#inktober52, #inktober, "Eyes"

I've always been a fan of N. C. Wyeth.  I love his lusty, heroic illustrations and the books that went with them.  I wasn't a fan of his son, Andrew.  He seemed spoiled and sulky to me, self-important.  That's the problem with being alive at the same time as another artist.  I can judge them, not just their work.  When he died and his Helga paintings were discovered, I assumed he had an affair with her and was even more judgmental.  I didn't want to like evidence of something I consider wrong -- though as far as I know Helga never admitted to anything other than posing for him.  I watched a youtube video on Andrew and realized I do like his work, and probably would've liked him personally a lot better than his father.  Maybe I need to gain some maturity to get there?

Andrew Wyeth's Helga

What our eyes see is bent by the way our brains think.  We all make judgments despite the biblical admonition, "Judge not lest you be judged".*  Our critical minds make observations which help us get through life, but it's like eating apples.  One apple is good for us.  Too many apples give us a stomach ache.  One judgmental, critical observation may be true.  That doesn't mean all our other judgments and criticisms are true too.

The important thing is to be able to change our minds.  Changing my mind about Andrew Wyeth lets me look at his work in a new way which will change what or how I paint.  On a national level, I'm hoping people will change their minds about social distancing, wearing masks, and climate change (plus who they vote into office!).  Being able to change course is a sign of intelligence and humility.  None of us know everything.  I respect the people who learn and grow through their lives.

Something I didn't expect to discover during the Covid pandemic is that I like masks because they hide fake smiles.  A real smile crinkles a person's eyes.  An old person with a lot of smile crinkles is a good person.  I'd like to draw them.  I want to get to know them.  I want to know what they know, and how I might be still self-deluding myself or unfairly judging others.  Some day I want to be the old lady with the crinkled eyes whom a younger person wants to know because I'll have discovered the secrets to life and laughed through the journey.

The internet is full of false perfection.  We all want to look better, seem more successful, be happier than anyone else.  I see TV commercials about ointments that take away wrinkles and I don't think the people really look that much better.  Other ads promote airbrushing your skin issues away.  That isn't where true beauty is.  I think this makes people look plastic and unreal.  Nobody wants to paint someone that fake, and the best art can exaggerate the flaws we see in ourselves because that's the stuff that shows our character and makes us interesting.  People who love us will love us with our flaws anyway.

Observe, have an open mind, be willing to change course.  You'll do better at whatever you do and will be a much more beautiful person to be around too.

I did a post about drawing eyes.  You can see it here.  I also did a post about painting an eyeball.  I still think about painting a mess of these and putting them on the mantle.

*Matthew 7:1, and a sign that even the unwashed can quote scripture :)

#inktober and #inktober2019

I've been rather busy and haven't had time to labor over Inktober, and in a way, I'm happy about that.  I've scribbled little sketches and released them into the wild instead of fussing over them.  It's kind of liberating and I like the responses I've gotten especially the Rorschach responses to the one above for "dark" -- black hole, sea anemone, porcupine, Trump's stomach...  I don't have perfect attendance on this challenge, but I'm counting it as a success to have done about half of the word list.

I know I'm not the only one to struggle with perfectionism.  I try to remind myself of a past creative director's advice, "Don't make it perfect.  People don't like perfect!"  So true, but it kind of feels like having a wardrobe misfunction when we let people see our flaws.  Yet as I told that CD, "But I'm so much better than I used to be!"  I want points for personal growth!

In any case, since I have too many words from Inktober, and no new words from IF, I'll just let you look at my month of scribbles...

Bait

Ring

Swing

Snow

Dragon

Ash

Ornament

Misfit

Dizzy

Pattern

Ripe

I sent this bit of minimalism to my fellow cheesecake loving friend for "tasty"...

She requested chocolate sauce.

See, it's all fun.  You can play too.  Go to Inktober's site here for more info.

"History" "Ancient" #inktober and #inktober2019

The other day a friend called and asked for help raking leaves.  I warned him I was in shorts and he joked about my marble legs seeing daylight, asking what kind of columns my legs were.  I promptly replied, "Doric".  He laughed and said, "I thought so!"  I laughed because he understood my answer even though he didn't suffer through 4 years of art history classes in college.  Ah yes, nerd humor.

