Little Busy

I've been doing daily sketches in my journal lately. A small, but productive way to stay in the groove. And I made a few custom gift certificates as presents for my siblings and parents ("Dinner with KJ"), to be redeemed sometime in 2011, since money is tight lately.

Merry Christmas to you folks who have accidentally wandered by!

Le Chasseur

Today I received via registered mail the copy of "Le Chasseur", the French version of Darwyn Cooke's adaptation of Richard Stark's "The Hunter" that I won from the artist's website. He (DC) drew a little sketch along with his autograph, and I couldn't be more thrilled.

Slow and Steady

I have been drawing again. For the last three days I have been keeping a sketch pad (or my journal) open nearby so I can scribble when I have the urge or inspiration. It's a good feeling. The subjects: surfing/the ocean, women (Greek curlies), and sock puppets.

Surf's Up

I read the latest issue of "Surfer Magazine" yesterday. I drew yesterday and I am drawing again today. 'Nuff said...

A Perfect Circle and Other Shapes

I was boiling eggs yesterday, and I couldn't resist saving this image:

Lull

Wow. I haven't done anything noteworthy in a creative vein for three weeks now. This being unemployed (and having no disposable income) really sucks. You'd think all this free time would be perfect for working on something, but it's not...

I've done a LOT of thinking and planning, just very little doing, beyond the occasional saved website or photo, or scribbled drawing or idea. Time to get crackin'!

Custom Frames

I spent the day touring (and practicing in) a couple of custom framing stores today. I am looking into doing it for my 'real' job, and the gentleman who is looking to get back into the business was nice enough to introduce me to some of his friends at their places of business.

First up was Framed in Time in Framingham, MA. The owner, John Fournier, was nice enough to allow me to test my skill in matching a variety of images with appropriate & attractive mats and moldings. I felt like I was back in school taking a test! By the time I was done, the pressure of the challenge (as well as the lovely frame artist who was running the front of the store while I worked) left me sweating. But my choices were praised for the most part, and I left the store with a bit more confidence than I'd had when I began the task. The entire staff was very friendly and knowledgeable, and John was very generous with his time and work materials. Check them out.

Then it was off to Maynard, MA to visit Gallery Seven. The owners, Nick Johnson and Kelli Costa, were both very gracious with their time. They allowed us a look in their basement production room, which was very cool. Their classy upscale (yet super-friendly) gallery does more than just custom framing, they also feature the works of several local artist and photographers (including Nick), and do in-house shows from time to time.

It was great to observe first-hand how friendly and helpful the framing community is, as I listened to the various people give each other helpful hints and leads, and reminisce about how they got into the business and met one another. Food for thought...

Green

Creative Day

I spent the day watching parts of seasons 1 & 2 of "Mad Men", and during the morning part I read old "Look" magazines, sketched, and messed around with all of my white Lego blocks for a photography idea. The rest of the day I did more sketching: random doodles and thumbnails for various ideas, including a "sock puppet leviathan" and a character from a Flinx short story.

Checking In...

I did some drawing yesterday, nothing fancy, just some quick sketches. I need to breakout the acrylics again soon.

Monitor Upgrade

I'd been toiling along for the last few years with a 13-inch monitor, and I was used to it, and content. Today, however, my Aunt Jean Marie presented me with a gift beyond gifts: a new 24-inch monitor! She got me a Viewsonic VG2428wm, and it is amazing. It is light-years larger, brighter, and easier to view than the old one, and it has better speakers, more modern features, and a lazy susan-style base, for ease of rotation. I am so psyched. It will make using the tablet a lot simpler, and the images will be easier to examine and ponder over for changes. I have the best aunt ever!

Low Key Week

I haven't undertaken any major projects this past week, though I have been busy doing random 'sketch as I feel like it'-type things. Mostly it's been abstracts, and the female form and faces, though I have been doing a lot of thinking about the cd cover contest due by November 1st. It looks like it will be a combination of acrylics and computer drawing & coloring.

On an unrelated note: I have several museum visits in my future. I am visiting my youngest brother and his family in the greater San Francisco area, and I will be spending Monday November 1st in the city. I got a CityPass, and will be taking in (at the very least) SFMoMA and  riding the Cable Cars. I wanted to visit the Legion of Honor Fine Arts  Museum or the de Young Museum, but they are both closed on Mondays - WEAK! Also, I am heading back up to Bennington, VT sometime before the snows hit, in order to climb one of several mountains in the vicinity, and visit the Bennington Museum. Plus I want to check out Fruitlands either this week, or when I return from California.

Mediterranean House

Here is my first attempt at acrylics!

I painted from 8 pm to just before midnight last night, putting together my new $10 easel, pouring & mixing paints (and learning the proper amounts - I fear I wasted a bit too much blue), and then doing the work at a decent pace (not hurried by any means, but definitely not a complete beginner's crawl of indecision). I guess you could say I had a plan. I worked the big spaces first, figuring that filling in the small later would be more efficient and leave less room for error. So (in order): on went the blue of the house, the brown of the road, and the dark red of the door. The framing of the door followed, and the realization that it would be a pretty bleak painting without 'more', I added the windows, and then their frames as well. Finally, the street looked empty, so I added the plant, it's pot, and finally, the primitive long-handled garden rake. A few touch-ups to smooth out rough window and door sills, and I was satisfied.

