Monday Bunday

Just a word from your sponsors

Eat your greens.

Mind Your P's

Painting and Pigs seem to be at the forefront this week. Yesterday I went the the house deep in the woods and painted out the angel, see the post titled Call of the Wall for background on that. She didn't really want to go and at one point I was thinking of ways to tell the mother of the girl who wanted a sunset not an angel that the wall would have to taken back to white

This is taken in the natural light the shadow is from 

the window sill, but it works OK with the composition

and started all over again. And that would be at my expense. However I did not give in to that temptation, for it is a temptation to give up. With walls there seems to always be a point where doubt and fear creep in and a voice whispers in my ear "You can't do this." With plain walls that have no imagery I expect it somewhere between the second and fourth coats, and I usually hold an internal dialog that questions the difference between Lazure and a bad paint job. To my credit I have only had to paint a job out once and that was because I had other people helping. 

Close-up.

I know that sounds awful and antisocial. For me, Lazuring is series of adjustments to a constantly changing situation,  it's just too hard with other people to keep track of them as well. Anyway it all more or less fell together in the last half hour. It's not like any sunset I've ever seen, yet, but I think with the girl's stereo speakers in place (lower right are the mounts) and her ballet bar installed it will seem OK. The mother  and the sister liked it, though the girl herself was not available for comment, being off at Dance Camp.

I'm hungry, are you my mom? Who cares! 

The milk bar is open for business.

The other P this week was Pigs at Farmer Bob and Farmer Jean's place, see somewhere below . There are 34 piglets at this point from 4 different litters, there are still 4 more sows waiting to birth. I chatted amiably to Farmer Bob for a while and the piglets and slept in the shade of  the Plum tree. Then just as Farmer Bob left to go do some sort of task it was as if the dinner bell 

I think his name is Spot.

had rung. What a grunting and oinking and jostling for udders went on. Piglets running about looking for an open place at the snack bar. Sows flopping down and rolling over, ready for the gang to descend. In order to get and keep milk flowing the piglets butt their heads and snouts repeatedly on the udder of choice, this makes the whole nursing thing a very active sport. I wonder how many piglets there will be next week, it is such a porcine scene!

Close-up.

Monday Bunday

 Sydney sports a broader build than her brother and is larger, though Tyler eats a lot more, Sydney loves to dash around. Here she is about to dive into the Bun Run. 

"You have to run in quick as a bunny, follow meeeee....."

And here she is demonstrating the correct way to exit the Bun Run. 

"Come out with more composure, as if transformed by the experience."

Tyler is very quick as well, English Spots are known as runners, but his area of speciality is the "Bunny Up" pose. This one he held for almost a minute. Perhaps he is trying to compensate for being a little short.

"Did someone say 'Blueberry Treat?'"

Sometimes my camera takes strange pictures (this is not Photoshopped). Is this showing Tyler's alter ego? his guardian angel? Is it a Shamanic Bunny projection? The committee is still working IDing this filmy entity.

"You are getting sleepy, 

the bunny is growing larger and larger, 

you cannot resist his commands,

you will give him treats fit for a King."

