Strawberry Korsakov

I've gotta get a camera that takes a nice crisp picture with the right lighting and colors.  I always have to run these through editing to get close to the right representation.

"Strawberry Korsakov", 2.5" x 3.5", pencil, watercolor pencils, acrylics.  At some point (soon I hope) I will either mail it to Rimsky-Korsakoffee House or maybe have Scott take it to them, see if they'll slide it under the glass  of one of their tabletops.

gaze

April 20th, 10:40 AM.  As of a couple of days ago  Doug is now awake, off the ventilator, doing well, they moved him to another room.

Trying to psych myself up for working on the drawing of Pope Francis.  Could start with his face, his raised hand, or his cross pendant.  I found four other images of him I'd like to do, one or two in ink and maybe one - maybe - in watercolor pencils.  Or maybe not, his attire has such a delicate cream color it would be  so easy to screw up.  The main thing is that he's got his positivity shining in each one.  Got a closeup of his crucifix pendant to get the details right, and another with the necklace links details.  I'm using an 8" x 10" tablet.  Medium texture so I don't think I'll be able to go as subtle or smooth as I'd hope to on shading.

I like this Pope.  A lot.   Never thought I'd be able to say that of a Pope.

Pen and ink...wondering if I should spend the money to get some good nibs and ink, or one of the pen sets I saw at the store, or stick with ballpoint.  Ballpoint I can control how softly it goes on, unless other kinds of ink pens....then again I want something that looks a little more professional for sales.
The Korsakov Sundae has been laid out.  I've mapped out and transferred most of the details on a joke image.  I won't say what it is except it would make a nice t-shirt or poster.  I have to make some alterations in the details.  One major element, though small, is confusing in black and white, so i may make a substitution - one rose image for another, and shorten the stem as it hides a face I also need to change.

I'm looking at Pinterest as a way of keeping images to work from or be inspired by, or simply remind me of things to get to someday.  I'm downloading tons of images and I'd rather not keep them cluttering up my computer.  Someone  also suggested Instagram as a way of selling my work once I have something to sell.

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I've finished the watercolor pencil painting but still can't find the chord for the camera!

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Been listening to the band Múm a lot since I got here, their  'Finally We Are No One' has become one of my favorite albums, especially the final and first three tracks.  I've also just found Eric Woolfson's 'Freudiana' on YT - finally!  It had a limited release as an Alan Parson's Project album but I didn't know and missed my chance to have it.  Have yet to listen, and looking forward to it.

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2.5 x 3.5", watercolor pencils.  Not bad for still being relatively new to this medium.

Ladybugs are a bit of personal symbolism for me for reasons I'll keep private.  I've decided to think of them as redemptive or vindicative.  Something like that.  More widely ladybugs are seen as a sign of good luck and abundance.  I have at least three in my room this very moment.  They are also called ladybirds (though not by anyone I've ever heard speak), which is apt for this painting.

ICU

Waiting to hear any news about one of my brothers.  He's been in open-heart surgery.  I know a little more than I did this morning, it's a triple-bypass. 

So I'm passing the time flitting between a few images.  One is a small (2.5" x 3.5) picture of an eye.  I'd like to show you but I have misplaced the chord for downloading from camera.  Not far into it yet anyway, just got it  started.  Watercolor pencils.  Can't guess what kind of look it will have.  The bangs already do not look photorealistic as I've not found the right closeup pic to emulate.  I'm using several different images as ref.

(Ooooh!  Jesseca has suggested an alternate which I'd also like to try.  Needs researching,)

Waiting for the phone to ring and I keep getting robocalls from Holiday Inn trying to sell me a stay there.

I've just about mapped out the Hatshepsut and can begin actual drawing.  Wondering if I can make that epicanthic fold a bit tighter.  Hatshepsut  led Egypt when leaders were expected to be men, and took to wearing not only a man's headdress but the ceremonial beard as well.  I'm undecided whether to draw this.  It's a nod toward gender aspecificity, non-binary so it would support a message I'm happy with.    At least, that's one way to interpret it.  On the other hand, I've seen female leaders (CEOs, heads of state, etc.) who felt they had to model themselves after the worst male behavior to be effective.  That's not something I can encourage.  Most importantly, the visual aspect: I'll have to see what the image needs.  I want a full drawing for the face and possibly the uraeus (snake on the headdress), keep the nemes (Egyptian headdress - ya learn stuff doing a drawing!) more lightly sketched in.  The two sides of the nemes drape over her shoulders, leaving a negative space between and under her throat.  It doesn't look pleasing and I want to break that up, but not by simply drawing her neck...that's dull.  As to the ceremonial beard, there are ancient busts and statues of her both with and without so I'm covered either way - if I drop it, it's not a dodge.

 Almost 5 PM now, been working on these since morning with a few breaks.  Maybe I'll stop and watch videos now.  Or at least change up and map out the Rimsky Korsakoff picture.  Bet you've never seen Rimsky eating a sundae.