What I learned:

• I really enjoy painting with acrylics.
• Less is definitely more. One can always add paint (and mix the matching shade quickly), but it's a damned shame to plop too much on the palette, with no way to cram it back in the tube.
• Big areas first = less touch-up later.
• Cleaning brushes as you go is part of the process. Part of mine anyway.

Kelly & James

America was founded on religious freedom, and the right to choose the best life for oneself. Many people who call themselves 'good' and/or 'decent' Americans seem to have forgotten this.

I have been Pro-Choice my entire life, and it is one issue that gets me riled up quite often. The bottom line is this: No one else gets to decide what a woman does when it comes to whether she is ready to become a mother. America is not a theocracy. America is about freedom to make the best life one can. The freedom to chart one's own course, and follow one's own dreams. The freedom to choose without government interference in one's personal life, how to live day to day, happily and healthily, without being a burden on the system. It's this simple freedom: HER body, HER choice.

Period.

Anyway, last night I couldn't sleep (so much for trying to fall asleep before midnight), so I turned the light back on, and wrote the rough draft for the story "Kelly & James", a tale of two high school kids who despite all the best intentions and taking all reasonable precautions, accidentally find themselves pregnant. The choice these two young people (children who can't even drive, vote, or serve their country, let alone raise a child responsibly and financially securely) make, is the best one for them at this place in their lives, which is to not have the child.

Who do the people, who presume that they know better than others how to live their lives, think they are? What gives them the arrogance to dictate the personal lives of others, and try to pass laws governing a personal choice? Some of the worst offenders on this issue are the same people who decry Big Government. I guess that only applies when one's wallet is at stake, a sorry commentary on the current state of affairs in this (once) proud country that used to stand for common sense and dignity.

The bottom line is this: whether or not one chooses to carry a pregnancy to full term, it is a choice, either way. One chooses to become a mother and put all other things on hold. One chooses to continue one's dreams and plans uninterrupted by an issue that has a solution. If it's not your particular solution, it matters not, as it is not your body. A person chooses his/her own religion. If that particular religion forbids a choice in the matter under discussion, then one has already made his/her choice. But it's still a choice.

This is America. MY body, MY choice. Period. Let freedom ring.

This is America. YOUR religion has no place making decisions for MY life. Let freedom ring.

Adventures With Acrylics

Today I busted out my new acrylic paints, and delved into a medium I haven't touched since my days as an art major at UMass-Dartmouth. Actually, now that I think about it, I never used acrylic paints in college. So I suppose today was my first time ever. At any rate, I had a lot of fun with it.

I'd had an idea for a drawing and/or colored paper collage of a seaside with pink sand, sea green water, and yellow boats, so I worked with those colors, along with white and a lighter brown. The pink (red w/white) went on first, then the green, the yellow, brown, and last, the white (I'd break down the official color names, but it's a first attempt on white card stock, so it's hardly a professional situation). After taking the photographs, the waves came out better than I'd expected. I spent a little over 2 hours on the 10½" x 6¾" painting.

Then, neither ready to stop practicing nor wanting to waste any paint, I decided to do an underground scene with all the leftover brown, yellow and red. I spread on the dirt layers, and then added the clawed hand digging up from below, filling in between them and then lighting the left side of each finger. For an off the cuff idea, I think it looks pretty good. I'll try to be more specific next time with tools and colors, but I wanted to get all this down before I flopped into my big leather chair with a mug of coffee and settled into some 'DVR catch-up'.

Unprecedented

I have been reading comics since I was a little kid, when my grandfather had boxes of old ones that he got at a yard sale. I have been consciously buying them on a monthly basis since I was about ten, when I would run across the street to the Westminster Pharmacy and spend my weekly dollar allowance on three books. Over the years the price has slowly risen, well above the rate of inflation, and it was just something that was accepted.

Well: today both DC Comics (their hark) and Marvel Comics (their hark) announced that they are rolling prices back from $3.99 to $2.99 (although Marvel is only lowering all future new titles, not existing ones, a very important distinction) - I am flabbergasted and extremely happy. It is amazing that such big companies would make such a drastic price adjustment (-25%) in their business model, but the economy, and the rise of digital (ugh) comics seems to have made it a necessity in order to continue the art form in a strong & healthy manner, so that it does not disappear from the world like VHS, the 8-track, or the rotary phone... Bravo.

First Attempt

Here is my first start-to-finish attempt at a colored drawing on my Intuos4 tablet. I used the following settings: pencil (2B and HB), paint fill, ball point tip, and felt tip. It's getting easier to use the pen, but the mouse definitely came into play at times. And it's surprisingly tiring! Who knew I'd need to build up tech muscles? Note: it's rather annoying that I am not allowed to use the original tiff image format on this site, so the true image may not be represented as a 24-bit bmp.