Every year I look on with interest at other people's submissions for Inktober.  I keep meaning to do something for it, and then, well...  Okay, I procrastinate and make excuses.  Yesterday, I found a pen on my desk I kind of like.  IF was days late with the weekly word, I saw the Inktober list, and the universe collided into actual action.  I'll sum up my expensive college understanding of Greek columns for both IF's "History" and Inktober's "Ancient".

The first "order" is Doric.  This is the simplest style with a square on top of the column.

The second order is Ionic.  This style is recognized by the big scrolls at the top.

The third order is Corinthian.  This is the fanciest style with leaves and other decoration.

Really, do you need to know any more than that about Greek architecture?  Yeah, you can learn more about their buildings, but I think this is all I've needed to keep in my long-term memory.  These styles were taken by the Romans and many other cultures.  The US uses them extensively in government buildings as a way to harken back to the first efforts at democracy with the hope for the timelessness and solidity of that ancient realm.

Part of me really wants to write about current political events in the US.  Another part of myself is screaming at myself to shut up about it.  Just let things play out and hope for the best.  Maybe the only real answer is to let a little of this leak out in this post?

We're living in history right now.  The president will be impeached.  That's a foregone conclusion because the House of Representatives has the numbers and intention to do it.  Then the matter will go to the Senate who has the duty to decide whether or not to evict the president from the White House.  The Senate is ruled by the president's party, so actually firing him is probably unlikely, but it could happen depending on what comes up during the trial.  I feel like I'm reliving my childhood during Nixon's impeachment.  I can't stop watching today's news just like I obsessively watched it back then.  I'm really tired of reality TV and wish for a calmer political climate.

I'm also very taken by Greta Thunberg, the Swedish teenager who passionately spoke to the United Nations about climate change.  She's right about it all.  The world leaders bicker about stupid stuff and don't seem to actually do the things they need to do to protect our world.  This too is our living history.  If something doesn't change I don't know if there will be anyone left to read about it in the future.  I wish her success in her mission and hope.

I don't know if I'll be diligent with more Inktober drawings.  I'll give it a try.  People of all levels of ability participate.  If you'd like to play, go to the site here.

"Skill"

Nobody is born a "master" at anything.  Child prodigies aren't born with skills.  The child sits in front of a piano, loves plinking at the keys, and continues to plink until the noise becomes music.  They're praised, and they plink a lot more.  Maybe the kid was born into a musical family, maybe a parent teaches them some things.  A prodigy develops over time in a fertile environment.  So too with art and any other pursuit that requires skill, even if most of us won't be child prodigies and learn our skills as adults.

I've been in the archives this week.  I'm working on another painting and was looking for reference materials.  In the hunt, I discovered these rare, preschool drawings.  To my knowledge, these are the only evidence of my early art efforts until I started saving my drawings many years later.  I can only wonder about my concepts of anatomy back then, or what was going on around me to inspire love and hate.

I tend to think art is an inheritable tendency.  I'm from an artistic family, and because they're artistic, my parents encouraged me.  I suppose they probably also appreciated the fact that art is a quiet activity and easier for adults to be around?  But, I started out like every other kid with a crayon.  I looked at my world and tried to copy my vision of it.  I got better at doing that over time.  I enjoyed doing it, so I did more of it.  I was competitive enough to want to do it better than my peers.  I wanted praise.  Eventually, I got to the point where I developed some real skills.  I studied and acquired more skills.

Now, it seems like the world doesn't care about those skills that I've spent so many hours accumulating.  The painting I'm working on could be accomplished much faster, and more technically perfect, on the computer.  I've been giving some thought to the practical stupidity of spending so much time on things that aren't going to pay the bills.

And I don't care.

It might be the first time in decades that I don't care.  I'm painting for me.  I'm working through personal issues with paint and feeling a pleasure that I haven't felt for a very long time -- and kind of stumbling into an awareness that this kind of painting is far more important than all the BS I did as an illustrator/graphic designer through the years.

