"Time"

I've often thought that 2013 was one of the longest years of my life.  I did a lot, but all I did was work.  My 20s went like that too, and sometimes I regret spending those late hours when I had all that youth and energy.

Time is relative, no matter how much some scientists want to tell us that falling out of an airplane takes the same amount of time on a clock as sharpening a pencil.  One of the things that I've known acutely through my life is that my life is finite.  There's only so much time to do the things I'm here to do.  Of course it would help a lot if I actually knew what I'm here to do, but I have an internal fury when someone wastes my time because none of us have a lot of it.

I knew all this when I was a kid, but 50 was a really long ways away, and catching crayfish seemed pretty important right then.  It looks different this side of 50.  I see old people hobbling into the Shrine where I work and think old age doesn't seem that far away any more.  How much longer can I run up steps?  Or eat stuff old people can't digest?  Or write the world's greatest novel or paint my greatest masterpiece?  Or maybe have that love affair that lasts forever?

Some of the things I wanted in my life didn't happen.  I wanted the white picket fence and children and the happy husband.  Somewhere along the line I noticed that white picket fences need painted, and I sure don't feel like doing that.  Kids make unnecessary noise and don't always turn out well.  Or the happy husband is sleeping around.  What do I really want, what can I achieve, and what is my real life purpose?  Somehow, spending the day catching crayfish seems like a most excellent use of my time.

I had a coworker who used to tell me that I was difficult, oh okay, she'd call me a pain in the ass.  I'd smile at her and say "and yet, there are people who love me!"  She'd sputter and I'd laugh, but sometimes I think being loved is the only thing that matters.  Sometimes I think hippies and the Beatles were idiots and I'd better get around to painting that masterpiece because that's the only thing that's going to be here after I'm gone.  It's a new year and I have a blank canvas.  I'm not much for New Year's resolutions, but maybe this is the year I'll start exercising, eat right, and paint for real?

Looking over my posts for 2013, I do feel a certain sense of accomplishment.  I'm amazed with myself that I've been able to keep posting even with all the current job demands.  I hung up thumbnails of all my posts since I started blogging, and sometimes I stop and study them.  It makes me feel like I have done something, with plenty of room to do more somethings before I go.

My brother and I were talking last night about love and time, and he contributed this drawing of his perception of things.  I thought about adding colors and messing around with it, but decided I like it the way he did it.  "Send steaks" is what happens creatives use whatever paper is handy, and maybe since it's been immortalized in art I'll send those steaks?  I did the time doodles on the sudoku page

"Reflect"

Yay!  Illustration Friday is back in action!  I reflect all the time, this post ought to be easy, right?  (That's usually about the time when everything starts getting hard, isn't it?)  I deleted my reflections on divorce and dating, contemplated wrinkles, thought about reposting my post about narcissism... Maybe reflecting is something I spend too much time contemplating?

In art, reflections are a funny thing, and most people get them wrong.  Perhaps one of the best lessons I learning in painting class is that there should be some of every color in your painting in all of the objects you're painting.  Just the idea of that opened my world to more possibilities and definitely improved my appreciation of the masters' work.

For instance, You've painted a backdrop with Alizarin Crimson in it.  You paint Aunt Becky in front of it.  The pinks of her cheeks should include Alizarin Crimson so she looks like she's actually living in the setting you've given her.  You've painted Uncle Dave in front of something Ultramarine Blue.  Uncle Dave's 5:00 shadow, or maybe the shadows in his ears, should have some Ultramarine Blue.  Or, sometimes just to keep things interesting use the exact opposite color.  Your mind understands oppositions.

One of the biggest mistakes I see people making these days is treating the object of a painting separate from its surroundings so that object feels like it's floating on a page.  Your object needs something to ground it.  A shadow helps a lot.  Reflecting colors from the ground will ground it more.

This painting is from the era when I was learning such things.  When my painting teacher told me to put orange in the blue bowl, my jaw was tight with irritation.  No way!  Orange doesn't belong on a blue object, and you're just messing with my head!  But there's nothing like a challenge, and I put orange everywhere.  More orange than necessary to tell the truth, but it served as a good lesson.  I loved learning from Mr. Larrabee.