Sunday Stuff

Yesterday morning I went to the new local Ocean State Job Lot for their grand opening, and got a ton of supplies for my foray into acrylics. I was going to go to Michael's but OSJL's sale was too good to ignore. I got a stack of canvases (8x10, 11x14, 16x20) for super-cheap, 2 boxes of paints (18 colors - 0.4 oz tubes), and a wide selection of brushes of various sizes, both synthetic and hair. Plus a sturdy easel for ten bucks. I am going to supplement with a trip to Michael's later this week for larger (4 oz) tubes of paint and some palette knives. Later, I spent the afternoon drawing (pencil, and then black ink) the beautiful surfer Erica Hosseini (a favorite subject of mine, dynamic and athletic) while I watched the Patriots beat Buffalo.

Nature's Majesty

I was down at the lake today, floating in the middle of it with a local beer in hand. This is what I saw after an hour of peaceful contemplation, when I got out of the water:

Incentive

Michael's is having a sale beginning Sunday, and Liquitex Basics acrylic paint is "buy two get one free". Also, canvas 2-packs are "buy one get one free". I think the universe is telling me to finally jump-start my desire to experiment with brushes. So once I make those purchases (along with the aforementioned brushes, palette knives, etc...), I'll have some large-scale work to display.

Long Day

I got up at 8 am, organized my things, and spent nearly 7 hours (with short meal breaks) drawing in front of a big chunk of season 1 of "Mad Men". I got some figure drawing done, and several 'spirals' (a style of drawing I came up with a few years ago, wherein the female form is rendered with as many spirals as possible, with minimal non-spiral lines). It's amazing how swiftly the time always goes by when set up to draw in front of the tv this way.

I also came to the conclusion that not everything is interesting enough to photograph. Suffice to say I am happy with my work, and will share finished projects, but probably little 'practice' work.

Oh, and I broke out the tablet yesterday afternoon, to give it a test run. It was a bit difficult to get into the swing of things (lining up the action of my hand with the point on the screen), but it was an hour or so of exploratory fun. I'll delve deeper into it later this week. It's definitely a technique that requires a lot of refining, and customizing the keys will take some learning.

Pencils

I spent several hours using just a regular #2 pencil to draw in front of a UFL football game (Sacramento Mountain Lions @ Hartford Colonials). I worked on several sketches of the photo at left (the photographer, Kait Dean is pretty talented), refining and improving with each repetition, and then I made another attempt at the surfing girl I did on a previous day. It's clear that I need to work on negative space, as my figures are coming out the way I want them to, but the spaces between limbs and surrounding the figures don't quite match the photos I am working from. A fun afternoon, nevertheless!

Production

I had a good day today. After waking up at 5:30 for no good reason, I spent the morning drawing the woman, trying my darndest to make it look like the photo, and then I spent the afternoon drawing and inking the alien bruiser. I wasn't going to color him, but after I took the photo, I just had to. I got lazy on the bottom half and just cut him out and pasted him on a piece of dark burgundy colored paper (haha). Enjoy:

Outdoor Inspiration

  I'd been getting rather sedentary lately, so today I decided to begin what I have been calling "Mountain Quest". I want to climb as many local New England mountains as I can before winter sets in. So today I climbed the Mountain House Trail on Mt. Wachusett. The climb was strenuous in the best way possible, the view at he summit was incredible, and listening to Abbie Barrett's "Dying Day" on my iPod on the descent was perfect. There is nothing like fresh air, majestic vistas, great local music, and physical exertion to get the brain wheels turning.

Back to Basics

I decided to draw all morning as I watched my New England Patriots clobber the Cincinnati Bengals. I had a couple of cool surfing photos to work from, and this is what I came up with. I went with the dual tip markers again, to practice with thickness variations and shading on both drawings, and as you can see, I also used colored pencils on picture #2. The markers tend to smudge if enough time isn't allowed for thorough drying, and I don't have any proper colors for large areas or the particular skin color of the girl, so I went with peach and light gray pencils. They were both fun exercises, and I feel it was time well-spent. And while I prefer my work on the left-hand figure, I am more happy with the way the gray marker and pencil work together to give a good 'stormy ocean' feel.

New Toy Part 2

I'm in the midst of downloading all the free software that is included with my new tablet:

• Nik Color Efex Pro 3 WE6
• Wacom Brushes 3
• Adobe Photoshop Elements 8
• Autodesk SketchBook Express 2010
• Corel Painter Sketch Pad

Also, this morning I ordered a Bluetooth dongle from Amazon (only $2.97 - amazing!), which I will have in a week or so, but until then I can use the tablet at  my computer table, because (duh!) it has an eight-foot cord. I'll post some cool new stuff (and some handmade stuff) over the next few days. I am going to structure next week as if I am going to an actual office: work 9-5 on various projects, with two 15-minute breaks and an hour for lunch. I'll try to post nightly again, with bits of each day's accomplishment(s).