It would be nice to get money for these paintings, but the paintings are more important to me than the bucks.  Of course this is only true because I still have enough money to keep the lights on.  Life would be so much easier if I had a trust fund or a patron.  (If you didn't see the other painting, you can see it here.)

This is just a part of the unfinished painting.  At the moment, it's a mostly empty box which I'm going to fill up with things.  I'm having some trouble planning out how to make things fit inside, but even that problem is a pleasure at the moment.  One thing is for sure though, this painting will go much faster than the last one!

"Vanity"

One time I was laughing with my brother about "cool" and told him that he might not believe it, but some people think I'm cool.  "I think you're cool" he said.  Huh?  Shucks, thanks?  "But if you think about it you won't be cool any more, so forget I said it."  This was shortly after a conversation I'd had with a friend who told me that I was one of her "cool friends" in high school.  I thought that was really funny and said so.  After all, I had a sibling who spent those years telling me that I was an embarrassment.

The thing is, I never really cared much about what people thought of me.  Once in a while I might get embarrassed if someone caught me in one of my many eccentricities, but living in the woods mostly kept me from that kind of discovery.  Most people that live in the woods are eccentric anyway, so I guess I was "normal" for my environment.

One time a date commented "You know all the cool people".  I looked around at my friends and was kind of surprised to think about them that way.  They were just my friends, mostly artists and musicians.  My kind of people, therefore...?  What?  Maybe artists and musicians are "cool" just because of the types of people they are?

So I've thought about "cool" and what it is, and whether or not I've got any of it even though I think my brother is right in saying that thinking about being cool kind of kills it because that kind of vanity isn't included in the package.  It seems like creative types are inclined towards being individualists which makes them more interesting, and they frequently break the rules.  It also seems to me that most creatives have some life experience, often bad, that inspires the need to express themselves.

When I think about "cool" people, I think that there's a blend between vulnerability, creativity, individualism, daring, and anger.  Okay, I've had all of that.  Maybe I'm a little cool.  Definitely not like the clique in school who used to terrorize us little nerd children, but I'll own being more cool than some.  (Did my vanity just lose me points?)

We're told "be yourself", but often people aren't.  You want to be more cool, you've got to be yourself and not care if "yourself" isn't universally liked and admired.  Somebody will like you, and that's good enough to start with.  If nobody likes you including yourself, check your vanity and figure out why not and make changes accordingly.

We aren't set in stone.  Be whoever you want to be.  The hard part is figuring out what's really "you", what's family and what's society?  How much of what you do is because of or for other people?  Or your idea of what other people want or expect from you?

And since I'm thinking about cool, you've got to admit Pope Francis has got some.  That's why people love him when they didn't love his predecessor.  I had to draw him for work this week.  We aren't going to use this drawing because it's too similar to a stock photo I didn't pay for.  I'm going to try again this weekend because despite the fact you see the Pope all over the media, those photos are expensive.  (If someone's taken a good photo or painted a good painting, let me know and I'll pay a moderate amount for rights to print it.)

Now I'm going to go back to my regular reality which is a little TV and a good book -- which I know isn't all that cool at all on a Friday night, but that's the way I like it :)  To those of you who like magical fiction, I recommend The Name of theWind by Patrick Rothfuss.

"Jungle"

My brother Brian is guest artist for “Jungle”.  We went to dinner and I said I was too tired to make art, though I did manage to write this post.  I hosted a 3-day event at work this week and it made my brain tired.  Brian cooperated by filling up napkins with drawings while we waited for dinner and a cute waitress from another section flirted with him.

I recently walked with a couple of men in the Glen where I grew up when one of them said “I forget how lush it is here, so verdant.”  Yeah, I know, besides NPR ads, nobody uses “verdant”, except the Glen brings it out of people.  It is verdant and lush.  It’s an isolated jungle in every way except for the lack of tigers.



Brian's idea for a diarama on the mantle.
Apparently it's mandatory to have an actual smoking volcano

The Glen is bordered by the river and hidden from the world by high shale cliffs.  Rain falls and gets trapped in a microclimate of humidity.  The river jumps its banks and leaves rich deposits on the soil, and things grow excessively.  Lush.  Verdant.  More green than green usually is, with more flowers packed per square inch and more oxygen than anywhere else.

