A Pear and a Poem

3x5 inches, watercolor and Inktense pencil on Yupo 

Though I started a good sized drawing, and have a big collage half done, this bitty thing interested me more this morning.  I had some scraps of Yupo (a plastic "paper" often used in graphics), and I decided to add some swishes of soft gel medium for texture.  Then this morning I quickly added liquid watercolor and Derwent Intense pencil just to see what would happen.  I sort of like the effect.  I wasn't going for anything too realistic, just playing around.    I'm interested in the way the juicy watercolor follows the ridges that the gel medium created. 

My Wisconsin Poets' Calendar 2010 is almost done, so I thought I'd share another selection before I switch over for 2011.  I went with the Sierra Club calendar for next year, so fewer poems and more nature for my year of turning sixty.

The View From My Dining Room Window
by Jerilyn Kaufman

In 18 inches of snow, a gray bushy-tailed squirrel
burrows for the treasure he buried on a sunlit autumn day.
His internal map tells him his goal is next to the dormant bushes,
just right of the freshly shoveled sidewalk.
With quick, jerky movements, he digs and digs
into the snow until all that is seen is his bushy tail.
In the blink of an eye, he's back on top of the bank of snow
a black walnut, hard as cement, clutched in his jaw.
A ball of snow clings to the side of his snout.
He doesn't care.  He has his treasure.