New Toy

A few months ago I moved into the renovated apartment in the back part of my aunt's house. It is a lot less expensive than my last place, and is a lot closer to most of the rest of my family. Anyway, she had mentioned on a few occasions that she'd like to help me out the way she's helped out my younger siblings in the past, with a financially significant contribution to better my life, and this is the marvel that she came up with:

A Wacom Intuos4 Wireless Professional Pen Tablet! It came via UPS early this afternoon, and I am SO excited. My computer isn't Bluetooth-enabled, so I haven't been able to use it yet, but my head is absolutely spinning with the possibilities (and gratitude - thanks Aunt JM!). I just need to run out and get a Bluetooth dongle (stupid word!), and I'll be ready to install it, set it up, and bring my artistic skills into the 21st Century. The software that comes with it should exponentially increase how prolific and professional my work will be going forward.

Photo Time

I spent the evening floating in the middle of the lake my family has owned a piece of land on for the last 46 years. The sun was setting and the water was warm, so I couldn't resist (sorry sketchpad, you lost out today!). What a dreamy, carefree feeling, just floating under a blue sky, watching airplanes fly way overhead, and birds fly a bit closer. There were only a few scattered wispy clouds, and hardly anyone else on the water, so it was a peaceful end to a low-key labor Day. I snapped a few photos both before and after my 'swim'. Check out the colors! I am always psyched when I get such memorable pictures down at my favorite lake.

Everything Looks Better in a Frame

...or at least this project does! I finally finished the cityscape today. I'm not sure if I like the inhabitants, but I am pretty happy with the way the rest of it turned out. I never had any issue with the glue, and I wisely saved the colored pencils for the end, so there was no smudging, and very little flaking. It didn't look right with the sun in the upper right, but it felt perfect when I made the leftward shift, even though I had to sacrifice the solar panels. Sometimes it feels a bit empty of buildings, but I think it was better to go with three strong ones rather than clutter the image with too many indistinct ones.

What a feeling of joy and accomplishment I feel every time I look over at the finished (and framed) final work! I took a few pictures of it when I was done, but it was after dark, and the indoor lighting isn't quite right. I'll take a few of the piece in the sunlight tomorrow, so a full appreciation can be had. For now, here is the best of the dark shots (see left).

I also did some sketches for another paper project, as well as for a surfer girl in action illustration. The ideas just keep coming, "and that ain't bad".

Miscellaneous

I realized that I haven't added any images for the last few days. Here is the initial colored thumbnail for the mixed media (various plain & patterned colored papers, ink, colored pencil, glue) cityscape, which I spent a good deal of time on last night. I also ran out to get a frame for it, to fill a blank spot on my walls, and also so I can point to it when friends & family drop in, and say "I did that!" (haha).

I did some more work on a political slogan that I came up with last year about Sarah Palin. Has there ever been a more divisive figure of so little substance on America's political stage? Once it's refined (if properly marketed), the t-shirt profits alone could make me a rich man. I just hate to add to the publicity surrounding her (no matter how small), even if it's in a negative (albeit humorous) light. I just want her swept off the stage so more intelligent heads can do some work on the other side of the aisle. Food for thought.

The heatwave of the last week has ended, so perhaps I'll venture outdoors with my sketchpads. Now that all of the kids are back to school, the lake and parks and mountains (such that they are here in New England) will be a lot less crowded. And I need to finish that cd cover.

Today's Tasks

I set myself three tasks today:

1. Draw the female form non-stop for several hours.
2. Practice my neglected guitar for a couple of hours.
3. Shave my head.

It's 3 pm now, and I drew for 2 hours, and am mid-head-shave (I use a Norelco electric, which allows me to multi-task!). Another update in a few hours...

It's nearly 4 am now. I went to bed at 1 am after reading for a bit, but couldn't sleep (too many ideas and stuff going on in my brain). Anyway, I never did get to my guitar, but I did finish shaving my head (haha), and drew for another hour in the late evening. A very solid day, and the guitar was never a priority, just a good idea.

At The Table

I spent most of the day working on the cityscape. A day of glue, colored papers, colored pencils, black ink sketches and brainstorming. Spurts of activity broken up by uninspiring meals, the always inspiring HGTV, and reading breaks. This is the first long-term project in ages on which I've kept a steady level of enthusiasm throughout. I can't wait to pick out a matted frame for the completed work.

Goings On

For the last couple of days I have been working on two projects: a mixed media cityscape, and a cover design for a local music compilation cd being put out by The Starving Artist, a creative collective based out of Keene, New Hampshire. I've mostly been focused on the cityscape, and I am over halfway done (waiting for glue to dry is time-consuming). Also, I've gathered materials for the cd cover, and made notes for some of its photographs.