Another thing about reflections is that they come hard or soft.  The highlights on the purple ball in this painting are very white against the dark purple.  That means it's a really shiny object.  The reflections on the ceramic pot are more subtle because the finish of the pot wasn't as shiny.  The reflections on the wooden bowl are most subtle because it wasn't shiny at all.

When you do something metallic, put your darkest blacks next to your whitest whites in the front of the object.  Let those oppositions get more subtle the farther away they are from the viewer.  I have a lot of fun with metallic things.

Here's to hoping that everyone either makes art or appreciates it in the coming year.  Wishing everyone the happiest year yet in 2014!

Happy Holiday!

It's Saturday, it's cold and rainy outside, and I'm ready to do another blog post.  However, no word for the week yet.  Refresh the illustrationfriday.com site...  pfft, still no new word.  There's nothing really to do except take the initiative and start blogging anyway, letting you in on my rambling thoughts and activities...

Happy solstice to everyone!  This means the days will get longer for everyone north of the equator.  Yay!  Tomorrow will be 1 minute longer than today!  Yay!  Oh yeah, and happy Christmas and merry Kwanza and joyful whatever other holiday you might choose to celebrate this time of year.  May you spend this time with people you like, with good and plentiful food.

My brother got 2 large, frozen turkeys from his work last night.  I would happily stick one of them in the oven, but I think I just mentioned they're frozen.  Sigh, delayed gratification again.  I got together with friends for lunch today and had a very happy conversation about books.  I stopped at my usual neighborhood store and laughed a lot with the owners while we contemplated the coming extra minute of light.

People in other departments at work were overheard complaining about that contractor whom I complained about in my post last week.  I feel some vindication, and I'm happy that my part of the project is finally coming together.  I'm abandoning ship this week and will let them fight it out without me while I hope to take some long-overdue time off.  I'll still have work to do at home, but I can do it in sweats and messy hair.

In other words, my world is in a good place in this particular moment.  I don't have any real plans, and I don't really want to make any.  I've hit the refresh button on the IF site a couple more times, and am starting to contemplate that 2' x 4' canvas I bought a couple months ago.  Or maybe another jigsaw puzzle.  Or I could finish the book I've been reading, A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness.  It's a good book, but I have to admit the idea of yet another book or movie with a vampire in it is irritating me, and I'm more irritated that I'm enjoying the book anyway.

I did this art for a customer who failed to fully appreciate my efforts since they didn't buy it.  I'll admit it's a bad scan, but in my attempt to relax I'm going to go with the file at hand without looking for the original.  Besides, I'm having computer problems, and generally grouchy about software engineers making my life harder than it needs to be, not to mention that the lack of an IF word caused me to do actual work instead of blogging this afternoon.  Oh well, a little less to do this week?

I could go on a side rant about how trying to have Christmas spirit is too much pressure and not enough fun, but sometimes the holidays are fun, and maybe this is your year to have everything you want?

My dog thinks it's tv time and I should quit typing.  I'm thinking about that very nice bottle of wine my boss gave me too.  Maybe sometimes it's perfectly wonderful just to ramble about nothings without any actual point?

Wishing everyone happiness this holiday!

"Spirit"

A saw a woman die.  We were in a large room with a lot of people when she slid down her chair and fell on the floor.  The paramedics were there in no time, and my companion took a potty break while the evening's activities were sidetracked by the medical drama.  While she was gone I tried to tune into what was going on with the old lady.  I was close enough to see activity without details, and not close enough to hear anything. 

It looked like they were going to load her up and take her to the hospital when I "saw" her spirit leave her body.  It was like a white, twisting mist that pulled away and zipped out the open door.  My companion ran into the room and whispered "Did you see that?!  She just died!"  We both "saw" that white wisp.

I don't know how to explain seeing something invisible, or why a spirit would twist out of a body like that, or why it would go out a doorway when a spirit shouldn't need doorways anymore.  There's a whole lot of things that I don't understand at all.

Somebody sent around an email a while ago that asked a bunch of questions intended to make us all get to know each other better.  One of the questions was "Have you ever seen someone die?"  I was surprised how many people said yes.  Have you?  Did it change what you think of dying and/or the afterlife?

Seeing that old lady's spirit was an affirmation to me that there is more to life that what we see around us, that something survives the body.

