floating through the universe.

thursday is one of my favorite days of the week. donnerstag in german. it's a nice day to get some thinking done. this week, and last, have been filled with a lot of busy work. i have not even spent an hour *in* the studio. the drawing and painting i have done have been in the evening, sitting on the couch with my husband-- listening to music, talking about our days, and perhaps half-watching television (more on that later). the busy-ness is good, because it means food for the table. the busy-ness reminds me that i simply must practice yoga and meditate in order to stay grounded. the coffee-crazy-computer lifestyle makes me incapable of thinking on thought all the way through. so there you have it.

although the time has not been quite right for much painting, i am having a little love-affair with my camera right now. we are having a ball exploring all of the nooks and crannies of the century house. i am still in awe of this camera, and i love chasing the light around the house and hood.

I like looking at the world with new eyes, as though the lens of the camera were attached to my head. ... which brings me to the whole television-watching thing. You know I love nova, right? In my opinion, the only shows really worth watching are on pbs-- nova, nature, rick steves, austin city limits--but that is sort of beside the point. Tuesday night, I had a chance to sit down with my sketch book while watching nova. Holy awesome. The show was about the trip to one of Saturn's moons, Titan, by two spacecraft named Cassini & Huygens. Goodness sakes was it enchanting. I created a series of sketches based on the trip that are really still in the R&D phase, but I'll share a tid-bit or two with you now with the promise of more to come. I love space.

This drawing is called Huygens. I drew it in pencil and colored it digitally. (This is a new experiment for me, what do you think?)

Huygens was the spacecraft that launched from his mothership Cassini and actually landed (with a thud) on Titan's surface and recorded live while Cassini (who was meanwhile orbiting Saturn) transmitted the footage back to earth. Cassini stayed in orbit long after Huygens' light dimmed, sending back amazing footage of Saturn's rings and Jupiter. I'm mesmerized.

On a side note, the name Cassini reminds me of the phish song Carini, which has nothing to do with space (necessarily), but I thought you might like to know how my brain works through these things.