From my sketchbook today

If I'm on the phone, without thinking too much about what I'm doing, I tend to doodle on scrap pieces of paper or create designs out of whatever small objects are lying around.




Today while on the phone, here's what I drew in my sketchbook:

Oh, and look. While on the phone, without really being conscious of what I was doing, I also made this lovely chain of colorful paper clips!

This is why, when I was a teenager and my mother saw me sitting down at the kitchen table to talk on the phone, she would sometimes appear with some paper for me to draw on. That way, I wouldn't start spontaneously making small sculptures out of any nearby inanimate objects (like her safety pins).

Little Carol's first comic

When I was four years old, I went with my family to see my first animated movie in an actual movie theater. I remember being mesmerized by the enormous colorful pictures on the movie screen. I also loved reading comic strips, especially the ones in color in the Sunday paper. I wanted to create my own cartoons. So here is the first comic that I did when I was a little girl. I'm not sure exactly how old I was--five or six maybe?

"REMARKABLE! A MOVIE BOOK"

In background: "REMARKABLE"

I'm not sure what those other words are.

There are three girls here and what appears to be a number of objects floating around in mid-air. One looks like a small red toy car. The girl on the right has antennae on her head. We know what she is holding because it is helpfully labelled "BOMB."

"HOW DID YOU DO THAT?"

"YOU HAD ME SCARED FOR A MOMENT!"

"HEY WAIT! YOU'LL MISS THE.."

This is my favorite part. The girl with antennae unexpectedly goes up a ladder into some kind of spaceship. There are sound effects next to the ladder. Other spaceships hover nearby.

"GOSH SHE WAS A MARTIAN"

It says "HA" on the ladder under the spaceship.

The girl's purse says what looks like "TRICKS."

Is this a bag of tricks?

"THAT MARTIAN WOULDN'T PLAY WITH ME!"

One of the girls is absently playing with a coin.

"DARN I WISH I HAD MONEY FOR A SODA LUCY!"

"ME TOO JULIE"

You can tell she's whistling by the musical notes

floating next to her head.

"HI GLORIA."

"HI FLORY!"

The girls are all sitting at a soda counter, drinking sodas.

A couple of them are holding purses.

The Martian girl is crawling on the floor. "ME AGAIN."

There is a green spacesuit on the floor next to her.

In the last scene, the Martian girl seems to be springing

into the air in a kitchen.

Is that a chef's hat on her head?

Who knows what she is up to?

The double doors say "ROOM SERVICE FOR GUESTS"

A woman works in the kitchen, sprinkling bits of

pepperoni onto a pizza. I think her hat says "KING FOOD."

Remembering Akbar

My black kitty, Akbar, has been gone for almost a year now. He lived to be almost 18 years old.(That's 88 in human years, according to one of my books.) I would like to remember him as he was when he was alive and healthy. So here are some drawings from my sketchbook.

Akbar always wanted to be petted and preferred to be within a few feet of me 90% of the time.

He hated it if I closed the door to a room and he couldn't get in.

Sometimes he would protest out in the hallway...

...until I finally opened the door.

He liked to sleep in or next to my bed at night. Sometimes he fell asleep draped over me like a little fur blanket.

If he was in another room and I called his name in a high-pitched voice, he would appear approximately ten seconds later.

What a nice kitty! Whoever decided cats are "aloof" clearly never met one like Akbar.

Art from my iPod

I read an article about how the well-known painter David Hockney started using the iPad to make art, using applications such as Brushes. That inspired me to try doing art on my iPod Touch. Here is a self-portrait I did with Brushes:

And here is a portrait of my cat Smokey:

Introduction

Hi, my name is Carol and I have been an artist and writer since I was big enough to hold a crayon. Here is what I looked like when I was little. I enjoyed creating pictures, books, and comic strips at our kitchen table.