A White Sketch

This morning, I was thumbing through a National Geographic and saw an ad that had a picture of a polar bear.

The Bogus unbleached drawing pad seemed to lend itself to attempting a sketch (it always does, but it also almost always disappoints me -- not enough "tooth" or roughness) so off I went with a very limited palette: white, cobalt blue, light gray, dark turquoise, cool dark brown, and a touch of black.

I started out with pastel pencils, which are fairly hard, and then shifted to soft pastels for the blue. For the first time, I used a foam make-up wedge to smooth the colors of the background... and hated the result.

Switching back to the pencils, I intensified the color of the foreground and background with crosshatching and no smoothing, and I liked the result much better. Hours later, i can see where I could have added a touch more blue on the bear's fur. 

And this is the other day's work, with a little bit of mistiness added.

The above mentioned foam makeup triangles did well for adding a touch of mist.

So many of these sketches are less than stellar, but I'm having a good time playing with them.

Two Days' Effort

Last Christmas, Bernie gifted me with Astrobrights cardstock -- neon pink, bright yellow, orange, red, and green.

I used a couple sheets for greeting cards, but was fairly stumped as to how to use the rest. However, Lillian the Covetous and Color-Craving began begging me for sheets. I decided to emulate her, and so dragged some vividly colored sheets out to the new studio to play with.

There's the mess I was fiddling with Tuesday, and today, Thursday (23 October).

By no means is it done. But I wanted to take a picture of it to show what it looked like before I ruin it trying to finish it tomorrow.

Also, I have to add that working on eye-searing paper ... uh, duh, sears my eyeballs.

We'll hand in a final decision when the thing is done.

O The Embarrassment

I've been working on a new pastel, and the preliminary sketch for next week's Press cover, and furiously made three pages of notes for my upcoming NaNovel, but the completed item today was more crappy poetry. It's about creative efforts ... kind of.

Remember, it's supposed to be crappy.

A fat frog in a blender --
Not an image you should render
Even if you have been on a three-week bender.
It's sure to make someone puke.

"A cook who's being petty
Will put pigs' feet on spaghetti
And instead of apple, make Broccoli Brown Betty,
Daring diners to rebuke.

"You should not sew a ruffle
On a khaki Army duffle
It will make soldiers weep and stomp off in a huffle,
And the nation then would fall.

"But if you are going to write
And bring 50 thou words to light
Just pound out those flagrant phrases, pound with all your might.
It's November, after all.

An Abstract

Okay, this was actually last Monday's creative effort, but the upload of the picture didn't work right for some reason.

I started this with an image from the Smithsonian's Flickr stuff, found the angles cool, and proceeded to add color to it, with a limited palette.

It's a palette selection that pleases me, as you can see from the autumn hues that I chose for the other work above. 

Learning Patience

This was today's effort.

It's a practice piece; an art book I bought called Drawing: A Complete Course by Jenny Rodwell has this as a study of shapes in charcoal and chalk, to be done on gray paper, so as to automatically do medium tones.

I have no gray paper, but I do have a brown coarse paper, and since I didn't have artist chalk or vine charcoal sticks, I used soft pastels in dark brown and white. And a Q-tip for shading, since I no longer have a supply of tortillons.

When I copied the proposed grouping (starting with a pastel pencil in naples yellow),  the centering and balance were off, so I added another shape on the left.

The best part of this exercise was doing it in my new work area in the garage. My old work table has been elevated to a standing work station, with a tall drafting stool when I want to sit. I opened the garage door for a beautiful morning light, and loved having a wide open work area again after a year of trying to use this all-too-cluttered desk. 

Yes, that was the best part. By the time I was nearly done I was tired of brown and white, and irritated with the explanation in the text and the mistakes in the lighting of the example.

However, it did warm me back up on some fundamentals, and I had the very pleasant experience of having Bernie come out to sit and have coffee with me while I worked. I'm besotted with the work area, the more so since Bernie decided I needed better light in there and went out and bought a new ceiling fixture.

I should probably do about fifty million of this kind of practice, but I know I won't.

A Familiar-Looking Baboon

Looking through a National Geographic magazine, I spotted a baboon in the background of an ad, and decided to make that my first sketch in a new notebook.

Reminds me of Narsai. It's not the greatest sketch in the world, but I did clean most of the common areas of the house today, do laundry, and assemble my lovely, lovely new studio drafting stool, as well as tear apart my natural-light floor lamp and re-assemble it as a table lamp.

This is the first sketch I did out there in the new studio area. 

Graphite pencil. 9B, as soft as you get without resorting to vine charcoal.

Thursday the 16th of October

Okay, it's nothing great.

