Month: March 2017
Same as the other day with the “Maria” drawing. Colored pencil on black construction paper. So essentially working the light areas more than the shadows. This time I wanted more blending and refinement in the skin. Impossible to get natural skin tones with the black paper showing through, though. I fought green ghoulishness to the end. Still need to work the skin tones on the hand (unfinished as of this scan) on which “Sophia” is resting her chin and to smooth out the background a bit. This color-on-black technique works well for sad, spooky, or pensive. Possibly spiritual. Not a…
Well, don’t thank me, personally. I’m not responsible (and if I were I assure you I’d have arranged events quite differently). But the Pacific Northwest is having its coldest winter in 32 years. Seattle’s winter, more pleasant than ours, has been classified as “severe” by the official classifiers. Where I live we’ve had an unprecedented (in my memory) eight snow days. (Compare that with zero snow the last two years and no more than five snows in the previously most-rotten winter.) And no matter how much we west-of-the-Cascades weaklings whine, the fact is that it’s the hardy east-of-mountain dwellers who’ve…
Right this minute I’m glad I decided to quit earning my living as a writer. ‘Cause if I were still A Writer, there’d be no excuse for the wordlessness that currently grips me. No longer being a Capital-W Writer, I’ll start with pictures. Photographs of a Box O’ Goodies that arrived a couple of days ago: Somebody — the name starts with C. — has a terrific memory. In addition to flower seeds and shoe treatments good enough to withstand the Northwet’s wettest, C has been observing conversations here on the blog and at the Cabal and saving stuff to…
After painting rocks (difficult), I decided to do something more natural to me — a face. But to do it in a hard, or at least non-intuitive, way, by working dark to light. So here’s “Maria.” She’s done with colored pencil on black construction paper (yes, the stuff you probably used liberally in the second grade). This was my reference photo. I wasn’t trying to make Maria look like her; just referring to her for general shapes and patterns. Maria is a slightly shopworn virgin with much on her mind. One of the challenges I set for myself was to…
Endarkenment. Been hearing that word a lot — most recently in this must-read Bill Buppert piece. (Via Joel) Barring some one-in-a-million chance, we are sliding into a long, dark time. When you have an intellectual class that’s gone insane, a wealthy elite that’s building bunkers for itself while looting the last of your liberty and prosperity, and a crusading enemy breeding new generations of superstitious intolerance, you don’t have a lot to build a future on. Unless it’s a future of rage, savagery, and chaos. But then, look on the bright side. The Endarkenment is a great age for Outlaws.…
No, not really an abject failure. So don’t jump in and tell me not to beat up on myself. I’m not beating up on myself. This was another experiment, only partially successful. I was aiming to work on creating cast shadows — a tricky business I’ve gone out of my way to avoid. This was only a learning experience, and partial success is fine. If you feel slight discomfort looking at this but can’t pin it down, it’s because the sun is shining from two different directions. And no, this isn’t a beach in some binary solar system (nice try,…
Returning to a little ordinariness today …
- A mindful guide to email in 20 minutes a day.
- The Dogington Post on six ways your dog might be tax deductable. Who knew?
- Kit Perez asks, “What now?” — after WikiLeaks proved our worst suppositions to be right.
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It’s another heap o’ rocks in progress. It reflects today’s theme, which is balance. It’s not farther along because … balance. Or the tipping, shifting nature thereof. —– You know how hard it was, not to jump in yesterday (or today for that matter) and blog about WikiLeaks latest? Ohhhh, the temptation! Despite cynical freedomista proclamations that Assange and his glorious company have merely told us what we already knew, there is soooooo much here that’s truly new. From CIA hacking tools sloppily revealed to insider details on the power shift from NSA to CIA to the degree of Congress’…