It’s no wonder that I grew up as a feral child.  I spent my days discovering secret things hidden in the unlimited, uninhabited woods.  I was happy surrounded by flowers and leaves and trees with the water constantly gurgling and rippling and the plethora of birds and bugs and whatever else hiding in my jungle.

In my adult life, I knew someone who insisted thought isn’t possible without words.  He couldn’t understand my childhood where there wasn’t anyone to talk to, and no reason to put my observations into words.  I absorbed, I looked, I felt -- I just was.  When the crows called a warning, I understood their intent as clearly as if someone said “watch out!”, and I conveyed my thanks with the feeling in my heart.

Sometimes people tell me I belong in Los Angeles or New York, as if all artists belong shoved into a cityscape.  They dismiss from mind the long line of artists who sought solitude in their own jungles and don’t understand that I can’t hear my own mind when surrounded by the masses in the concrete jungles.

Spending my days as a child with animals for companions taught me different ways of feeling and communicating than regular kids growing up with people around.  I’m empathic; I feel what other people feel without really taking their words at face value.  People lie to themselves and others all the time, but their feelings can be felt if you listen.  Sometimes getting bombarded with all those feelings is too much for me.  No, I don’t belong in those big cities.

I thanked a woman for working that event I hosted.  She smiled and said “You’re welcome.”  It didn’t matter what her words were, I knew she was sending invisible poisoned darts my direction.  I smiled and moved on.  I can’t change her feelings, and the situation is too complicated to explain here, but I think there’s a big gap between her feelings and her mind, and if you ask me, feelings always win even if the mind doesn’t acknowledge that reality.

Life is more honest in the jungle where there isn’t a need for words and the truth can be felt.  Sometimes I think blogging is a way to express things I didn’t express when I was that feral child in the woods.  I suppose words are necessary so we can all learn from the lessons other people have lived?

"Lesson"

I doodle face parts. It’s a compulsion. Lots of happy eyes, angry eyes, scared eyes, surprised eyes have filled my bills, napkins, and notebooks, and I’m feeling a compulsive need to spread my compulsion. Let’s all really look at each other and maintain eye contact. Who looks away first? It’s a fun experiment, but looking at each other results in eyes that are drawn only from the front, with a nice round pupil looking back at us. Irises aren’t as round when a person looks away.

Eyeballs are called “balls” for a reason. They’re as round as a soccer ball. We just don’t see the whole ball because they’re sunk into our heads and partially covered with eyelids. Rules of perspective apply to everything, even eyeballs. As you can see in the ¾ view, the part of the iris which is closest to the viewer is wider than the part further away.

Rules of lighting apply to everything too. If you draw a white ball, it’s lighter close to the light source, and gets darker as it curves away from the light. Since an eyeball is a white ball, the same rules apply, even after you put the pupil and iris on it. When you draw eyelids, remember that they follow the curve of the eyeball too. They also cast a shadow on the eyeball. Since light comes from the top in most situations, that means the eye is usually darkest under the upper eyelid, but since the eyeball is curving under and away from the light, there will also be a lighter shadow near the bottom eyelid too.

Everyone knows that eyelashes are attached to the eye lids, but people often have a disconnect between what we know and how we think about things. Look in the mirror. Notice how far away your lower lashes actually are from your eyes. Notice that eyelashes can cause shadows too.

Paint/draw highlights last. Eyes are wet and glossy, and we can get distracted by the shine and forget all the basic rules above. If you get the structure of the eye right in the first place, the highlight(s) are just the extra detail that makes the eye come alive.

Some people view absolute realism as the holy grail in art, but these observations can apply to whatever style you want to work in. A darker line on the top of a cartoon eye suggests the longer lashes and the shadow of the eye lid. It works for everybody, even animals, in every style… except for my photographic model for this post.

Did you like my "lesson"? I'm never quite sure if people want this kind of post. If you do, I can do more of them. If not, I can go back to my usual ramblings. Or some combination of both.

