to eat in during my public school student days generally had no windows. This high school cafeteria was different in that one wall had a series of long windows that overlooked the hallway next to that room. The show organizers used the long windows to put up this display of dolls and stuffed animals. The toys displayed in the windows were not for sale at the show and the displays were pretty imaginative. Each window had a different theme ranging from Harry Potter to Raggedy Ann to fairies to dolls from around the world to Gone With the Wind. The window displays were really lovely to behold.
I remember that I stayed at the show for most of the afternoon socializing with the other Blythe doll owners until it was close to the time when the show would close. Soon after that meetup I uploaded my photos on to Flickr and I provided a link to my album on the This is Blythe forum.
I haven’t been to another Blythe meetup since that time. I went to a few other doll meetups but they were all for Asian ball-jointed dolls and I only went to the ones that were connected with an anime convention (mainly Katsucon and Otakon). The last anime convention I went to was Otakon in 2013 and I had pretty much stopped going to anime conventions because they had become way too crowded for my taste. (It got to the point where if you wanted to go to a certain panel, you had to stand in line for at least a half an hour before it began. Even then you weren’t guaranteed entrance because there were times when a room would be full by the time I had reached the front door of a panel.)
I haven’t been to another doll meetup since Otakon 2013. Right now attending doll meetups are a very low priority in my life. If one happens to occur near when I live and I don’t have anything else that I needed to do, I might go to another one just to check it out. Doll meetups are fun in that you can see actual dolls in person without having to buy them yourself but, to date, I have never made an actual friendship or created any kind of meaningful relationships through a doll meetup. Those types of meetups are basically focused on what dolls your brought rather than who the doll owner is and what does he/she do other than collect dolls. These days I find it easier to just look at photos of dolls on the Internet than to get in my car or hop on a Metro, go to some place, and meet a whole bunch of strangers where the only thing you have in common with any of them are dolls and everyone present basically talk about nothing but dolls the whole time you’re there.
The Southern Maryland Doll Club Show continues to be an annual event (the last one was held on September 12, 2015) but I haven’t been back since. I should think about returning for the heck of it, even if there is no doll meetup of any kind.
As for that Asian doll that I won as a door prize, I displayed her on a bedroom shelf for a few years.
Even though I thought she was cute, she didn’t really do much for me. The fact that she was permanently stuck in that plastic box enclosure didn’t help. The weirdest part about that box enclosure is that she’s covered on all four sides and the bottom yet the top has no lid or any kind of covering. That made dusting the doll a major hassle since I couldn’t remove her from that box. I placed shrink wrap over the top in order to keep out the dust. About a year or two after my husband walked out on me in late 2011 I ended up donating her to the American Rescue Workers as part of a general decluttering of my home.
I enjoyed myself at that one Blythe meetup but my biggest regret that I didn’t take any pictures of the other women who were there that day (although I took plenty photos of their dolls). I don’t remember their names or what they looked like or anything about their personalities. (Our discussions basically centered around dolls in general and Blythe in particular.) In fact, I haven’t seen any of those women since that meetup. If my memory is correct, I think it’s because the other three women all live in Southern Maryland while I live closer to Washington, DC so there is that distance factor. I also didn’t hang around the doll forums very much after my hip surgery so it was by chance that I happened to see that notice about that meetup in the first place. It’s still too bad that This is Blythe is no longer online because it was kind of cool reading posts by other members and seeing lots of nice doll photos.
At least I still have this Flickr album to remember that Blythe meetup by.
I think my New Year’s resolution of churning out one sketch a day was a bit too ambitious for me. I’ve decided to modify that resolution by only doing a new drawing in my sketchbook if I’m not working on anything else that’s creative on a certain day. So far this modified approach is working better for me than having to force myself to churn out one new sketch every single day.
First is this two-page spread dedicated to the recent death of David Bowie. The drawing of Bowie is based on this photo that I found posted on this site. As for the lyrics on the side, they came from the song “Station to Station”, which you can see a video featuring a live performance of that song right here.
I usually don’t two page spreads in my sketchbook but I not only felt that David Bowie was an important enough person to warrant such a tribute but the design helped solved a problem that I encountered when I did the Ptolemy Stone sketch that I wrote about last week. What I didn’t mention in that prior entry that something unexpected happened when I did the Ptolemy Stone using markers instead of ball-point pens (like I used in the previous drawings). Basically the ink from the markers bled through to the other side. Fortunately I didn’t have a sketch already drawn on the other side. It was kind of a bummer because I’ve been putting drawings on both sides of a page in my sketchbook so I had a page with one side being unusable unless I thought of a design that could cover up the ink bleeds. Doing that two-page spread solved that problem. I drew Bowie as facing the light that’s not unlike the numerous testimonies of many near-death experiences that have been documented in books like Life After Life.
For the other drawings I did this week I turned to Rory’s Story Cubes for inspiration. I used the original set where I saw two cubes that had pictures of a person in a parachute and fire. So I did this twisted drawing.
For this drawing I decided to try using the Enchanted Mix-In instead of the main set, which inspired me to do this fantasy drawing.
Sagittarius Dolly 
You must be logged in to post a comment.