The Call of the Wall

Every summer I get a call from someone who wants a room lazured, it is very much a seasonal activity. When I have gotten requests for lazuring in other seasons the jobs have always fallen through. I find this fascinating. I have special pants that I wear for such jobs ( I like to be able to wipe my brush or hands on something convenient), they have served me for all large scale painting projects for the last six years; from classrooms, to stage props for "As You Like It", to various offices. Last week I wore them to paint a room in a home deep in the woods. The room was for a girl who finally got her own room and she wanted it to be pinky orange in the back ground with a sort of Japanese motif, like some paper she had in a patterned paper book. I said OK, I'll see what I can do.
The light is failing a bit here and the pinkness doesn't show very well. This is the wall in action, if you will, with the girl's music stand and a part of her funny little cello chair. Below is a closer shot of the part above her bed, the Japanesy botanical motif is outlined in gold so it flashes  with the light and floats away from wall in a sort of exciting way that seemed appropriate for a cello playing girl who also loves Hannah Montana. She was happy with the end result, phew!
Two years ago I painted a room for the girl who just got her own room and her sister, at the time the girl who just got her own room wanted an angel on her wall. And I said OK, I'll see what I can do, I usually paint rabbits. I did paint an angel that doesn't even look like a rabbit, not much at any rate.  Now the girl who remains in the room doesn't want her sister's angel to be overlooking her and wants a sunset instead; Project Angel Disguise will commence next week or so. Here is the angel before the sun sets on her.
Without getting too much in Rudolf Steiner's Anthroposophical theories (for it was Rudy who developed lazuring, he did it with two brooms!) on lazuring, the general idea is to create a soft color environment that minimizes the sharp corners and flat surfaces of most architecture. This helps the body and and the mind relax into a natural and more expansive state. Lazuring is done with many coats of very thin paint that is buffed into the wall with a large brush. Some folks use watercolors, some acrylic and some very expensive organic glazes. The desired effect is one of breathing clouds. Below is a portion of the dining room wall I did in the house that is deep in the woods, the pictures of the whole wall really didn't show the cloudiness very well. In this case I used a few different colors and went in with smaller brushes to bring out the clouds. You can see more examples of lazuring here and here.
I am pleased to report in the recently completed job I did not spill any paint on the carpet or smudge furniture. The only casualty was a blop of pink paint on my shoe. It goes rather well with the blue laces.

Monday Bunday:

Fibonacci=Fibunnicci?

E=MC2

Brancusi or Buncusi ?

Eat to the beat.

Artist's Proof

Latest print does not have a rabbit in it, here it is anyway; 5 by 7 inches, two colors and black. It's anatomny breaks down as follows. Based on my own humble calligraphy, the larger black characters mean health and healing, they are always used together.

The red block is based on a page from a rather curious woodblock accordion book of Taoist origin dating from the Ming Dynasty, approximately 1444. The book, a reprint of a lost 12th century work, is titled Talismans and Diagrams of the Wondrous Scripture of Supreme Rank on the Infinite Salvation of Numinous Treasure this page is a talisman for summoning the nine transformations of great obscurity. Probably a very handy thing to know.

 

The green block is columns of characters relating to important concepts in Chinese Medicine. From the top these are Yin, Yang, Heaven Human, Earth, Qi, Blood, Shen (spirit), and Jing (essence). 

OK, here are some rabbits. I had some more printing tries at my first design. I am getting better at the solid background, but I see I need to do a little fiddling with the second block to get it just right.

Monday Bunday Award

Not actually watching wrestling, just changed the channel for and interesting image juxtaposition. The Qi Papers is honored to have received  the Brillante Weblog award from Crafty Green Poet. You can see it on the right of your screen. To whom to pass this award  was very difficult because I love reading all the blogs. It is an easy way to satisfy both my enjoyment of eavesdropping and desire to read other peoples diaries (which I really don't have the opportunity to do anyway).  I do suspect that once this award is introduced into the rabbit blogosphere community it will be passed on to all deserving buns and humans, and that would be ALL of them. That said, we, the rabbits and I, pass this award on to:

Houseful of Rabbits; living with lots and lots of rabbits, Rabbit's Guy moonlights as a Lagomorph tour manager with the 7-Bunny-7.

Furry Butts;  great pics and stories about rabbit housemates.

Freckles and Deb; an ongoing docubundrama.

Woodblock Dreams; no rabbits here, I think Annie Bissett has a dog, but she shares her woodblocks from start to finish. 

Homesteading in a Condo; rabbits, worms, plants and good food with occasional rants about Big Agriculture and etc....

The Hermitage; a UK artist, Rima Staines,  writing about her life and works, blog is a veritable wonderland of links, make a pot of tea and settle in.

Middle of Nowhere, another UK artist, Gretal Parker, who writes, always entertaining, great photos.