M. C. Escher Exhibit at Akron Art Museum

As I said in the previous post, I went to the Escher exhibit last weekend. It was long-planned, plans thwarted, and finally, finally, I got to see it. Gotta say it was a bit anticlimactic. Most of the pieces were prints from wood cuts and lithographs, so there wasn't much difference in seeing them in person vs. seeing them printed in a book. Yes, they were somewhat crisper, but it wasn't like the first time I saw Van Gogh's paintings in person. Studying his work in art history class and out of books, I never understood why people liked Van Gogh so much until I saw his work up close and personal. The texture and color of his paint is vibrant and exciting. Escher's work is logical and disciplined. It kind of felt like looking at blueprints for a really cool project. In other words, the ideas are what excite me about Escher more than his techniques.

There were some original drawings in the exhibit. I wish there were more of them. The drawings were something that could've been pulled out of his sketchbook, but they gave me more of a sense of his thinking than the finished prints. There was also a foamcore model of one of his drawings with a peephole a few feet away to look through. If you just looked at the model, you could easily see how it just doesn't make sense. Columns that hold up nothing suddenly snap into position when viewed through the peephole.

I'm glad I finally got to see this exhibit. If you live anywhere within driving distance, I'd recommend it. It will be in Akron through the end of May.

"Reverse"

"Reverse makes me think of oppositions. Happy/sad, good/bad, male/female, past/future... and that train of thought reminds me of the time I spent this week scanning old family photos to share with younger relatives. Ancient people long gone still have an effect on young people, even if they don't know it yet. The shapes of their eyes, chins, and cheekbones aren't new. They were on someone else's face 150 years ago. Their faces are going to reappear on young people's grandchildren.

We can't escape our genes or the influences previous lives have had on our own. We can't help ourselves from influencing the younger people who come after us, any more than we can change the color of their eyes. I see my grandmother's face in my niece. Life is lived in reverse and forward all the time.

We're all getting older, every second of every day. Quite a few of us spend a lot of time worrying about it, but worrying isn't going to change reality. All we can really do is leave a mark on the world we live in. I don't have children, so I think about my legacy in other ways than passing on genes. Maybe my paintings are my babies? Maybe baking cookies with my niece is a way of leaving something of myself behind? Plus, it lets me leave something of my mother and grandmother, and probably their mothers and grandmothers too.

My great great grandmother fascinates me because she was a doctor before women did that kind of thing. There's something in her portrait that commands respect. Laura Elizabeth "Lizzy" (Poulson) Cramer was born April 16, 1854 in Holmes County, Ohio. She died in 1910 in Fredricksburg, Ohio. She was married May 17, 1877 to Bertram "Happy" Cramer, who was a blacksmith. You've got to love a guy named Happy! He was born in March, 1853 in Fredricksburg, and died in 1912. They had 3 children, John (Helen Lemmon), Charles (Ella Snure), and my great grandmother, Jennie Marie (Jefferson Joseph "Joe" Benson).

Lizzy used herbs in her healing. I grow them in my garden and make healing teas. My sister Sue is a nurse. The string of blacksmiths in my family might explain why my brother and uncle love making jewelry, or another brother's incessant banging when he was a kid. Happy played the violin, which might explain my nephews' musical talents. Not to mention Happy's father was a type maker, which might explain my love of lettering class in college?

Maybe sometimes looking forward also means looking in the rear view mirror once in a while? I'm also feeling gratitude that I'm not the first packrat in my family interested in history :)

"Resolutions"

I've been posting something on my blog every week since last February. So not quite a year, but that has to count as holding up one of my resolutions. I decided to look back and see what I've done in the last year and pat myself on the head.

I'm not much for making New Year's resolutions. It seems like a false set up, and less likely to succeed than a determination I make at a random time of the year... but...? My friend Geof had to quit smoking because of his health problems, and that reminds me of the dangers of sucking nicotine -- something I've done myself for a very long time. I'm starting to feel the effects of it, and have been thinking about quitting, even before Geof had to go to the hospital. I had nonsmoking company this week and slapped a nicotine patch on my arm so I could be pleasant through the visit. Who knew? The things actually work. Now all I have to do is figure out how to make my brain work too.

