Ari Cat is skidding and sliding on hardwood floors, playing and bounding around with Miss Gemini. They sleep on my waterbed and new bathroom rug. My room is still Cat Central.

Visit www.Explore-Oil-Pastels-With-Robert-Sloan.com for a growing site with articles, product reviews, techniques and tips for a medium I'm really into. Will grow to a 225 page site with as much information as a good How-To book on the medium. Bookmark, check often and pass the site on to your friends -- this is what's going to help me sell some more specific Oil Pastels books like Cats in Oil Pastels or Landscapes in Oil Pastels etc. when I build enough traffic with the site. Hehehe, the first one's free... the site is like the General book on the medium and then other volumes will be actual books with more specific topics.

I love this stamp. And then I got another one!
I won the Landscape Category!

ETSY shop
eBay auctions (current) or search on Robs Art at eBay.

COMMISSIONS: -- I have two large commissions in progress, so I am booked solid except for ACEO commissions at $20 each plus cost of shipping.

Dick Blick Art Materials
is my favorite supplier, with unbelievably good customer service and the best online prices for any art supplies. Use this link when you shop and I'll get a small commission that costs you nothing.

My most recent favorite colored pencil piece, inspired by an exercise in Masterful Color by Arlene Steinberg.

Recently I joined , check out the club! Also check out , which I founded.

I was completely offline from May 24th through to about June 3d or 4th because the router in the new house didn't reach all the way to my new room. I'm still working my way back through old unanswered emails a few at a time, so if anyone tried to email me while I was out of it... please be patient. Likewise if you commented on LJ entries or anything like that and I didn't see or respond to your comments.

I did not succeed in doing my own packing. Kitten & Karl moved the date up to the 25th from June 1st and that threw me out of whack -- I had been preparing for an extreme effort in the last week of preparation and then lost that week. So they came into my room and packed up everything for me that I hadn't already packed. More than 30 boxes of it.

Granted, I was a lot less worried about the order my books went in other than favorites and the clothes and bedding and stuff that was already stored, versus my art supplies. I did pack most of my own art supplies. However, some largish or inconvenient items wound up in boxes with other stuff and I don't have them here in my room yet, like the Yarka soft pastels wood box set.

Anything they packed, I have no idea where it is. Anything I packed, I've probably got it up here and unpacked already.

That included my watercolor journal, which wound up in my trip bag. Thankfully it was not on the side that got coffee spilled on it, so it got no coffee stains the way my 9" x 12" Montval watercolor block and 4" x 6" Lanaquarelle hot press watercolor block and 8.5" x 11" ProArt wirebound sketchbook did. All of these things are still semi-usable, the little watercolor block was the worst because about half of it got splashed. It's reduced to being an ACEO block.

The 9" x 12" one is reduced to about 8" x 10" art although on both of those I might make some super strong coffee and do a coffee painting sometime. The sketchbook just has splatters on the back pages at the bottom so I'll just draw a little shorter in it -- though Kitten wants to see me incorporate the stains somehow and turn them into something. I might on one of them just to see if I can do it.

But I might have to add more coffee in order to manage that.

I have been busy. Insanely busy. I went off doing daily art for a while around the move though I am back to it now and you can see all of it at my Livejournal where I did a big catch-up post.

The weather in Arkansas is incredibly good for my health. I knew the Kansas weather made my arthritis worse. I didn't realize how much till I went away. When I moved there, it was better than Minnesota. I was happy there, considering the people I lived with and the pleasant clean house and good food. I was sick all the time but not as bad as Minnesota.

The difference between Kansas and Arkansas is so huge that it made me realize I haven't lived anywhere good for my health since New Orleans. Climates with seasons cripple me. I don't care how many people love the "excitement" of four seasons or think it's good for people to be challenged by constantly changing weather.

My arthritis is so bad and my body energy so low that any challenging weather is likely to knock me down to where going to the bathroom is a major expedition. During the spring I would sometimes wind up holding it for several hours so that I could have the strength to get up and go. Even with the bathroom right near my room, it was that hard.

On bath days in Kansas I literally couldn't do anything but take the bath. The bathtub was up a flight of steep stairs and a bath will tend to be a relaxant and soak away body energy as well as stress. I would wind up passing out after bathing, couldn't even go get my own food after a bath (so I'd eat before bathing).

Arkansas is bliss.

The trip took six hours on the road through pretty mountains. I snapped some phone camera photos but don't know yet how well they came out, still sorting things out and need to set up my laptop for that instead of just the netbook because the software for emptying the phone isn't on the netbook.

When we got here, we didn't have electricity. So we checked into the Hampton Inn only a few blocks away from our new house. It was glorious. I like hotels sometimes, and this one was so Southern -- decorated in florid 18th century ornaments, Oriental rugs, silk flower arrangements with cherubs on the walls, fancy porcelain lamp bases. It was just pretty and it felt like coming home being in a Southern idea of a Fancy Hotel.

So I luxuriated in it and bathed that night. I'd taken a bath before leaving because I knew I wouldn't have to do anything besides get in the car. It was the first time in a decade that I managed two baths in one day. But I was dusty and tired and felt like it and had enough energy to do it. I didn't even think about it -- just looked at the tub and clean white towels and felt "Cool, I could relax and have a bath and someone else is going to get paid for cleaning it up." Grabbed the little soap/shampoos and used them.

A day later while I was watching the kittenlets and Kitten, Karl and her local friends in their seventies (spry as thirty year olds only wish they were) unloaded the truck, Karl looked at me when I got up to go down the garage stairs to see if I could.

"You're walking different. You're not all bent over like this, like some geezer using a walker. You're standing up straight. I mean, as straight as I've ever seen you, and you look like you want to go outside and frolic."

"I do. At my pace."