Beware

I flipped past a show about Satan (and the requisite zealot nut jobs who were preaching 'fire & brimstone' to their 'flocks') on either the History Channel or Discovery, which featured lots of paintings and woodcuts from various eras, and I got the urge to draw some demons. Their whimsical faces popped immediately into my head, and the cartoonish bodies just followed. I was going to add clouds or mist or something, but then decided to keep them in the sky uncluttered, which I then intentionally photographed with the sepia tone in mind. I like the way the demons' rough edges were smoothed out by the flash, and the tone gives the image an aged feel, as if it had been drawn by some Dark Ages cartoonist for Ye Olde Newes Papier...

Quiet Day

I didn't do anything spectacular today, but I do want to keep in the swing of things and post every day if possible, so here are today's notes. I did draw a silly cartoon of an orange hulking 'abominable bunny', but it's hardly photo-worthy (haha). I did come up with a few new ideas though, so hopefully the next few posts will be interesting... Oh, and I got a 'like' from Nicole Nadeau about a comment I left on her Facebook page. Sweet.

Lines Only

When I am watching television, I need to keep my hands busy. It's usually with a sketchpad, though last year I had a bunch of Lego blocks at hand because my sister's four kids were going through a mania that I decided to share. Anyway, today it was a small notebook pad and three non-black fine-tipped pens (see yesterday's small astronaut). Today it was all lines, no shading, and it was very enjoyable. Each color was done at a different time today. The tree was first, then the bush, and finally the underwhelming sun (I don't think it quite fits with the other two, probably because there is no solid outline around the sunbeams).

Space and Stuff

Last night I experimented with using no black ink on a drawing. It came out kind of cool (see image at left). It's a pretty typical pose of mine for superheroes (which astronauts technically are not), so that aspect is weak, but it was a fun exercise.

And today I did the first of my 'at arm's length' drawing experiments. I've had space on the brain lately (I am SO psyched that Comcast carries the NASA channel), and have seen all kinds of cool astronaut drawings, so I decided to draw one with ink (no initial pencils). I like the way it came out. The basic figure is sound, and it's just cartoony enough to be amusing rather than sad (haha). The coloring was another experiment. I have a set of colored dual brush pens (with a fine tip on one end a paintbrush style tip on the other), and went with the brush ends (at arm's length, of course) to loosely "paint" the drawing. I didn't want to overload the sky, so I used colored pencils for that, but the rest of the image is all marker and ink. It was a lot of fun, forcing myself not to get up close to do any detail work. Someday soon (meaning this autumn), after more practice with the brush end of the pens, I'll attempt my first paint project since college back in the day...

Manrayvian

I was on Wikipedia yesterday, reading about a few things I was interested in, and then engaging in the 'organic click' thing I do (starting with a person, place or thing I want to read about, going off on related tangents, and ending up somewhere completely different), and wound up reading about the Dada and Surrealist artists. Man Ray's 'The Misunderstood' jumped out at me, and I decided to draw the strange flower creature depicted therein.

I really like the way the fine lines came out in the inked drawing, but the color scheme was what I was after, and I think it came out pretty nice. I definitely need to spend more time learning the best light settings for my Canon PowerShot A480. I took the ink photo last night with a flash, and the colored one this morning by cloudy sunlight.

I am going to work on full scenes next I think. While all of these drawings are nice to look at, they really don't tell much in the way of stories. I also have plans to do "at arm's length" sketches, more "Scatterbunnies", and another "Li'l Nippers" soon. I haven't done any writing lately.

Lastly, here's a weird note (pun intended): As I was falling asleep last night a fully-formed song was playing in my head. I don't remember very much of it now, and I wish I'd had a way to record it before I drifted off. It was a catchy tune, but hard to explain or compare to anything. I definitely need a cheap recording device for moments like that. They've been few & far between in my life (another I recall vividly was on a drive back to my Rollinsford, NH apartment six years ago), and I always feel an acute frustration at not having been able to preserve the sounds somehow.

Sunday HGTV

After an organized resupply at Michael's yesterday (I had a list, they had a big sale, and I had a 40% off coupon), I knew I wanted to use some of my new materials today. I was a slug most of this rainy day, doing little more than playing mahjongg online and reading, but in the evening after supper, I went on a drawing kick.

Seeing all of the great works yesterday at FAM really inspired me to want to experiment with capturing textures, so I decided to do a drawing of flowing honey. The jar's design took over for awhile, me trying to figure out a pleasing color scheme, but with the application of three different pencil colors (cream, bronze and sunburst yellow) I think the honey came out best.

I was also taken by the ancient carvings of seated Chinese dancers at FAM, and knew I wanted to draw them at some point, so I jumped right in after photographing the honey jar. It was a lot of fun, and it basically flowed right out of my No. 2 pencil. I spent way more time figuring out and then applying the color scheme than I did on the actual pencil and ink stages. I like the idea of them so much that I plan on drawing these often, until I can do them in my sleep. In the future, I'll also apply colored and patterned paper instead of colored pencils. An interesting and fitting bonus: as you can see, the paper has an aged and yellow tinge to it. It is white 60 lb sketch paper, but because the first several photos came out too washed out by the camera's flash, I adjusted the camera setting to 'aquarium', and this happy accident was the result.