But I wanted to write some crappy free verse stuff for a thread (link later) in a forum. And here it is:

i was conversing with tejon just the other day
and he said that he thought my penchant
for crappy poetry would be my downfall
i told him that a downfall would at least
be some sort of movement
be it right direction or not
aser he replied you have no direction at all
you're right I told him and that is why no matter which way
i move i can count it as progress

your progress is another woman s landfill he told me
but i reminded him
that there are a lot of gullies to fill up
in west virginia

he was annoyed but could not refute me

the best he could come up with was
but maybe they like having gullies

fine i conceded
i ll send my stuff to shore up the levees
in new orleans

he laughed and gave me the address for homeland security
and the mayor s office in that beleaguered city

I love Don Marquis "Archy and Mehitabel" stuff, and have tried to emulate it since I discovered it 42 years ago. I should do more of it since I enjoy it so much.

Also, I flagrantly bought yet another drawing pad, this one spiral bound, named "Sketch Journal". I hope to begin using it tomorrow, and in addition to whatever writing I do, have a bit of sketch every day.

Fish for Fun

I completely missed yesterday, probably due to Staff Meeting ... and because I was just a slug in the hours of the early day, and the only thing I did was pet the dog, post on the NaNoWriMo Forum, and make lamb steaks with mashed potatoes, gravy, and sweet corn.

But today, even though I was tired from dunging out my horse's paddock and riding through the orchards in the dusty harvesting, I did make time to sit down and draw a fish sculpture, and then put color, shadow, and pattern on it in Photoshop.

It was fun. Pointless, but fun.

Monday: Hold Your Nose!

On the forums of NaNoWriMo, there is a section near the bottom called Off-Topic.

Within the Off-Topic forum there is a thread called "Did someone say, 'Urinal cakes?'" Don't worry ... it's a years-long story. (Six? Can it really be a sixth year of urinal cake jokes?) Yesterday I spent much of my idle mind time creating poetry. But not just any poetry -- this poem had to be truly stupid and crappy, designed to make people groan with loathing. Pointless, bad poetry.

Mmm. I think I succeeded. I can hardly bear to look at it myself.

"They flew through the air
with the greatest of ease
powered by a hand-dryer pair
above Badger's fleas

"More powerful than a hovercraft
Faster than an elephant on the moon
Cooler than Huck Finn's river raft
Admired by Alice the Goon

"Aliens and giant squids tried
To catch them, always asking why
They traveled that way. But they only cried,
"It's the only way to fly!"

I'll try to work on something a little less repellent today.

Saturday's Bit

I tend to be more representational in my art; abstracts are hard.

Or maybe I wasn't really allowed to scribble as a kid, and so stifled my inner abstractivity. In any event, when I found myself using a funky brush in Photoshop, and it felt good, I just went with it. I'd picked out the colors a few days before to go with Mel Trent's story (coming up this next week) called "Cooties: A Love Story." (Link later)

That was Saturday, October 11. Sunday I took off to cuddle with my husband all day long.

A Grouping For Color

I was looking at the peppers and apples dumped haphazardly on the counter today (I don't eat apples or peppers, so don't blame me) when I was mesmerized by the shading of colors on the peppers, so dark, from green to red and red to green.

I think I would like to try to paint or draw this; but for today, the arrangement and its subsequent treatment in Photoshop will have to suffice for a visual on creativity.

Besides, I made five dozen oatmeal-raisin cookies from the family recipe this morning.

Another Effort, and Learning

I wasn't happy with the scorched ear as the cover image for next week's Press. (Link when it gets there).

I had a different idea today, and went along well with it until I got to the background graphic in Photoshop. Asking Alex for guidance, I ended up learning far more than I had wanted to know, but in the end, we came up with a graphic that was agreeable to me.

At least ... it makes me snicker.

Today's Effort

On Task

There is no task but this;
No Time, no Earth, no nation.
No Lover here to kiss,
Just me for the duration.

Well, not just me, but this:
Attention, work, and purpose.
No company I miss,
No thoughts of 'rich' or 'famous.'

A kind of Heaven, here,
Distractions far from dragging
My mind to any fear
My spirit any lagging.

Step by step, stroke by stroke,
I build a bridge to Progress;
My job is not a joke --
The worth is in the process.

For I know what to do
And yes, who else would do it?
And who else would want to?
Nobody likes to edit.

Let me just say here, after 20 minutes trying to get this post to come out the way I wanted to without having to flick back and forth retyping it, that Google is a fuck up when it comes to interacting with "Word". There was no way I could compose in Word and copy and paste to this blog, and that is just plain old shit. It used to work. It doesn't work now. Therefore, I must assume that the change is for spite, and now I am on my guard about Google. Corporate hostilities are a given in this world, but I'm really sick and tired of us consumers being screwed over every time big guns feel a need to take aim at each other. It doesn't matter whether it's the US and Iraq or Google and Microsoft.