The problem is nicotine patches can't eliminate my need to be contrary, self-destructive, or infantile about my addiction. I like smoking. I also like blintzes, ice cream, Pepsi, and who knows what else that isn't good for me. Obviously my oral fixation is my mother's fault for weaning me too young. Okay, Freud identified the problem, but did he have an effective solution for it?

Nonsmokers, and that's almost everybody else these days, often don't realize logic and lectures are ineffective methods of encouraging better behavior. If the source of the problem is neglect and criticism, lectures just reinforce the original issue. We all know smoking is a health risk. It says so right on the side of the pack. Lots of people will resolve to quit smoking tomorrow. Tell them you love them, then back away slowly as they nurse their hangovers and withdrawal. Or, keep them so distracted they don't have time to reach for old habits.

This drawing is old. I've kept it as my own internal nagging on the issue. Maybe, just maybe this time I'm ready to let go?

"Spooky"

I was in the woods once, walking towards a barn at night, and an owl flew right over my head into the open hayloft. Absolutely silent. If that's not awesome and spooky, I don't know what is. I don't care if I understand an owl's feathers have a special fringed edge to muffle sound. It's freaky when a large bird silently swoops over your head at night.

There are a lot of spooky things at night. The house can creak and groan when it settles, we can't see into the dark, and our imaginations can start running wild with wonderings about what is just outside of the light. It doesn't help when we actually experience things we can't explain or when other people tell us such things aren't possible. How can we be sure the things we "know" are really true?

There are two different worlds on Earth. There's the daytime animals and human activities, and when all of them go to bed, the others come creeping out. But humans still tend to circle the bonfire or eat at the brightly lit all-night restaurant, or work third shift under the factory's sodium lights. At heart, I think most of us are afraid of the dark.

The owl eyes are colored pencil on black construction paper. The bats are watercolor and pencil.

"Satellite"

Illustration Friday's word of the week sends my mind in unusual directions.
"Satellite" makes me think of science, and my science education was spotty. I had an obligatory biology class in college, but even the teacher knew it was a joke. I also took biology in high school, but quickly discovered that I was expected to cut up long-dead, soggy animals floating in formaldehyde, and the boys in class thought it was funny to leave them on my chair or drop them down the back of my shirt. I quit going to class, but passed the final, so somehow managed to graduate high school.

I've found studying science is much more fun by hanging out with scientists. One pleasant memory involved a long walk with my nuclear physicist friend, Dr. Philip Ugorowski, Research Assistant Professor at Kansas State University, Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering Department. He told me to forget the classic image of an atom as a solid ball with a smaller solid ball orbiting around it. I didn't need to forget it. With my spotty science education, I never learned it in the first place. He talked about the nucleus as a jostling swarm of bees, and I happily absorbed his explanation of the orbiting electrons as more bees, or maybe gnats.

We drank wine, enjoyed the sun and trees, and he waxed poetic about nuclear fusion with a lot of laughter about which insects best represented the different functions of atoms and molecules. When he started on fission, I said we had to stop because my brain was too full and couldn't accept any more knowledge at that time. Sometimes it occurs to me that we've never revisited fission, so my education remains incomplete.

It was a satisfying day, and a good memory. I cannot think of atoms as anything other than some assortment of buzzing insects that are full of life and energy.

I gave Phil a chance to comment on this blog posting...

The usual picture of an atom is the little balls orbiting the nucleus, which looks like a clump of balls. That picture was outdated by the end of the 1920's, but it was used as the logo for the Atomic Energy Commission (now the Nuclear Regulatory Commission), entered popular culture, and now there seems to be no getting rid of it. I think you have the right analogy for the nucleus, but the "orbiting" electrons are a little tricky.