Amy and Fez, the story of a rescued rabbit with amazing ears and his housemates.

If you are one of the above you can pick up your award here. 

Please take this as the honor that is is and pass it on to some of the sites you enjoy. The rules of accepting are as follows:

1) Put the logo on your blog.

2) Add a link to the person who awarded you.

3) Nominate at least 7 other blogs.

4) Add links to those blogs on yours.

5) Leave a message for your nominees on their blogs.

Tyler and Sydney Present

Tyler and Sydney present Spots of a Different Ilk. 

Spots are quite fashionable on animals and can enhance any  form. For instance we traveled down to Watsonville to visit farmers Jean and Bob last week and found a good example. 

Look closely under the tree, is that you Ty? No, is it you Syd? Those are some cute piglets. Yeah they sure are, and those are some classic momma pig shapes too. 

These pigs are Gloucestershire Old Spots, they are the oldest pedigreed pig. Hey, that's what they say about us! We're not pigs, Sydney, well I'm not. You eat like one. Hush, this is being recorded. We are English Spots and it is written that Spots are the the oldest of breed of Fancy Rabbits. I guess the English have a thing for spotted animals.

 Here's a closer look at the piglets. Why is that one on the left kind of reddish? Oh, that one is showing his grandfather's breeding which is a Red Welsh. I like the black on white better, I don't know why.....OK, so that is our show on Spots. Do you think people liked it, Sydney? I don't know, I feel like maybe they weren't interested. Maybe they don't know what ilk means. What does it mean? It means family, kind or class. Hmmm, well at least it was a correct use of the word.

Moku Hanga Monday Bunday III

The need to practice printing, paper and ink finally conjuncted in a sort of print marathon in which much was learned and much is left to learn. Here is Bandit again, slightly different colors and an added feature; bokashi. That's the gradation along the top, I used Prussian blue. The ears are not as pink as my screen seems to think, but they are, decidedly too pink.  It is getting a little closer, refinements will be made. As an actual rabbit Bandit needed no refinements, she was quintessential, though plagued with health problems mostly stemming from poor teeth. She was purchased from the local feed store as a sort of therapy pet for my son when I got divorced and he and I moved into an studio apartment. She was an ideal diversion; special (who else has a rabbit loose in their home), soft, full of personality, and a very capable side kick for budding ventriloquists. Through out her life she gave selflessly from making sure no one got shut in the bathroom to working with her vet to develop the "Bandit Tooth Trim Mask"; a device that allowed the vet to trim teeth with the grinder (preferable to clipping which can split the tooth root) without having  to anesthetize the rabbit. I always felt comforted when she slept under my bed and one time when I had had pneumonia but still felt breathless I bent over to pet her and when I stood up my breathing was better. True, I swear it. I nursed her through tooth operations, pneumonia, bronchitis, jaw abscess, tooth breakage, and eye injury. I learned how to give injections, subQ fluids,  and how to nebulise and do a sinus flush. Together we experienced rabbit herbal medicine, acupuncture, and the use of Flower Essences. But really, she is mostly remembered for her beauty, sense of humor, and great flower like ears which could open and close, swivel and adjust in ever marvelous ways. Often missed always loved; Bandit B. Rabbit ruled from May 1998 to April 2007.

Our 'Fridge

We got tagged by DKM with the 'Fridge meme. Here is our entry. If anyone would like to pick up this hot potato meme from here, feel free!

I have never bought a 'fridge, either there has been a 'fridge in situ or a neighbor foisted theirs upon me. This is Boyfriend's 'fridge, I have lived with it for about three years. It is 20 years old, he doesn't believe in replacing a thing until it has completely broken. I suggested that a newer 'fridge might be kinder to the electric bill, but it would seem that the man at the 'fridge shop said the old ones actually have better motors. The pig tapestry has been there for 15 years and covers some stickers children put on and the dingy whiteness that 'fridges develop in advanced age. Also decorating  the front is a picture of Tyler taken when he first came to live with us, one of my Year of the Pig cards and small magnet of the Virgin of the Gaudalupe, whose imagery I like very much. 