Assholes.

Writing Again

Here's an excerpt from what I wrote this evening

He was glad of that, as he was tired of crying from the horror of finding Debbie's body, her coldness and stillness and stench in their bed. She had to have done it right after he left for work, a night shift at WalMart. The shift differential gave them some extra dollars, but she hated that he worked nights while she worked days, cutting into their play-times together, sex and recreational sips and smokes.

It's not great art, but I worked most of the day today on the Press, and just let go with some words for this evening. It's hacky, but no worse than some of the crap I see on the supermarket shelves.

Burnt Ear

So Friday I made macaroni salad, enough to feed16 people a nice portion. Cheryl assures me that such an effort counts for creative work.

So then, must the barbecue sauce I made on Saturday to go with 15 pounds of ribs. Although I wrote the recipe down for the Piker Press, I made three batches of the sauce without looking at the recipe.

Sunday I rested from the onslaught of guests, who must have enjoyed themselves because they didn't hurry off after the meal was done.

Today I played around with an image of an assaulted ear, in Photoshop. I don't know if I'll use it for a cover image or not, but it was an interesting effort.

That's what the resolution is all about.

Poetry

A surprise visit from an old friend prompted me to write a bit of poetry. This is a good thing, because I was too tired to try to tackle writing fiction or artwork.

...Young

On my doorstep
So different
After so many years
Than when we were...

A split second of confusion
Then exclamations at meeting again
Since when we were...

Your hair longer
Mine much grayer
You and I changed our shapes
From when we were...

Both of us have changed our careers
Peace is ascendant, unlike memories
Of when we were...

Much wiser now
Much calmer now
No foolishness afoot
As when we were...

We take stock of each others' lives
We promise to stay in touch, as close as
How when we were...

We say goodbye
Remembering
Our wild gusts of laughter
Oh! When we were...

Your smile is just as beautiful
As when we clinked our glasses together
Back when we were...

I don't know if the poem is done yet or not. It was a creative effort for the day, however, and I'll look at it again in a few days, decide whether or not to continue working on it, or possibly forget I ever wrote it.

Bwah-ha-ha!

When we recently had a new fence put in, a pipe broke beside the house; this pipe carried water to my back yard sprinkler system. 

It wasn't a problem to fix; pipes aren't buried very deeply. Howie, my faithful dog, and I dug out and exposed the problem area of the pipe; then Bernie put his manly muscles into the job and shoveled out a spacious area so that fixing it wouldn't be awkward.

Indeed, it wasn't awkward: one trip to the hardware store for fittings and fresh pipe plus five minutes of labor and voila! Happy dry pipe!

We turned on the sprinklers and yes, the repair worked just fine. However, the sprinklers in the garden did not. Following along the line of the irrigation line, not only were there clogs of dirt, but the 1/2 inch tubing had been pretty well chewed up by the digging and fencing. 

Now when I first ran this irrigation line, ten years or so ago, I had a completely different landscape in mind. Over the years, as plants were moved, removed, or added, I just modified the emitters, adding bits and pieces here and there. Looking at the line to see where it needed fixed, I realized I had no idea what on earth I had been thinking long ago, and just decided to rip it all out and start over.

That's what I did today. 100 feet of irrigation hose and emitters for each major piece of shrubbery. It is so efficient compared to the mess that was there, it almost makes me laugh. Testing the system was a moment of delight: my project works, and works well.

So I did create something today!

Back To Resolution

Some months ago I deleted this blog, as the creative effort of my resolve settled down into simply parking myself in a comfy chair with my laptop and writing, writing, writing... and my posts were very boring. "I wrote another 500/1100/43 words this evening/last night/this afternoon."

Not very interesting, especially when I wasn't about to share what I was writing -- some of it was too personal, some of it was too saccharine, and some of it just plain stupid. But it was therapeutic, as I worked through my grief over my sister's death, and therefore of value to me.

Some 200,000 words later, I've stopped writing every day; a tangled partial novel sits on my desk in a box (the other two are still in files on the computer) waiting for me to edit the tangles out of it so that I can go on and finish it. Eventually it will appear as a serial fiction piece in The Piker Press.

The idea of editing just puts a huge block on my creativity, and so, for the past couple weeks, the most creative stuff to come out have been the cover images for the Press. I'll post my most recent favorite here.

The picture was done first in plain old pencil; when I decided on the lines I switched to a super-soft 9B solid graphite pencil, which goes on paper almost like ink.

Then I scanned it into Photoshop for color.

It accompanies Mel Trent's story "End of the Line" from her book The Immortal Guns of Talon Constantine.

Many thanks to Wendy Robards for mentioning this blog in hers.