31 January 2011

The cover for the Piker Press this week, and the illustration for Bernie's piece, "Time."

Sunday 30 January

A little tree study in pastels, done on my newly-rearranged work table in the studio.

Again with the White on Dark

I'm getting so I can imagine what a picture is going to look like before I start playing with it in Photoshop!

I was looking at the palms in the dim light outside and realized I could hardly see any color to them on these gray days. And I thought it would look more interesting if I used a certain filter on a picture of them...

Another Cover: January 17

Using an uncopyrighted photo from the Library of Congress' Flickr site, I made this cover for the Piker Press this morning.

I like using this treatment of pictures in Photoshop; I think that I could learn a lot from trying to duplicate stuff like this with pastels on colored paper.

If it ever warms up enough, or at least the damn fog lifts, I do want to make such experiments a priority.

Movie Review: The King's Speech

That was today's effort, the review of this great movie.

I'll have to post a link to it on Monday.

I was really impressed with the movie. It told a story, certainly, but I know I'm going to watch it again and again to immerse in the depth of the acting.

** Here's the link:

The King's Speech: Review

Green Garlic Dressing

On today's menu was spaghetti, with a salad, and cheesy garlic bread.

When I asked Bernie what kind of salad dressing he wanted, the choices being bottled ranch, garlic (mine) or peppered vinaigrette (also mine) he chose garlic.

It's a simple enough salad dressing to make, but when I went to pulverize some cloves of garlic, I thought it might be cool to make a green garlic dressing, making use of lettuce and spinach leaves -- after all, adding some substance to the mixture would make it cling to the vegetables better, right?

Into the Cuisinart food processor went six cloves of garlic, and about a loose cup of spinach and those curly little lettuce leaves no one in this family likes, plus about 1/3 cup of vegetable oil, and a bit of salt. I buzzed it until it liquified, then added 1/3 cup of water, and let the processor emulsify the whole thing.

It was delicious, although I have no idea how long it will last, but I know that I'll be making this again in the future.

More Writing

I wrote quite a bit last night, but here's an excerpt from today's creative attempt:

"Her mother stretched out her arms in the light coming in the window, and Roj could see the emptiness her mother felt, even though Roj was no longer a baby -- it was the emptiness of a mother's arms whose child had died, gone far beyond recall or touch. Roj ached for her, for the loss of a child; ached with her, wishing that her own arms had ever held a baby. Here, as with Matt, there was no consolation, not one, for her death."

January 6, 2011: Simple Graphic

I was playing a game of Spider Solitaire this morning, and when I had won the game, I interrupted the fireworks display at the winning of the game, and had a hard look at the graphics.

There were some visuals that I wanted to try to reproduce, so this is today's creative effort.

In addition, I completed another chapter of After Life yesterday, only to find tonight that I had made a technical gaffe and had to re-write the whole thing.

I'd complain, but that is what creativity includes. Recreation. Yes, I loved it, especially the newly-added kicking-open-a-door scene.

January 4, 2011: After Life

I began writing this story as a 2009 NaNoWriMo effort, based on a flash of a dream I had.

As the story developed, however, I fell in love with it, and at 30,000 words or so, refused to hurry it or stuff it with empty word count. I bagged on NaNo, intending to work on After Life through the winter. I didn't do that, but the time away from it gave me a chance to daydream about what was going to happen, and I did get back to it. Most nights I write some more on it, most days I think about it to the exclusion of all other creative projects. Since I wrote "some more" again last night, I thought I'd share an excerpt. Not exactly what I wrote last night, as that would be a spoiler, but some scene I really liked ...

Candace Rogers ("Roj") is dead, but still trying to save the life of her boyfriend, Matt Trapester. Garrison is her crooked boss.

They were in Lodi in a matter of seconds, in an instant. Obviously there is some advantage to following an angel, Roj thought. The cafe was before them, Garrison within, and a person sharing a table with him who had an athletic bag at her feet. "It is filled with money," Desai said.

"Lovely," Roj replied. "Did he give it to her, or did she give it to him?"

"She has brought it to him," Desai answered.

"She smokes. I can smell her. She must have a lighter on her somewhere." Roj floated about the woman, sniffing, sensing, even without her senses, sensing. With gentle surreptitiousness, she eased a butane lighter from the woman's purse, and then began to slowly, oh, so slowly, to unzip the bag to expose the money, quietly so that the woman and Garrison would not notice.

"You'll keep that Pest off our shipments," the woman said in a commanding tone of voice to Garrison. "We still think he ought to be under ground, you know."

"He's off the force," Garrison said. "Totally off the deep end. Nothing he can say will hold in a court of law, the psychiatrist assured us of that. And we have a couple people making sure he has plenty to drink, at the bar he likes, and at home."

"You bastard," Roj snarled. "I've been too easy on you."

"Roj. Garrison's people have been giving Matt liquor to keep him from being killed. Listen to that."

"Why would Garrison change his mind? Because Max was getting too strong for him? I don't care why. Watch this."

The athletic bag full of money was open. When Garrison and his contact looked out the windows of the restaurant to the west, Roj took a bottle of olive oil from the setting of the empty table next to them and upended it into the bag.

Near the windows, a woman in an expensive tweed suit knocked over a carafe of red wine with an inadvertent wave of her arm.

Roj took the opportunity of the convergence of waiters at the window table to quietly drag the bag of money several yards away, give the oily packs of bills a quick toss like a salad, and then light the mass on fire.

At another table, a woman screamed as she saw the flames, drawing gazes back from the broken glass and red wine and clumsily mopping waiters. Both Garrison and the woman gaped at the burning athletic bag for an instant before shouting, "NOOOO!" in an impromptu duet. While Garrison dragged out his jacket and began flogging the bag, Roj flew to the ceiling and plied the lighter on the sprinkler system sensor.

The waterworks came on, diners screamed and ran for doors, and the manager ran into the room calling 9-1-1 and pointing at Garrison, trying to put out the flames, and his lady friend, who simply stared, her lower jaw dropped in disbelief.

A police car screamed into the parking lot, lights blazing. Two officers ran towards the front doors. "God dammit!" shouted the woman and sprinted, even in high heels, for the kitchen.

"Stop her!" screamed the manager.

Oh, and Desai is an angel. I love playing cops and robbers.

Once Again: January 3

This is the cover image for the Piker Press story "Old Sugar."

I started with a reference photo of a drawing on rock in Macao, and sketched it with soft pastels (which crumble horribly in this damp weather). It still looked kind of rough-hewn, so I "poster edge' filtered it in Photoshop.

I think I'd like to work on the original some more one of these days, but at least today, I actually did something besides write.

Which I continue to do, working luxuriously slowly on a novel called "After Life." More about that later.