When we say "orbit" we think of things like moons (natural satellites) or artificial satellites. Even the Milky Way galaxy has two smaller galaxies (the clouds of Magellan) orbiting it. The lighter mass goes around the heavier mass, but even the heavier mass moves in a small circle. The motion of the earth perturbs the suns' motion slightly. The electrons around the atom are more like clouds with areas where you might find an electron and areas where you would not. Since the electron acts more like a wave than a ball in this situation, it goes between the areas where it may be found without passing through the areas where it may not be found, even though the "forbidden" areas lie between the "allowed" areas. Thus, it does not "orbit" like a satellite, even though in chemistry they talk of "electron orbits".

What happened to the whimsy of buzzing bees? I think I should've given him some wine before asking his opinion of my post, or maybe not written when he's at work? I said as much in my email response, and he added the following...

BTW, the clouds of Magellan are called "satellite galaxies" if you want to include that. Today my head is filled with numbers and spreadsheets, so my poetic neurons are taking a break.

Let's just hope Phil sorts out his budget and gets some grants for funding. I don't think I'm going to progress science too much with doodles of buzzing bees!

"Paisley"

I love paisley. Paisley is pretty flowers organized in a rational, mathematical, 2-dimensional garden. I like paisley on ties, boxer shorts, carpets, curtains, or anything in a gypsy fortune teller's shop. It's lush and sensual, familiar and exotic. I smell jasmine and hear Aladdin rubbing his lamp at the cave entrance.

I did the drawings above in colored pencil and silver marker. They are each 20" x 24", matted and framed, and are available if someone is interested in purchasing them. I did them because I enjoyed creating paisley at work so much, I came home and made these for fun.

My experience in packaging includes printing paisley patterns around unusual box shapes, and such intricate patterns can be challenging to meet on the overlapping edges, but the results can be striking. Mixing and matching patterns and colors is also a challenge, but well worth it if you have the time to beat these things into submission. The patterns shown below were used by Barton's for a set of gift boxes. If you'd like to see more of my packaging, go to my website at http://www.artbyhensley.com/.

"Detective 2"

While I was rooting around in my box to find the woodpecker for my last post, I found the drawing of the boy doing his detective work on butterflies. This seems like a sweeter association for Illustration Friday’s word of the week, so I decided to include them both. The drawing of the boy is 4 ½” x 5”, Prismacolor pencil on cocquille paper. This is an old technique that was a way of doing a drawing on textured paper that allowed printers to shoot the art as line art instead of having to do a half-tone. In other words, by shooting it as line art, the quality was better than if it had to be broken into dots for printing.

Brave

This was an easy Illustration Friday topic for me because this drawing has been sitting on my table for a week. I created it to remind myself of my goals, instead of thinking of my fears in achieving them.

Bravery isn’t necessarily running into a fire to save a baby. Sometimes I think saving a baby would be a lot easier than picking up the phone and making a cold call or introducing myself to someone I should meet.

Bravery is facing and conquering what we’re actually afraid of, and being willing to really look at our fears in the daylight. When I think about sweaty nerves in picking up the phone, of what am I actually afraid? Odds are, whoever picks up the phone will be polite, even if that person is busy, distracted, or mad at their spouse that day. None of that has anything to do with me. The person might like and want my work, and pay me for it. The worse thing that can really happen is that I get a rejection, and even that doesn’t have a lot to do with me. Maybe they’re looking for a particular style, already have someone, or just don’t have money.

When I really look at these kinds of fears, I can see they’re irrational. I can think back to isolated times in my life when people acted inappropriately and created those fears in me. One man yelled the worst insults and cuss words at me when I said I didn’t want to work for him. That’s one guy out of how many people with whom I’ve talked? Seeing fears and facing them helps me pick up the phone and pursue my goals – even if I still get a thumping heart when listening to the phone ring.

This image came to me in a dream, and I woke up in the night to scribble a note to myself. Life seemed to have a lot of clarity in that moment, and it seemed obvious that I needed to create it.

This is a large pencil drawing, 10” x 24”, on hot press bristol board. I use whatever pencil I find handy, including very grainy No. 2 school pencils. My last boss said “A real artist can make art with anything”. I thought he was being cheap, but I suppose it’s true. The main thing about this drawing is to keep me focused on goals, not letting myself get bogged down with having the right art supplies, or worrying about talking to strangers.