Fitchburg Art Museum

After having it on my to-do list for the last few weeks, I finally went to the Fitchburg Art Museum. I bought an individual year-long membership for $35, which gets me several things: it would have cost me $7 to get in anyway; I got a free $8 mug; and I get free admission into ten other New England museums. A bargain any way you look at it.

So after talking to a couple of staff members, I headed off into the collections. I took a lot of notes as I went from piece to piece, and from room to room, finding inspiration in many places. I went from the American & European landscape, still life and portrait galleries, through the ceramics section (it was nice to see so much quality work without a "Made in China" stamp on any of it), to Eleanor Norcross's personal gallery. She had no lack of talent, and much of her stuff is very cool, but her greater contribution was founding the museum.

Then it was down the connector gallery, which was filled with African art, and it's many fascinating depictions of the human and animal forms. When I reached the newer building of the complex I headed downstairs first, to see the ancient art collections: Egyptian (including the mummy of a child and giant tomb wall reproductions); Greek and Roman sculpture and pottery; a small bit of Etruscan works, and a cool corner of art from the early Americas. It's easy to see why gold has caused so much strife over the millenia - the Costa Rican and Panamanian gold works caught my eye like a magnet, especially amidst all the dull and lusterless (but otherwise interesting in their own right) artifacts around them. Very cool. In the Asian Gallery it was interesting to see how Buddha's depiction has changed over the centuries and across the various cultures where he has had a strong influence.

I saved the upper gallery for last, since it featured contemporary local artists (the 75th Regional Exhibition of Art and Craft). There were many fine works from the surrounding towns of north central Massachusetts, including a few people whose names I recognized, in all forms of media. I had a guidebook with me listing all of the artists, so I was able to make many notes, and circle my favorites for further research. The ones that truly impressed:

• Arthur Bodwell, Segmented Vase (wood) - it's amazing that he could do that with wood.
• Brenda Cirioni, Spring Dance (mixed media)
• Linda Dagnello, Carmel's Kitchen (oil)
• Amy Kutka, Jaguar, Skulls, Quetzalcoatl (mixed media) - she graduated with my sister.
• Scott Niemi, Legend of the Three Juicy Peppers (oil) - a gargantuan (and humorous) painting of peppers.
• Elina Nykanen, Dessert (gelatin silver print) - an amazing photo of a beautiful woman in a small mirror.
• Margret Richard, Afternoon Light and Winter Thaw (pastel) - two amazing, yet unique, works by the same woman.
• Gary Ruuska, 206 Central and The Shadow (colored pencil) - this man is a veritable wizard of light, shade, and detail work. Both pieces were amazing.
• Sally Sargent, Westminster Table (mixed media) - a large interesting collage.
• Margot Stage, Great Blue 2 (fiber) - this giant image of dried foliage looked like an oil painting on first glance. Amazing.

Who knew there were so many talented people in my home county? I do now (haha). And there was no one else in the building except the aforementioned staff (five people), so it was a great way to observe, inspect, absorb and admire the body of work without the uncomfortable psychological press of other people. It was a fantastic and memorable way to spend several hours. I learned a lot, saw plenty of amazing things (and a few puzzling ones), and thoroughly enjoyed myself. I get lost in books all the time, but it was nice to be out in the world, yet still be able to feel that way. On the way out I snagged my free mug (a reproduction of Childe Hassam's The Pinafore, Isle of Shoals, Moonlight on its side), another with the museum logo, and a few postcards, and drove away happy and inspired.

Night Stuff

I fell asleep last night around midnight, after reading for a bit while a jazz station played in the background, but I woke up a little after two and couldn't fall back to sleep. I had an image in my head that wouldn't let me alone, so I got up, went into the living room, and drew the pencil abstract pictured to the left. It's puzzling yet somehow gratifying that when I wake up in the middle of the night and can't sleep, that the awake time has been so productive lately, and not just futile tossing and turning.

And since I wasn't quite tired, I finally added an adversary to my previous "Salamander" piece. I'd been sitting over it all day yesterday, and had done all the pencil work except for a head. So I added the head (with an appropriate facial expression), and then proceeded to ink and then color the poor guy. I have always loved the space uniforms from pulp sci-fi and the "Legion of Superheroes" comic from the 60's, so I gave him the typical boots, chest logo and shoulder flair found so frequently back then. Perhaps I will add a background at some point, either a spaceship in its hangar, or just a starscape with a Saturnesque ringed planet hanging in the sky. If nothing else, I should probably choose a color for the salamander man, since his foe is so brightly hued.

Carnivorous Caterpillar

Another episode of "Wild Pacific" yields another inspiration. I never knew that there were meat-eating caterpillars, and after watching the segment, I felt that the image needed to be captured for future use. I am going to incorporate them at some point into a fearsome man-sized threat on one of the planets in my Winter Star Galaxy.