Inside you see the internal organs of a hard working 'fridge, there is no freezer. Hard to believe, but as you can see quite true. Here is a partial list of the bits and pieces: Shoyu, Pomegranate concentrate, sesame butter,  raw apple cider vinegar, raw whole milk from a cow with whom we are friends, homemade Kefir from same, Catsup (from habits die hard), Steiner Brot (the Black Brot is all gone) from Esther's Bakery,  South River Miso, eggs from Chickens which whom we are friends, almonds, leftover pasta sauce, beet and fennel salad, fresh tofu skin (Yuba), some Chinese herbs (Lian Zi, Hong Zao) raw cheddar cheese, Burdock root, Niman Ranch Bacon, fresh ginger, Whey for making fermented drinks,  some apricot jam, a pound of organic grassfed ground round,  carrots, red lettuce, a bell pepper or two,  a gallon of homemade sauerkraut, Parmesan, Feta, and Rabbit food. Tyler and Sydney love the expensive Spring Mix from the Farmer's Market, I have tried giving them well washed and nicely presented cuttings from the FM, but they turn up their noses. They will eat Romaine and I get them a head twice a week. Also on menu Lagomorph is parsley, cilantro, basil, dill, fennel, dandelion, and chard stalks, these are from the garden. Sometimes they get a bit of grated carrot. Treats are roses and dried lavender stalks. Sometimes I will buy them a box of sprouted wheat grass and it is gone in under a minute. Rabbits and humans try to eat fresh, local and organic foods.

Here is Tyler demonstrating how to eat greens and Sydney making an anti-paparazzi statement.

Alas and Alack

The Rabbit Blogosphere has lost another of it's finest: Tidbit. She was a marvelous white rabbit from Texas with a story that would put Cinderella to shame. You can read it here, have  hanky at the ready. We were just getting over the passing of Houseful's Stanley, and now this, Tyler and Sydney were terribly shocked and dismayed, but managed to bang out this Bunhaiku. As you can tell a Bunhaiku doesn't have the same rules as a traditional Haiku, in fact it doesn't seem to have any rules at all. This suits rabbits just fine.

We cry

Tidbit shaped tears

Our ears are wet.

Be in peace Tidbit and hugs to your family.

Moku Hanga Monday Bunday II

This is an Artist's Proof (AP) of my next Moku Hanga. The subject here is Bandit, a fabulous rabbit, now passed, a good friend for nine years. The print is four colors and five printings, the whiskers are done separately, it is impossible to cut and print crisp intersections of thin lines. An AP means the artist is still in process with the piece, for instance seeing this I think I want to thin down the lines a bit, especially in the top of the head and the ears, particularly the inner line of the right ear. My idea of overprinting the top of the rear with blue so it would fade back didn't work well, so I will cut back the blue on that part. I think the grey in the ears could be little more prominent, so I will try printing the pink first, to see if that will change the tones a bit. The blue on the background feels too jumpy to me, but then I am still waiting for my Pigment Dispersions from Guerra.  The original thought was to do Bokashi, gradation, across the top, and I still want to try that. This time I had my paper a bit wet, you can see the black looking not quite crisp enough. Practice, practice, practice 10,0000 times!

Monday Bunday, rabbits got to Boyfriend's Spinoza, he is NOT very happy about this style of bookmarking. Bad rabbits or just food for thought; you be the judge. 

