OK, so maybe this isn't my finest work, but I have noticed that there are very few goat chachkas on the market. I've been shopping, now that Crunchy Chicken's Buy Nothing Challenge is over. I should have shopped for them DURING the challenge, as my efforts have been nearly fruitless. I did score one little goatish doo-dad. I'm being deliberately vague, as it is (probably) going to be a birthday present for a friend. And I found two varieties of goat charms for jewelry, thanks to the zodiac. YAY Capricorn! But that's it. It's a desert out there. So I did what I always do in a pinch. I threw together a bunch of stuff and made one. All natural, even the used cork. If nothing else, it was fun! The barley eyes with the horizontal pupils really made me laugh.
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I'm also working on a drawing of Faith and one of the Saanens. Goat faces are so strangely proportioned when you look closely at them! Their eyes seem too high, their necks too thin, their legs too knobby. It was challenging just getting the initial drawing on paper. It feels good to draw again though; I haven't done a serious drawing apart from the architectural drawings in quite a long time. I'm working on a nice sheet of ARCHES rag paper, and the graphite just looks and feels like velvet as I lay it on the page. I want to dive into it and pull it over me like a gray blanket. It's best to draw or paint what you know best. You can bring all of your senses to the work; I know the feel of those velvety lips, the moisture of the noses, the roll of their eyes. I've smelled the sweet alfalfa breath, and have watched them steal licorice from me. I know the short, velvet hair on their ears (both short and long), and the long, curly blond locks on their crocodile spines. Their calloused, knobby knees jut out above their pretty cloven hooves, and their udders range from full and hard like little warm fists to loose and swinging like my full-bodied Oma's. My girls are beautiful; seemingly made up of spare parts from other, more graceful animals, they are bold and clever, and unabashedly unselfconscious. My heroes. I love them.
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Wish me luck! We'll see where it goes.
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