Well I did go to AMNH two weeks ago, and with my allergies behaving did a large amount of work towards creating a new chart for Ocelot #4. Did some of the more accurate drawing translations from the actual pelt than I've ever done before. It is a translation, and tricky to do. You'd think it would be a no-brainer with the pelt actually there, but no, I tend to draw the shapes, rosettes, swirls and lines too large, and have to erase and begin again. Then the shapes don't fit together properly. I think I've got some rosette down pat only to discover it's not in the right location next to another series of marks. The ocelots themselves are also so finely wrought with natures' paintbrush that even my seven stitches to the inch grid seems too large and clunky and pales in comparism. 'Why don't you just paint them then', you may be thinking, nice idea......
But then I discovered that knitting was such a tactile way to speak about these animals, and it seemed like such fun! Question: why does the process then slowly, (or quicky), become so tortuous? Do I do this to myself? Is it in my nature to find the difficult path? Is that what I think an artist should do? Yes to all, but when you are staying true to your intention, when you are searching for a perfect rendition of a natural thing it seems just as natural that the bar gets raised higher, that your standard of perfection searches harder. Using Mother Nature as a source for artistic pursuit is always bound for failure. We can only as perfect examples of nature ourselves use what we have available to replicate her into various degrees of success.
Two weeks since I have been to museum and only on this past weekend have I made any inroads on turning my chart drawing into something that I can knit from. What happened in the last two weeks??!! Dunno! Had a photo shoot with the vervacious Gale Zucker at my little apartment. Pepsi was besides herself with all the attention but did manage to pose nicely when she was able to get her little head on straight. Took all afternoon! Gale worked really hard and I think she was glad that I found some yarn I didn't know I had which offset what she thought was the trashing of my apartment into what a knitting studio should probably look like. Fun! Also been working on a cowl pattern for Gale's and Joan's book that I will be in, "Craftitude". Not sure when it comes out. But mailed that baby off earlier than I said I would so it also freed up some time this weekend as well.
Finally got down to business, really want to start knitting this new one by the end of the week. I have to force myself to sit down and do the charts, it takes a lot of concentration, but when I finally do, I'm as happy as I could reasonably be. By the way in the last post when I said I'd drink one beer and then get to work, NOT! I was so excited by the idea of working on the new chart that I drank two extra beers, watched a movie and then couldn't do anything!!
Worked through the haunches of this new baby, so hard. I don't know how many times I erased and started again, the right haunch still doesn't have the right flow to it. The haunches on cats get funky. All the rosettes and dots collide and mingle trying to work themselves out about how they are going to get their act together for moving down the legs, very tricky transition point. By the time I started working on the sides last night and today it finally seemed very easy and fast.
Didn't mean to do a long post, must eat now and get some more work done before I head out to get my allergy shots.