The Sages Ride the Seasons Like Horses

Summer Horse with all Season Rabbits

I think the blog title, which is a quote from the Nei Jing,  says much, and there is much written about the correct way to navigate your way through the seasons and their transitions so as to enjoy optimal health and avoid illness. Correct conduct during a season will decrease chances of illness during the next. I have a book with entertaining and esoteric advice for each Qi Node of the year (there are 24); what color jade to wear, when you should practice Nei Gong (and what direction you should face), how often to have sex, that sort of thing. It can be a bit overwhelming and would take many postings of background Chinese Medical explanations. So without getting too complex (I actually like things to be simple) here is the deal. Our human bodies, despite "civilization", are still closely connected to the natural world. Our systems respond to the seasonal change with a shift in metabolism. Don't fight it. Nature is way bigger than we are, it is always good to align oneself with the biggest thing around, that's plain survival sense. Take a look at what nature is doing during the Summer; she is doing a lot everything is busy like the bees; all is industry and fruition. Summer is a good time to do alot, it is OK to multi-task during the Summer, not like the Winter when nature is in waiting and hibernation mode. Since Summer is hot it is both a good time to collect some heat for the Winter, particularly if you tend to be cold, and a time to avoid getting too much heat. Too heat heat can accumulate in the body and express itself in various heat pattern diseases like in

somnia, heart palpitations, skins eruptions, anxiety. Lest you think you understand, heat is not the only culprit for these conditions, now you know a little how I felt at school learning this stuff. One way to stay cool is to eat cooling foods, that is not food that is cool in temperature, but that is cool by its nature; energetically cool. Some of these foods are cucumbers (bet you knew that already), greens, watermelon, Snow Peas, Cilantro, Mint,  Barley, Buckwheat, tomatoes, pears, Miso (the live kind from the refridgerated section at the market),

green tea, white fish, and ham (no nitrates). Eating all cooling foods can lead to too much dampness so use moderate amounts of slightly warming foods like fresh ginger, scallions, and garlic. Foods to avoid are greasy or deep fried things, soybeans, coffee and sugary sweets. Don't overeat during the Summer, have smaller meals and light snacks. As Summer wears on pace yourself, don't burn out; Even though you can do alot; relax too, travel, go someplace new. Here is the worst case Summer scenario, really asking for heat trouble; you go to the Beach and have a Bar-B-Que starting at noon, consume massive amounts of slightly burnt chicken smoothered in store bought BBQ sauce and Macaroni Salad made with plenty of store bought Mayonaise, You drink some beer and have a couple of shoots of tequila and then have some ice cream. You get sunburned and there is a parking ticket on your car when you finally decide it is time to go home. A bit exaggerated, I admit, here's what is sub-optimal.  Noon outside should be avoided in most climes, Chicken is a heating meat made doubly so by burning it over flames, most industrialized foods are very hot (make your own Mayonaise, you can do it!), alcohol is also heating, even though ice cream is cold in temperature, it has sugar which is heating, plus eating cold stuff compromises the stomach's ability to digest and food stays around and gets hot and damp like a compost pile. Sunburn says, yup, too much sun, too much heat. The ticket on the car makes you really mad, red, hot, hopping, pissed off, and, oops, it is best to avoid extreme emotions during this season. The good news is you didn't do this! it wasn't you. You lead a moderate life, respecting Summer and using it's marvelous Yang energy to further your own fabulous and book worthy life. You can read more on Summer HERE. If you have any questions, go ahead and leave them on comments and I will try to answer. 

RABBIT TIPS Heat can be very hard on rabbits. Help them though the heat wet their ears or give them a little cold pack. As you can see a couple favorite rabbit herbs are also cooling; cilantro and mint. In fact most fresh rabbit food is cooling, so that's easy.

Moku Hanga Monday Bunday

                                                                                                                                                                 

Moku Hanga is the art of Japanese woodblock printing. The most well known examples of Moku Hanga are the Ukiyo-e or floating world prints. There are a few contemporary artists pursuing this ancient art and I was lucky to attend a weekend workshop with one of them, April Vollmer. Along with 10 other like minded persons I learned the basics for cutting, registering, and printing woodcuts. New words like Kento, Toh, Goma, and Bokashi  were learned by necessity. It is definitely not as easy as April makes it