This topic reminds me a lot of work since I work for Religion, but I value my job sufficiently to keep my endless questions to myself.  I remember how many times I got in trouble when I was little for all my whys and hows and whats, and I know I'll never change.  I'll always ask questions.

In a conversation with a religious person over a project I was told, "Quit thinking so much.  Put your experience on the back burner.  Just trust the process."  Them's fighting words, and the project is making me insane.  Let me vent a little...

Recently, I've had a couple of contractors repeatedly refuse to follow directions.  This floors me.  What happened to "the customer is always right"?  I've worked on plenty of projects where I thought the customer was dead wrong, said so, then did what they wanted -- sometimes finding out their way wasn't so awful after all.  (Though sometimes it was.)

Have I just gotten unlucky recently, or do you think this kind of refusal amongst designers is a trend?  Do you think perhaps it's because we've lost studios where other artists saw and critiqued each other's work?  Because software knowledge trumps design?

I'm really curious about what other people think on this, and if anyone has learned ways to deal with it.

"Pattern"

I used to look at my bedroom ceiling and mentally measure the uneven spaces between the dark wood beams that slanted upwards to 15' on one side.  I'd contemplate the texture of the wood grain in each beam and the diseased white paint between each.  It was a humid disaster in the Glen, so Dad covered the paint with acoustic ceiling tiles.  Then I contemplated the textures of the ceiling tiles instead.

I was bed-ridden more than once as a kid, and we didn't have TV when I was really young.  That didn't leave much more to do than study ceiling tiles and beams.  I listened to my heart beat and my breath go in and out, then decided to see how few breaths and heart beats I really needed.  Thdump, thdump became baa... dumm.  Baa... dumm.  In ever widening spaces between each.  I think I accidentally discovered Yogic methods of meditation and healing.

Mom likes to say that boredom is good for kids.  It forces them to amuse themselves, even to the exquisite boredom of slowing down heartbeats.  I counted the dimples in the ceiling tiles and learned to count even through my dreams, waking up and finding the time on the clock with radioactive numbers was exactly what I expected it to be.

Sometimes I miss that kind of boredom.  Not in a way of actually wanting to be that bored again, but missing the control I had over myself.  It's harder for me now to pay attention to the times when I need to slow down the pattern of my breathing, and I can't slow my heart like I did back then.  As we get older, it seems more and more like life happens to us instead of creating it as we go along.

When we learn something for the first time, we don't know that we learned to do something hard or impossible.  When we're older, someone has already told us that you can't do that kind of thing so we probably won't try, or we give up too easily because we don't expect it to work anyway.  Or we have already figured out that there's absolutely no value in counting dimples in ceiling tiles.

Sometimes I think art is the same kind of thing.  Exquisite boredom and focus in a world of possibilities and mysteries.  For me, the joy of art is the process, and sometimes I'm happy to have something pleasant to hang on a wall afterwards.  People who buy art are buying an experience.

I often make patterns when I'm stressed.  It's more useful than examining ceilings, plus I end up with patterns to put in the backgrounds of other things.  I had a job that actually paid me for doing that kind of thing too.  Some of my old clients still carry my designs.  I swear I should've gotten royalties for this stuff.  I'm  only taking credit for the good designs on this site, and I still bemoan this company's product shots.

If you're interested in the production side of things, I created the page of patterns for Williams & Bennett to show how the patterns of a 5-high tower of gift boxes would look in either red or green backgrounds and with metallic gold ink.

"Refrain"

My Girl Scout troop sang in public a lot.  We went to the mall when that was new, and a pretty woman gave us hot cider and candy.  I liked singing, and liked it even more when I got candy.  I’m sure we were adorable.  People smiled a lot.  The newspaper printed our performances and names.  It’s too bad the media doesn’t do more of that kind of feel-good stuff these days.

I was feeling semi-professional by the time we were sent to the nursing home.  We knew our song list and had it down pat.  I happily went off to “cheer up the old people”.  I liked old people, so cheering them up was fine with me.  Besides, old people were usually good for some cookies.

The nursing home was a low, dark building.  It was hidden behind trees because nobody really wants to look at old people or to be reminded that we’re all going to get old someday.  Once you’re sent there, you’re just waiting to die.  I knew that.  My great grandpa got sent to one when he was really old and he didn’t last very long after that.