I did. I went outside and looked at the yard and came back. I've set a goal of going outside at least once a week, at least into the yard to pick or sketch a flower but also for things like going out on plein air trips. I won't be hiking for them but I also won't have nearly as much recovery time needed after going out.

This afternoon I'm going to the bank to start my new account. I expect to still be somewhat sane afterward and get something done tonight, like more art or some unpacking. At least if the bank is at all decent about accommodating my disabilities I will, that's up in the air at the moment.

I got so buoyant and crazy while unpacking that I did throw my back for a couple of days... but the recovery was faster. I bought two new bookcases and a dresser, along with a bed in a bag. The bedding hasn't been set up yet but Karl built my bookcases downstairs where there was enough space to spread them out.

I assembled the dresser, a much harder assembly than my drafting table. It took three days and wiped me out -- but it was in my reach to do it. That's the big thing -- stuff that was not in my reach at all has become possible with rest and taking it slow.

So I am doing great here and hope to post more often. I'll get back to ebay and working on my oil pastels site soon too, but this month my goal is mostly to get unpacked and settled in. I love it here.

Check my latest Deviations for some botanical paintings of Kansas leaves from the tree in View from Bed and my new view from the drafting table -- a bigger window with a gigantic pecan tree and a fence and garden shed and more trees all framed by white sheers and a cool black curtain rod with spiky goth ornaments on it.

When I'm done unpacking and putting things away in the closet, bathroom cabinets, bookshelves and dresser, I will get pictures of my room. I think for the first time it'll be picture-worthy and I'll have to take them and post them.

Photography Conditions to Draw, Photomanip, Collage:
Link back to my original Deviation in your Artist Comment, credit me and send me a note so that I can come see, feature and maybe favorite your work. I like seeing how people use my photos. No other restrictions, except not claiming you took the photo.

My eHow articles, oldest at top. Please note me if you try the exercises, I love seeing how people use them!
How to Draw a Still Life with Colored Conte Crayons
How to Draw Celtic Knotwork
How to Draw and Shade Spheres
How to Draw Crosshatching and Hatching
How to Buy and Store Colored Pencils
How to Preserve and Store Framed Portraits
How to Paint Watercolors En Plein Air
How to Draw a Satin Ribbon
How to Draw with Oil Pastels
How to Get Cat Urine Odors Out of Carpets
How to Be More Socially Active
How to Draw a Rose Easily
How to Draw a Butterfly in Soft Pastels
How to Draw a Siamese Cat Portrait in colored Conte crayons
How to Draw a Skull
How to Understand Color Theory and Pigments
How to Draw a Land Hermit Crab in Derwent Drawing Pencils
How to Draw a Pumpkin with Derwent Inktense pencils
How to Draw Original Fantasy Maps for your Fiction
How to Draw a Halo for Religious Art
How to Draw with Brush Pens
How to Draw Oak Bark (For ~Peachfuzz!)
How to Adapt to Mobility Limits
How to Draw Foliage with Chiaroscuro
How to Paint a Mountain Scene in Watercolor
How to Shade with Colored Pencils (requested by *Mattsma)
How to Choose a Cat by Personality
How to Draw a Pansy in Colored Pencils
How to Draw Smooth Tonal Layers in Colored Pencils
How to Draw a Clear Glass in Conte Crayon
How to Draw an ACEO or ATC Easy!
How to Draw a Geranium in Colored Pencils (Hi ~Peachfuzz!)
How to Draw an Eye in Conte Crayon
How to Draw a Human Mouth in Conte Crayon
How to Draw Light Colored Hair
How to Draw a Nose
How to Dominate a Cat
How to Draw the Ear
How to Draw a Bird's Wing
How to Draw a Strawberry in Derwent Inktense
How to Draw a Lily in Derwent Inktense
How to Draw a Sunflower in Pen and Watercolor
How to Draw Water in Black and White
How to Draw the New Year Baby
How to Draw Martin Luther King, Jr.
How to Sell ACEO Art Online
How to Draw Medieval Things
How to Draw a Medieval Rose
How to Draw Father Time for New Year's Decorations
How to Draw Snowy Pines in Colored Pencils
How to Draw Medieval Hinges (for ~Kayara)
How to Draw a Bald Eagle Head and Shoulders"
How to Draw from Negative Space
How to Date a Smoker
How to Dye Clothing Very Bright Colors
How to Write a Love Letter to a Goth
How to Draw with Good Composition
How to Draw Rocks
How to Draw Clasped Hands
How to Draw the Human Neck
How to Draw a Heart Shape
How to Draw a Pinup Girl
How to Share your Writing and Get Support
How to Teach an Art Workshop
How to Draw Realistic Flower Petals in Watercolor Pencil and Pen
How to Prepare for Technical Writing Tests and Interviews
How to Draw a Newborn Kitten
How to Draw a Cat's Nose
How to Quick Draw Animals"
How to Draw a Cat's Eye
How to Create Fog in a Landscape Painting
How to Find Bargain Weekend Activities
How to Plan a Great Family Weekend
How to Preserve Your Artwork
How to Draw Sycamore Bark
How to Draw a Sycamore Tree
How to Enjoy Living Within Your Budget
How to Draw a Black Cat in Soft Pastels with Limited Palette.
How to Choose the Right Oil Pastels and Supports
How to Draw a Holiday Wreath in Oil Pastels
How to Draw Brass Jingle Bells in Oil Pastels
How to Cast a Freedom Spell
How to Cut a Six Sided Paper or Foil Snowflake
How to Draw Santa Claus in Oil Pastels
How to Have a Merry, Frugal Christmas
How to Draw a Christmas Kitten in Oil Pastels
How to Make Celtic Line Art
How to Make Sensible New Year's Resolutions
How to Start a Watercolor Journal
How to Improve Your Watercolor Painting