cousin bunsen camera

 Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere.

                                                            

       G. K. Chesterton

 You need a long story saying basically nothing, right?  Here ya go-

before

Lately I have decided that I need some counter stools at my kitchen island.  We had the place renovated four years ago and really liked the simplicity of no chairs at the island because we never used the ones we had before.  But now that the toddlers will be stopping in on us soon, I decided I need a place for them to sit and 'help' or eat lunch without doing a whole table-thing.  So I started looking online for contemporary counter stools that I could like.  I went through my favorite furniture stores and found a couple, like DWR's Louis Ghost stools but they are acrylic and as much as I like their 'disappearing' part, they are full of electricity, very expensive, and get scratched and cloudy and aren't heavy enough for wiggling four year olds.  I looked at all the local places just to find who might carry these chairs but found only *c*r*a*p* that I knew would be ugly/wobbly/or had fake leather.  Most design-wise were pretty hideous with grape leaves or barn wood-  not workable in a contemporary place.  I went to Bloomies, Macy's, Arhaus, Crate and Barrel, Pottery Barn, Restoration Hardware, ABC, and a couple of outdoor places but those were wicker and TY put an embargo on wicker anything here- he doesn't like 'living in a basket'.  (I'm fine with basket living but have given him his preference and put all the old wicker in the studio.)  So yesterday I was shopping again-  tried Bed Bath and Beyond and TJMaxx because they are in the same mall.  Then got the idea that maybe Home Goods would have something so off I went to that mall.  Sure enough there was a stool that I actually liked-  the wood matched the upper cabinets in my kitchen and the seat was woven strips of heavy white cotton belting.  It wasn't bad to sit on, and it was very wide and nobody could tip it over.  I scoured the whole store and finally found a second one tucked away under a display and grabbed it.  The BONUS is that they were each $99 and I had a fistfull of coupons so basically I got two for the price of one.  Cheapest stools I even looked at, AND the best looking.  I am one happy shopper.  AND they passed the TY test-  he likes 'em, he really likes them!

after

And oh yeah, while I was there I got a new blue insulated coffee mug which you can also see above.  It's maiden voyage will be to stand in a voting line.

Amazing collage journaling by Juan Raynos. Plan on spending some time looking at his 'moleskines', and if you read Spanish, please report back on everything they say!  HE has used several different book forms to do these, depending on content.  Make sure and click the tiny  image at the bottom of each page to see the whole book pulled out.  Why don't *I* do this?  Geesh.  Right now I am playing with a bunch of serial killers-  WHAT is that about???

But returning to Moleskin notebooks, here is a video made with them as the 

 object.  Very clever.

Then, there is straight journaling in Moleskins, like this beautiful example.  Lisa Laughly, aka Ninth Wave Designs, has done some absolutely stunning Moleskine art projects, including the Alchemy Notebook, seen here. Lisa incorporated her own modified versions of existing rune script, and then further obscured it by using a cipher wheel and grid (also built into the book). So the text has meaning, but good luck teasing it out — she also changes the rules of encipherment as she goes. The book even has pop-up features. I want to draw like this when I grow up.

And a whole website devoted to art in a Moleskin notebook, 'skine.art', covering nudes to cartoons to landscapes to portraits.  Had enough? Try one more website, Web Designers Depot where there are 75 examples of art in Moleskins. And there's a flickr group devoted to 'sketchbook style' too.  But best yet, make your own.  

And now to get back to the serial killers.