I have at least three joke images I'd like to do as well.  One requires heavy construction in Gimp, one would be a drawing, and the last is basically a cartoon - simple, probably light use of watercolor pencils.  That last should be a snap except that I find drawing simply - say, cartoons or characters - is exceedingly difficult for me.  Photorealism, that's easy be comparison.  Seriously, it takes skill to make a simple line drawing that looks good. 

Halloween

Not sure I've ever posted this collage I did for a Halloween tape I made in the '90s (a mix of movie quotes and appropriate music).  I'd very much like to do another collage if I can gather some material to work from.   I made tapes two consecutive years, so made two collages.  This was the better of the two .  The bottom has been lost because the place that made the copy couldn't fit the full image to the dimensions allotted.  After I had the piece assembled, I printed it in B&W then hit it with watercolors.  Then I had the poster made, 11"x 17.

The first of my art supplies did arrive, however we had to guess at which box had the drawing for Scott and the reference pic I'm working from.   That box also has several finished pieces I want very much to keep, so I don't want it getting lost in the mail.   Well, it's not lost but it is still at home.  The box that arrived has one tablet is good for medium sized portraits, and I have my pencils.  I also have the smaller masonite board, so I'm figuring out what image to paint on it.  I don't have the crayons yet and don't want to wait for them.  I have some acrylics and can get more, so that's the way to go.  I have one image that I might  go with (an extra on the 80's Twilight Zone, drummer in a nightclub) but  I'm still looking for the moment.

Spent the morning watching Siouxsie and the Banshees vids in quarter time, writing down timestamps for images to draw and/or paint.  There's one interview with Siouxsie Sioux that has decent detail, enticing colors and textures.  I think I want to do several, maybe smaller portraits.  Ah...choices.  This id in hopes of a sale to a Siouxsie fan, maybe a Goth devotee.  Jesseca is thinking Goth folk could be a lucrative market if I do some Goth icons.  So, that in mind, the portrait needs to be instantly recognizable but also recognizably the spirit she projects.  "There is a fun, flippant side to me but I would much rather be known as the Ice Queen."   Do an image search on her and you'll see tons of shots of her as humorless.  Yeaaaaaaah...but I see her playful side in interviews, hear it in her lyrics, it even peeks through in performance.  She isn't a dedicated nihilist, her heart's not in it.  Honestly, I'm kinda bored with all the dour shots of her.  I have two screencaps I like that are more fun, one of them is a self-parody of her death-personification.  But would that sell as well as ...well, the usual?  Eh.  I have a few of those marked as well.

I'm getting ready to do a small Strawberry Korsakoff, see if I can get Scott to take it to the coffee shop.  I'd like to do a handful of small cards in different media and send them to Portland.    Jesseca has some Mod Podge she's not using.  Still looking for more variety in foil.   I'm more and more tempted to flat-out copy Chagall's style for Mina knowing it won't look like his anyway, though I hate to have it be a total knockoff.

There's an artist's co-op in town which would let me trade time behind the counter for a showing, provided they approve my work.  I've looked in, at the mo they have all pastoral and still life (along with jewelry and other 3D art).  I should play to my strength, which is portraits.  So what personages might sell?  I've got a Pope Francis to draw.  Marilyn Monroe, Jesseca suggested.  Man, I've  three images of her I really want to do in a book back home in Portland.  Damn.

Almost done working out the details on Hatshepsut.  Did I explain that one already recently?  It's riffing off a shot of a  ruined/reconstructed bust I saw in National Geographic.  All I need is to add a uraeus and work out the cloth of the headdress.  The face is mapped out, including resized eyes.  The bust is a bit stylized - eyes a little too large, features too smooth, no epicanthic folds.  She loses some mystique when you add those back in.  I wonder... that stylized eye makeup, was that for Egyptian art alone or did pharaohs really wear it?  Did they shave their actual eyebrows?  She's got a delicate smile, too, that could easily turn into a smirk if I'm not careful with it.  It's not an outright smile, ambiguous...could be amused or could be unhappy.  I'd include attribution to the photographer but I no longer have the issue.  I don't know what the real Hatshepsut looked like, and I don't care.  I just want to draw the person who might have been the model for this particular bust.

(edit) No, they did not shave off their eyebrows  except  when in mourning for their pet cats.  So if their actual browlines didn't match the usual dimensions seen in their art, did they adjust the makeup to fit their faces or did they cover their eyebrows with skin-colored makeup in favor of the painted brow?  And how should I approach this in  my drawing?  I certainly don't  want two sets of brows!  Nor do I care to Caesar Romero the pic.

Red, White, and Blue

Tuesday evening, April 3rd.   Been visualizing the approach I'll take to the painting.   I should have some of my drawing pads in a week, some pens and my mechanical pencils.  Figuring out a work surface for my larger tablets will be a problem, Scotts' drawing is on one of those.  Don't know which box the smaller masonite board was in.

Buddy kept staring at the door  to the living room tonight for a long time, with a tense posture and dilated eyes.  Calmed after a while, but animals sometimes see or sense things we can't.
Note to self, there's an image in mind involving a ladybug.  I want to look into painting that.