Late Night Ladies

I was surfing online for awhile after midnight, and I decided to draw a couple of nudes with a ball-point pen. Though they are a bit cartoony, I want this blog to be family-friendly in case I decide to show my nieces & nephews anytime soon, so I won't be posting images (though they will go in my written journal). Suffice to say they are not gratuitous, and nothing sexual is going on, they are just idle scribblings to keep in 'drawing' mode. I am happy with the way the one drawn from a photo came out, especially the way the green and red pens added to the image. The proportions are fantastic. And the other one looks like it leaped off the pages of a PG-13 comic book, with the way it looks after being finished in colored pencils (flesh tones and browns). I'll try to avoid 'no image' posts in the future...

Salamander

This morning I was watching part of the PBS series on Appalachia, and there was a spot about how that region is prime salamander territory, and has more species of them than anywhere else on the planet. As I hadn't yet decided what to put on the page, I decided to draw what an alien of salamander stock might look like. I didn't want to color the skin though, because the possibilities were endless, and I didn't want to detract from the spot pattern by doing a poor coloring job.

I have been working on another project for awhile now, called "Tales from the Winter Star Galaxy", and this creature will fit in perfectly. The story "Flight" from one of my earliest posts, as well as the deep sea story I began a few days ago, also come from that project.

Mad Men Hip

When I watched this week's episode of "Mad Men", I immediately wanted to draw the outfit Peggy wore to the hipster party with her new friends. The colors of the sweater just grabbed me, and wouldn't leave my brain. I scribbled up a rough color thumbnail immediately on a post-it note, but I didn't prioritize the time to sit still long enough to do the full image 'til now. Here it is, in all it's rough, colored-penciled glory. I took two photos of it, but the other one was from an angle that reflected too much of the flash in the meager light of my bedroom's overhead. I am pleased with the colors, but not the likeness.

Sleepless Night

I usually fall asleep as I am reading a book. This past night I was finishing "Ralph's Party" by Lisa Jewell, and when I was done around 4 am, I couldn't sleep. So I fed the cat, made coffee, and opened my sketchpad and notebook. I wrote the beginning of a deep sea tale whose idea had popped into my head yesterday afternoon out of thin air (though inspired by an episode of "Wild Pacific" I'd seen on Sunday). I also had an episode of "House Hunters" on, and one of the prettiest faces I've ever seen was in full smile, so I paused the image, and tried to draw her. 'Angela' looks so much more beautiful in real life - I swear my drawing looked much better when I was half asleep (haha). She looks old in my sketch, which is unfortunate. I definitely need some higher-quality tools.

Bikini

I'm always cutting out photos of beautiful women for future drawings. Here is this evening's attempt. I wasn't trying for anything fancy, just proper proportions. I had been looking back at the last couple of years' sketches last night, and the proportions were nearly always horribly off. So I concentrated on improving that lack, and didn't worry too much about trying to shade properly, or capture a 'perfect' face. I'm pretty pleased, considering how fast it came together (less than an hour).

Li'l Nippers

Back on August 1st, I was sitting around drawing in front of a few shows during "Shark Week", and I came up with a few ideas for, and then sketched up, a comic strip I call "Lil Nippers".

The strip is about three young sharks who hang around talking about stuff and doing shark-like things in between (and in the middle of) their conversations.

• Chuck - a tiger shark. I colored him orange today, but am not sure if that will be his final color scheme.
• Zig Zag - A great white (or perhaps a bull or white-tipped shark). He has a scar that gained him his nickname.
• Darla - A hammerhead shark. Despite her unusual appearance (compared to most sharks), she always tries to look presentable with fresh lipstick and a nice bow.

I have a few other ideas for the strip, but not enough to seriously submit it anytime soon. Also, while it was nice to get this particular gag all drawn up, inked and colored today, the initial sketches are far superior in design and degree of shading. It definitely needs a lot of work.

Morning Work

I spent the morning and early afternoon sketching a face from an ad in a magazine. I'm okay with how it turned out, but I definitely need to practice the pout/smooch mouth. Basically, I just need to do a lot of face drawings to get back in the swing of things. And then work on shading. Things I like about this drawing: the bottom of the nose, the hair, and the earrings. Things I don't like: the 'rubbery' looking frames of the sunglasses, the lopsided mouth.

I also finished writing the rough draft of "SB: Coco in Hawaii". I'll type it up soon, and edit as I go. I plan to do more drawing this evening, but I haven't decided what to focus on yet, either more faces, or a full-sized illustration for 'Coco' ...

Working On It

I spent the day writing and doing color thumbnails for "Scatterbunnies: Coco in Hawaii". It was a very productive (and fluid, art-wise) day, though some of the story still needs work. I'll be doing detailed illustrations this coming week, and I may post the thumbnails here later.

I thought about working on my "Shark Week" (I'm sure I'll need a new name for it) comic strip too, but I was too focused on SB.

