Author: wPeggs

My little ponies: Corins rendition of Strawberry sunshine

Using her tablet, Corin has gotten very good at making “my little ponies”  Here is Strawberry Sunshine….  how could one have guessed that a 7 year old could work with computer graphics so well.  Awesome Corin, just awesome.

The little strawberries on the hind quarters are, per Corin’s own phrase, “it is a magical mark that comes when ponies figure out what they are good at something”. One of those strawberry marks are for Corin’s artistic talent!


Corin @ 8 2018

Pony princesses – aka 4 little unicorns

These little pony princeses, as Corin named them, seem like unicorns to me, and are highly colorful and decorated. Love the proportions, they are spot on.  Corin has learned to choose texture and effects on her drawing tablet (hence the shiny spot in the eyes, and the spots a couple of the horses.  .

Corin tells me the ponies’ names are: Strawberry sunshine, Melon burst, and Blueberry moonrise — those ponies below.

@ 9 25 2018

First love

I entitled this drawing by Corin, as “first love” because it just has the cutest expressions on both the little girl’s and boy’s faces — they are guileless, and happy,  reserved and excited.  Love the dress decorated with red flowers, and a little whisp of hair purposefully shading the little girl’s eyes. The boy is in a nice suit, with those light shoes. On their way to a school dance?

Corin is using her drawing tablet to create her wonderful menagerie of people and animals. The drawings have changed a little in style using from using something besides a pen or pencil, but the content remains her own style.

@ 9 25 2018

Not an egg this time – but my new scrappy quilt

I have been working on this quilt; diamonds and country points. The center of each of the 13 diamonds (really a square at a 45 degree angle) all with different brown print inner borders, and black print outer borders with country points made with 2 inch squares to frame the brown.

The country points on the inner border are graded from darks to lights, while the points on the black border are graded whites.  The center of each diamond is a random strip patch made with everything from 1.5 inch blocks to 5 inch blocks.

Every single piece of fabric, as well as all the batting was made from a store of fabrics that reaches back about 45 years…. maybe even 50, as that is how long I have lived in this part of the country. And many were from “this is my favorite fabric story” those found as follows:  I play tennis, often hitting by myself on the wall at the courts behind North Avondale Montesori School. I walk there from my house which is nearby. On several trips I happen to notice that there was a shock absorber (from a small car probably) lying in the path. I walked over it about 3 days maybe 4 days and thought to myself “if i don’t pick this up it will be here forever” and so I did pick it up and took it to the school dumpster, and upon tossing it in i saw one maybe two black garbage bags full of material.  Yes… big pieces of material, some yards long. All textures, all types, all genres. I just dragged those bags out, slung them over my shoulder took them home and washed the entire lot of fabric….  dried and neatly counted out 100 yards (just of the big pieces) plus many scraps from someone’s cache who had made plenty of kids cloths. This was over 2 decades ago, and I have used them for quilt backs and quilt pieces right along with the fabrics that I picked up from the 8th street building where Poly Flinders had their cutters, also decades ago. The flowers-on-black theme for little girls prints was very popular, and I gobbled up their scraps like candy.

In truth I will likely never use all this fabric, but I keep making significant dents.  HaHa.  So from scraps, all kinds of scraps, textures, qualities, and sizes, comes this quilt.  I am debating whether to leave it square (96×96) and make a pillow sham, or add to each end.  Still thinking.  It is not perfect (I am not a real craftsman, more an idea person, so execution of a perfect quilt is not likely to happen in my lifetime, but I really do enjoy the designing part).

update: i made two more blocks to extend the equilt from square to rectangular…  i will rephotograph.

Family tree of LOVE

Here we have Corin’s drawing that looks like a phylogenetic tree, and at the top of the tree is a heart meaning that all these beautiful children are the product of love.  They are all unique: blue eyes, brown eyes, red hair, black hair.  This is a great sentiment.

I love the ruffle skirts, how fun, and how perfectly drawn.


Corin 09-17-2018

Practice makes Pleasure

On first glance the phrase “practice makes pleasure” sounds rediculous doesn’t it. But this morning as i walked over my 30,000 piece art mosaic floor i thought to myself, i really do love hunting for all the hidden small areas of nuance, of order, of color-shape matching  that are embedded in random but still orderly places.

In terms of healt and mental alertness it came to me that hunting for order within the vast expanse of chaos is actually fun for me. I laughed and called my mind “puzzle brain”.  This is in no way implying that i have a great mind for puzzles, firstly there are puzzles, e.g. math puzzles, that i could never in a million years attempt to solve, and secondly in a field of more than 7,000,000,000 people, there are millions and millions more adept at everything… not just puzzle solving, but everything.

So just speaking on a small scale, I deduced that I like solving puzzles in my visual world. This includes hunting for the leaves and flowers i recognize as “weeds” in my garden, what i recognize as cracks and chips in my wall paint, dents in my gutters, patterns in my stone walkway, fun qualities in my wooden floors, and in my mosaic tile floor especially.  I like patterns in music, fabric, landscape (trees in clusters) skyscapes — you name it.  If i see wall paper or a brick facade then i immediately look for cut-and-paste types of patterns, and depending upon the number of iterations in one visual field i determine how much effort went into making the pattern “solvable” or “unsolvable”  and thereby assess “worth” to it.

Next thought was “why do i like to solve visual puzzles” and why is this behavior increasingly pleasurable….. then comes the realization that  “practice” is the way we increase the pleasure in all our work.  The pleasure coming from my solving a puzzle is directly linked to the number of successfully solved puzzles, no matter how small, reinforcing the behavior  (this is supposition, and i would love to ask “Hidden Brain” gurus whether I am correct in this supposition). The supposition is that for me  40 years of looking at and sorting electron microscopic visual information (shapes, associations, repetitions) has been a “practice” which is now so obviously a “pleasure” if maybe that circle….  practice – pleasure – practice – pleasure  is not more accurate than the phrase  ‘practice makes perfect’.

The repetition, the reinforcement, the refinement of a task must provide satisfaction and stimulation to the pleasure centers of the brain. (JUST MY OPINION)

Lauretta Louise Milner Turner May 18 1918 – July 25 2018

Actually that title should read, “my mom and dad”….. i don’t really separate them into two beings, rather think of them as a pair. Dad has been gone for 3 decades.

Mom was nothing short of “unique” in all ways. I honor her willingness and ability to care and nurture her children, parents, and others who entered her life.  One can say, too, that she did so with an interesting approach.

Here are two links, one to the graveside service and the other to the church service. Both are long, many people had lots to say but the theme was always the same–she never abandoned anyone, even those who took advantage of her. Her values were traditional and her approach often barbed. She taught us integrity.

And my sweet grandaughter Corin has given me a great memory of that service (which she attended)…. an angel zombie with one eye….a picture which was drawn for the occasion (along with a few other zombies)… she was almost 7 at the time. I added the stars on the flight back to Cincinnati, then vectorized it. Mom would have loved it. I think my mom was an angel for many.