Mina, I think, will have a white turtleneck sweater.  If jewelry, then something opalescent - Jewelry doesn't feel right for this but if I need something for texture or break up a space then something simple, just has to indicate maybe a pendant on a necklace.   There's no symbolism to the choice of white attire, it just simplifies the color scheme.  It won't literally be white anyway as the image will be evening, I'll just be painting it a lighter blue than the sky.  I want to do a sketch of Mina now I've got her narrowed down.  Not sure when I'll get the box with the crayons in it...I checked a craft store locally and didn't like their crayon boxes, not enough colors.   Plenty of acrylic paints if that's what I go for, though I prefer the drying time of enamels.  Oh, then again, enamels  dried really slow in low temps.  Hmm.

Wondering what Dana's been doing lately.  A few nights after I came here I had a hypnagogic flash of her, just an image of her that was gone the moment I saw her.  She was dressed entirely in bright red.  As personal dream symbolism goes, red has almost never been a color of warning for me but one of positivity: love, passion, intense feeling.  I saw her in red.  I didn't see who she felt that for.  Maybe not for anyone specifically, maybe just for the place her life is right now.

The angel in Dana's painting was high in a patch of blue over a field of bright turbulent red.  It's easy to imagine the red may be her depiction of hell.  In my long-ago  nightclub dream the color symbolism was reversed - the area lit in blue looked icy, cancerous with ropy cobwebs of cigarette smoke.  It was a small area but crowded, every seat at the square tables and booths filled with cold, apathetic people.  I stood at a piano in a section lit in warm red, spacious and full of round  tables yet almost all of them were empty.  The few people who were there were all  welcoming, smiling, caring, sympathetic.   At first Dana was in the blue light.  When I looked again she had stepped into the red, waiting for me to turn and see her there, watching me.   I knew on waking it was 'one of those' but it never came true.

My  favorite colors are  red and purple.  I've heard Dana's may be blue and purple.  That leaves us a space in the  center to meet.

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Wednesday late afternoon and it's snowing!  Snow in April, I'm not used to that.  I'm enjoying the show!  Coming down really thick, too, ground is white already.  Jesseca had wanted to start her gardening today.

Buddy, Sharon, Ilhan

Sunday, April 1st, and I have foolishly misplaced my camera.  I did a quick (one hour) painting in acrylics, 2.5" x 3.5.  Small but nice, a profile of Sharon Mitchell.  The light is perfect right now to get a decent shot of it, but I can't find my camera for anything.  I fear it fell out of my pocket somewhere...but I'm sure I didn't take it with me  anywhere! Last tine I saw it, best I  can recall, was when I uploaded the last pic.  Can't use this computer, either, it's the one back in Portland that had a camera function.

Nearly 10:30 AM.  20 degrees out and snowing

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Ah!  Camera found.  Whew.  I'm studying videos of Siouxsie Sioux, not sure what size or whether to go b&w or color or one of each.  I've a shot of a drummer in a smoky nightclub, reds and blues.   I've downloaded Gimp 2.8 and the current Pepakura viewer.  Printers are cheap enough to get one once I have some money.  I was hoping for a cheap projector to kook up to the computer but I only need it for still images.  What I found were expensive gizmos to project videos with.  Don't need that.  With a little money I can have my art table sent.  That will crowd the room a little but not intolerably.  I do need the work surface.


I have a pose I like for Mina.  It's casual, unstylized, forward stride.  Her arms are at her sides, though i might be able to move one up and forward, bending at the elbow.  I really want her interacting, but even just walking is enough - she's not idle.  Biggest problem is I'd like her gaze to meet the placement of her hand, and I don't think I'm  gonna manage that.  I have a box of pencils and pens coming (ground shipping, so it will be slow) and some tablets.  Still not the crayons or colored pencils yet I don't think, and not my largest tablets.  Don't know if any of my tracing paper is in there.  I'll have to buy the paints and the masonite.  I've begun gathering colored foil  from candies for a variant.  No pose yet for a  dancing version.

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Monday.  Had a breakthrough with Buddy yesterday.Buddy's eyes  never dilated with me, which is a good sign, but eyes constricted is hard to read.  Mostly he's been ambivalent, wary, uncertain.  Try this if you're in the same  situation: when the cat is holding your gaze, slowly close and close your eyes once - a slow blink.  I did that once with Buddy yesterday.  He  finally bumped his forehead  against my leg, a sign of acceptance.  He let me rub his neck a little longer, his  were no longer constricted, and he sat a foot away with his back turned and posture and tail realized.  If a cat turns its back to you, that's a show of trust (that you won't  attack and it can take its eyes off you).  Wish I'd known that when I was at Kathy's apartment.  I already knew the basics by instinct - be casual around a cat, they don't like sudden movements or din.  Don't stare, and don't force your attention on them.  Let them come  to you. 

A sketch I'd forgotten,  done the first week I was here.  I'd done a tracing of a photo of Ilhan Omar then lost the photo.  It's online somewhere but I still  didn't have a net connection, so I did a ballpoint pen sketch from the tracing alone as a guide.  The page was already beat up a bit, having been pulled out of the tablet and then replaced.