look. Tyler and Sydney did not attend (you really need thumbs to do this) but were very much present in my little 7 1/2 by 6 inch design. Having spent a good deal of time in the Print Studio at UCSC just years and years ago, after about two prints, even though it wasn't going so well because I'd gotten my poor block all blocked up, I fell into the old enchantments of printing. First to get that perfect print that somehow transcends your original drawing and be able to do it again and again, well at least a couple more times. And second the intoxication of multiplicity, I think something happens your brain when you see lots and lots of an image that you worked on but now it is in reverse (remember the print is "backwards" from the block). It is somehow sheer delight. At any rate I had a great time getting back into printing and now I shall have to get some printing supplies and try to get some more good prints. I gave April the best one, she certainly deserved it. She is going to give another workshop in August if interest is strong enough, inquire about it at Cabrillo Extension. Also check out this other contemporary Moku Hanga artist, David Bull. 

Monday Bunday

Envious of Tyler for being the featured rabbit and getting all the blogorabbitsphere attention last week, Sydney would like to show off her willow tent.

Please, come in.

Many parts are edible, have a nibble.

This way out.

Postcard From Home

There is a gas station just up the street and everyday the prices are higher. I cannot say for sure that the rise in gas prices has translated to less cars on the roads in Santa Cruz, California, but on the San Francisco Bay Area TV news some people were saying they would stay home this summer. The news caster termed this behavior as a "staycation". It was even reported that some people are trying to sell their SUVs, good luck on that. We won't be taking any sort of massive driving vacation, even though my car gets spiffy mileage (42 mpg freeway). Although my last really great vacation was about 20 years ago.....yes, I know I went to Costa Rica with the 8th grade four years ago as a chaperon, and it was different; men with sub-machine guns guarding restaurants is exciting; but one was always "on the job"; "Christina, the reason those men are staring at you is because you have barely any clothes on, most women in this country are little more covered, do you have a  full length Tee shirt?".  A really great vacation, in my mind, and I will have to take it in my mind, I think, is one where the vacationer becomes so immersed that she/he simply loses track of self and through this feels transformed. This occurrence cannot be planned, you just don't know what the trigger for the experience will be. This experience can happen at times other than vacation, but somehow it is special when it happens in new place, or one of particular splendor, or even one that required much traveling effort. It does seem to be easier to maintain this lost but good feeling when on vacation, I suppose that is why Europeans take a full month every single year. In an effort to find a small vacation a couple of weeks ago I took a very short trip up the coast with my new tiny traveling paint set and my new tiny paper and painted the above. It was an interesting challenge painting so small and all. I'm not sure if I achieved full lost immersion, but I did get a little taste of it. More on summer, including proper conduct during same for better health in the next season, with the next post.

Monday Bunday

Tyler in a dungeon, or is that a bungeon?

We Got Tagged!

Sydney (top) Tyler (bottom)

Being English Spots we like games that involve running, so tag is right up our rabbit trail. Some fun games are "Run Like You Have Seen a Hawk" and "Run Like You Can't Stop and Then Flop", oh, oops, this is a name game, OK, we are also into anything that is about Us. We've been tagged by Fez. In case you aren't familiar with The Naming of Cats, in the Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, by T.S. Eliot, we all have three names! ( normally, we don't approve of cats, but if they are in a book that is acceptable ). We think rabbits have at least three names.

Here are the rules:

You must link to the originator of the meme ( that is Tara ), list the following rules, and then tell: 

1-The name that the family uses daily ( such as Peter, Augustus, Alonzo or James ).

2-The name that is particular, a name that is peculiar, and more dignified ( such as Munkstrap, Quaxo or Coricopat ) 

3-What you are dong when you are thinking of the name only you know, and will never confess ( engaged in rapt contemplation ), that deep inscrutable name. Then tag three cats ( or other creatures with better ears and rounder poops ) to give us their names.

Our Answers:

1-Tyler/Sydney ( that was easy )

2-Tai Guy/Miss Black Nose (peculiar, not really more dignified)

3-Sydney is licking my ears/Flopping next to Tyler under the Rattan Rocker.

We tag M.Kate, Crafty Green Poet, and Captain Rupert.