Inside was dark too.  It took me a minute for my eyes to dilate and see my surroundings, and I gasped when I did.  Old men were lined up in wheelchairs in the dark, ratty lap afghans were clutched by arthritic hands – if they had hands.  Crippled feet were tied to footrests – if they had feet.  Their heads hung listlessly and slobber dripped on their shoulders.  Their eyes were blank, or ashamed, or missing.

It was a nursing home for WWI vets.  I knew about war because Viet Nam was going on.  I knew people could die, but I didn’t know about this.  I tried to tame my sick stomach while we were arranged in front of the broken men.  I tried not to cry.  I didn’t want them to know they made me sick, that I was glad the nursing home was hidden from regular people having regular lives.

One old man sat in his chair and watched us.  He and another man seemed like the only ones actually living in reality.  He gave a little smile, and I sang just to him.  I couldn’t bear to look at the others.

WWI is so much ancient history now, and it was back then too.  Was it worth wrecking those men’s lives?  Was Viet Nam worth it?  Afghanistan?  WWI created the circumstances that created WWII.  WWII victors drew arbitrary borders in the Middle East, which created ongoing wars there.  Nothing good comes from wars except making the rich richer, and in my opinion, they’re already rich enough.  My life experiences made me a life-long, non-apologetic pacifist.

I’m upset Congress plans to wreck Obama’s deal with Iran, just because it’s a deal that Obama arranged.  They hate him beyond any kind of reasonable discussion.  Idiots like John McCain want to live in a constant state of war and don’t want to negotiate with anyone, but there’s no reason to have another war in Iran.

Iran will develop nuclear energy whether we like it or not.  Making a deal with Iran to oversee and limit that development is only good.  War is stupid and the price is too high.  Maybe we should send all those old men in Congress to the nursing home?

The refrain from The Ballad of Billy Jack…

Go ahead and hate your neighbor
Go ahead and cheat a friend
Do it in the name of Heaven
You can justify it in the end
There won't be any trumpets blowing
Come the judgment day
On the bloody morning after...
One tin soldier rides away.

I know this is isn’t a great video, and if you’re too young to remember Billy Jack it probably looks stupid, but I’ll admit that watching it made me cry.  Same things then are the same things now.  “Give peace a chance.”

"Shadow"

My Shadow
Robert Louis Stevenson
I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me,
And what can be the use of him is more than I can see.
He is very, very like me from the heels up to the head;
And I see him jump before me, when I jump into my bed.

The funniest thing about him is the way he likes to grow--
Not at all like proper children, which is always very slow;
For he sometimes shoots up taller like an india-rubber ball,
And he sometimes goes so little that there's none of him at all.

He hasn't got a notion of how children ought to play,
And can only make a fool of me in every sort of way.
He stays so close behind me, he's a coward you can see;
I'd think shame to stick to nursie as that shadow sticks to me!

One morning, very early, before the sun was up,
I rose and found the shining dew on every buttercup;
But my lazy little shadow, like an arrant sleepy-head,
Had stayed at home behind me and was fast asleep in bed.

There are moments when I feel like skipping and quoting RLS – and then I remember I’m a grown up and not supposed to skip.  Being an adult sucks.  Sometimes I skip anyway.

A couple of years ago I did a post about drawing shadows.  All that’s still true, so I thought I’d talk about color instead.  It’s really simple.  Colors that are closer to the light source are warm, colors away from the light are cool.  Warm colors are yellower, cool colors are bluer.  Vary that as much as sensible to your heart’s content.

I just saved you a lot of expensive college education.  Donations can be made to me at…

This was a self-portrait I did when I was in college at a time when I thought I would scream if I had to stare at myself for another however many hours.  I asked if the self-portrait had to be my face.  My teacher said “no-ooo” with another one of those looks of “oh crap, what is she thinking of now?”

He was a great teacher, but not such a great painter.  He knew it, and I felt sad for him when he mentioned it.  His paintings were technically perfect, they just weren’t inspired.  I’d see his surprise when I’d do something like painting vibrant colors where they didn’t belong, but he couldn’t seem to get past his studious, analytical nature and have some fun with paint.  I enjoyed making this painting even if it’s not really that good – and isn’t enjoying the process part of being an artist?