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.