Day 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 Sketches 2025 February and a Shot in the Eyeball!

 So far, so good! I've sketched every day this month, despite not the best vision! Proud of myself! 

I know this is a lot. I thought I was not going to get to sketch two days, as I had appointments with my regular eye doctor, then a retina specialist, both out of town, but I did it. Part of these are with my Zig Writer pen and the rest are with a mechanical pencil.

Days 7 and 8 (2 on the 8th) sketches are of a handmade paper clay and cloth doll that I made in an online class with Gritty Jane several years ago. Her head and shoulders are paper clay and the body is cloth. After they were attached together I painted the whole doll with black gesso, then used acrylic paints to paint her skin, hair, her blouse, underwear, and shoes. The skirt is a strip of fabric gathered onto a band and fastened in the back, all raw edges. Her legs and arms bend at the elbows and knees. She wouldn't win a beauty contest, but she was one of my first attempts at working with paper clay, and I love her. 

I didn't leave room on the first two sketches for her legs, because I was sketching from life and I sketched the head too big to start with, so for the third one I started much smaller and got her feet in. I'm really bad to not leave room for the whole item I'm trying to sketch, but it's still good practice.

I couldn't find anything that appealed to me to sketch for #9, so I sketched a cross from my imagination and added to it. Not sure it's done. I may add more to it at some point.

Sketch #10 is a decorative weather vane that sits on our fireplace hearth. It's metal and is oxidized green with gold highlights. It does have the N, S, E, W letters on it, but it was kind of late and I couldn't see the whole thing from where I was sitting. I've had this many years and still love it.

Days 11, 12, and 13 are all sketches of the same item from different angles. It's a boy from India with his mouth open and a bee on his nose, and his eyes are rolled back. He is reddish brown with blue eyes, black hair, and an orange and yellow stripe beanie hat. He's porcelain or ceramic and was made in Japan in the 1950s, and he's an ashtray. His lower lip holds a cigarette and his mouth the ashes.

He's very sentimental to me, because he belonged to an older cousin, who lived with us some when we were growing up in the fifties. She smoked, and when she was eighteen she moved to Louisiana where her mom was. She left the ashtray behind at my parents' house, and mama kept it as long as she lived. My cousin died in February and my mom died in June 2017. The ashtray was still sitting on mama's kitchen window sill until I brought it home to live with me. He's not pretty, but he invokes good memories! I miss them both so much.

 

Today, for the 14rh sketch, I set my box of Kuretake watercolors on the arm of my chair and placed a translucent box full of sketching supplies on top of it and tried sketching it all in pencil. It was a challenge. The box is full of pens, pencils, markers, brushes, paper towels, papers, a pencil case, a ruler, a drop bottle, the bee boy ashtray, etc. I practiced with a tortillon trying to make the box translucent. It's too dark, but I was getting tired, so it is what it is. At least I got one done, despite my eyes being wonky and still a bit sore.

I went to my regular eye doctor for a checkup on the 10th and told him about a dark fuzzy spot hampering my vision in my left eye. He did some tests and found that I had fluid in my eyeball, which he thought was pushing my retina up, so he made an appointment with a retina specialist for me on the 12th, Wednesday.

The retina specialist dilated my eyes, did some tests and said that I have a blood vessel bleeding inside my eyeball, which is common for old people, but I don't need surgery, a big relief. He says it can be helped with a series of shots in my eye to help dry it up. They numbed my eyeball and gave me the first shot Wed., and I have to go back in a month for the next one. Fingers crossed that he's right!

We had a long drive home in pouring rain, and the light just killed my eyes because of the dilation. Didn't have sunglasses. We stopped at one of our favorite places and got a slice of strawberry cheesecake to share and coffee. We usually park somewhere and eat it there, but we were tired and, it rained on us all the way both ways, so we brought it home and cut it in half to eat. It was delicious! A good treat for a hard day...

Good thing the doctor told me my eye would be a little bloody and sore, or I would have panicked Thursday (yesterday) morning. My left eyeball was bloody and both eyes were sore and the light especially hurt them, but my pupils had gone back down to normal.

Today, the eyeball is still bloody, but is clearing up, and both eyes are still really sensitive to the light, especially a bright light, but it's not as painful as it was yesterday, so they're getting better, thank the Lord. 

It will take some time for the dark fuzzy spot to clear up, so my vision is still a bit fuzzy. These sketches may look worse than I think they do when I can see again, but they were still good practice!

My regular eye doctor told me that the cataract on my left eye is ready to take off now, but I can't have that surgery until we get the eyeball fluid cleared up, so that'll be a while. Again, I'm glad my eye doesn't require surgery to fix the bleed.

Anyway, that's how this week has been for me. Now, I have to go do the physical therapy for my hip/back. Being old is a challenge, for sure, but I'm just thankful I'm doing as well as I am. 

Hope y'all are having a good week and HAPPY VALENTINES DAY!