finally

I finally finished my drawing for Rosies book. I will get it in the male post haste, Rosie.

My appologies

I still have Rosie's book as well as mine, and I haven't made a mark in either one. I have been dealing with so much lately that our exchange has been put on the back burner. I am fully recovered from the surgery now and the chemotherapy is underway. The first week or so after a treatment is tough but after that I have felt almost normal. My hair has begun to fall out ... but I am hanging in there and so far doing pretty well.
I promise I will begin working on the sketch books this week.

Another addition to Winter Remembering Spring

Squirrel and Oak Seedling

'Those Who Live', Rosie's page in Masha's book.

Sheep!

I found I couldn't make a satisfactory page from my bird drawings but realised that Masha's birds inhabited the Moscow sky, Marcia's were by the shore and Katie's on the lake. So my creatures are in the fields of Northern England.

This is a montage of several of my drawings. The sheep and thorn trees were drawn near Whitby on Yorkshire's east coast.

The dry stone walls and old stone gate posts are from Derbyshire and Cheshire in the north west.

Oh, and the snail was in my garden in Hertfordshire, (south east)! At the moment there are snails everywhere as it's been raining copiously.

I hope you like this for the theme Masha. Once again it was not really what I'd intended. It's not a styalish drawing but I've enjoyed giving the sheep and the stone walls an outing :)

Rosie's book is here!

My health issues put me in the hospital for a few days :-{

I am home now and I was so delighted that Rosie's book was here when I got home. Both my husband, Patrick, and I couldn't get over how exquisite it is!

I really have no idea what story I have to add. At this point I am simply honored to have it in my possession.

My Grandmother's Story in Rosie's Book

At 19, my grandmother left the Ukraine for America with her sister Julie.  My grandmother’s name was Sarah.  It was the 1^st decade of the 20^th century.  The Tsar had stolen their oldest brother and burned Jewish homes & villages in pogroms.  From the Black Sea to the Mediterranean, across the Atlantic into the St Lawrence Seaway & the Great Lakes to Chicago.  Grandma worked in a handbag factory and met her husband, also a Jew from the Ukraine.  She spoke Russian + Yiddish + broken English.  They moved to northern Minnesota, opened a dry goods store for the iron ore miners, and had 2 daughters—the youngest my mother.  Grandma’s husband ran off with a young, gentile woman, leaving her to raise her daughters alone.  She made chocolate cake for my mother to eat at bedtime to show her love.  When my mother & her sister were grown, Grandma moved to Los Angeles where Julie lived.  They both worked in another handbag factory.  Grandma slept in a Murphy bed, ate at the automat and enjoyed sitting under palm trees in the park.  When I was a child, Grandma would take the train cross-country to our home in New York.  She’d fill our freezer with homemade cheese blintzes and rolled cookies with Welch’s Grape Jelly.  With flour covering her hands and across the belly of her apron, she’d call me Marsh-a-lah Marsh-a-lah Shena Madel.  Grandma wore a girdle & a brassiere.  She called panties bloomers.  She died at 93 and is buried in LA next to Julie.  Weeks before my mother died 4 years ago, she slipped my grandma’s old diamond rings on my finger.

Marcia Milner-Brage           June 6, 2011

Katie's book received from Masha today

Another beauty in my keeping! I now have 2 books--Rosie & Katie.  I'm still mulling.  Hope to get going on the page by tomorrow.