Scatterbunnies

The Scatterbunnies are a family of bunnies from the midwest in the United States. One day a tornado scatters them across the globe. The stories are about how each bunny gets home from the exotic place he or she wakes up in.

The bunnies are named after their colors (in this world it's that simple). The current bunnies are:

• Coco - chocolate brown
• Indigo - the 7th color, indigo (a dark bluish tone)
• T.C. - terra cotta brown
• Braun - bronze
• Sunny - an off-white cream color

Each tale will have that particular bunny interact with 3 local animals, one who is friendly, one who is indifferent, and one who is a potential danger. Each tale will end with the bunny's arrival back home.

Probable locations:

• Hawai'i
• Australia
• Africa
• South America (Brazil or Peru)
• The Himalayas (China or Nepal or Tibet)

I came up with the idea a few days ago, and have some rough sketches, most of which I did today. I hope to turn them into a viable childrens book series over the next few months.

Flee

I was watching tv yesterday, and I don't recall what made me think to draw this, but I had in mind to draw a person with lots of random clothing elements flapping out behind him as he escaped something. I'm not sure what he is fleeing from, but it was fun to draw, and the look on his face cracks me up. I drew & inked him yesterday, and I colored him today after breakfast.

I also ran out to Michael's this afternoon for a couple of sketchpads (11"x17" Bristol and 11"x14" recycled, both smooth finish) and several colors to fill in the blanks amongst my set of Prismacolor pencils. I snagged bronze, chartreuse, copenhagen blue, cream, orange, terra cotta, ultramarine, and warm grey. I also got a couple of fine-tipped pens (orange and green), 2 sheets of patterned paper (antique stars and tikis), an aluminum yard stick (actually a meter stick, with conversion tables for all things metric on the back), and a multicolored packet of paper.

On a side note: Congratulations to Abdi Farah, who won "Work of Art: The Next Great Artist" on Bravo last night. He was one of my favorites all season, and his work (along with that of Peregrine Honig, Nicole Nadeau, Erik Johnson, and Ryan Shultz) has been inspiring me for weeks now. He won his own showing at the Brooklyn Museum, which runs from August 14th to October 17th. I may have to make a list of additional things to see in Brooklyn, and make a road-trip...

Design Contest: Ando and Friends

I have been interested in surfing all my life. I've never had the opportunity to learn how, but over the last 5 years or so, it's been closer to the forefront of my mind. I've been a subscriber of Surfer Magazine for five years now, and this year I opted for the "two-fer", and am receiving Surfing as well. Long story short: there was a design contest for Ando and Friends, and I spent the last few days working on an entry. I sent it off in the mail yesterday thinking the deadline was this Friday, but they recently extended it a week, so I am surely on time. I used Prismacolor pencils and cut-up alphabet stickers that I had left over from a few birthday gifts for my nieces. This is what I came up with for my submission:

detail (click to enlarge)

I figured anyone can just color a black & white print out, and since I'd been wanting to put the many cool patterns contained in the stickers to good use, they were the perfect element to elevate my design. I had a blast trying to figure out the best ways to use the scraps, cutting as precisely as I could without wasting any of the material. All while trying to picture the finished product without smudging the larger colored areas (which I left 'til last). Judging is supposed to take place by September 3rd.

Flight

He soared high into the morning sky on wings of tan and brown. Far above the fields, he traced slow lazy arcs. Even the giant vanes that harvested the sky plankton looked small from his vantage. His climb was nearly effortless, as the air was always thicker in the early hours before the larger of the two moons rose and reflected so much of the sun's light.

Dipping low over the lake, he leveled out just a few feet above the water. A school of tiny inkfish chased and leaped at his shadow as it preceded him across the gleaming surface. He laughed deep in his chest at the sheer joy he felt in that moment.

Arching his back to enable more lift under his wings, and to capture the warmer air above the land, he ascended again into the orange sky. Up and up he rose, through a low-lying cloudstack, startling a triad of plump dozing sunfloats, their wispy tentacles sparking in alarm underneath their billowing bodies as they rapidly vented out of his away. He nodded a silent apology as he sped past, and they were as soon forgotten as last night's meal.

High above the pinkish clouds now, he could see the hills that circled the sleepy valley. Not wanting to be spotted by a chance traveler or wandering herder, and feeling a bit fatigued (and hungry), he pivoted on a wingtip (how adept at that move he had become!), spread his wings to their full length, and glided back home to his workshop.

Welcome

Today I have decided to keep my artwork separate from my other blogs. I have a journal site, a music site, and a site for the music festival I produced on 7-31-10, plus one for a major writing undertaking, but I've decided I want all of my artistic endeavors under one roof. I was born in 1968, and I plan on being around until at least 2068, so that is the 'official' time frame of The Kenozoic Age!

Going forward you will find all of my visual art creations, stories, and music ventures here in The Kenozoic Age. I will post as much of my future work as possible (as whim takes me), as well as talk about past undertakings. Feel free to comment and/or become a follower. I appreciate all feedback.