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What have I been doing. You can just pass the "I don't have a moment to spare!" ...it's true. Got some good pictures hacking it, driving it. Up every morning! Surfing with a broken back, well it's still surfing, unless a snow storm. I got the drawing bug. This time I got again feedback on warping my drawings before hand to look more sophisticated. I'm doing better. I got it too warped and see it as bitter. This is a steady point. So going over that really gives me confidence. If I could get my body full back I could dive in and finish right. They could look faster and maybe that would animate a bit more. So I'm really happy with that. I run into my drawings last June when I was letting it all hang out and I can firm (warp) from here. I don't want to warp everything. So I'm real happy about that.
I also want to zip it off and have an alter life. I have been hitting the work trail so much and I'm missing being outside. I go outside and work in a lawn chair, (I wish I could get TV & Computer out there)but somehow I am missing just adventure on the hoof, like backpacking. I've watched so much TV I feel I know every topographical surprise the world has to offer, so how can I fulfill this impulse! It was easy when I was a kid. You don't have to carry photo equipment, very free to balance. I'm not giving up photography (never) but want relief from the yolk you must wear from it all the time. I need to bolt and climb, feel the wind. I don't want summer to run out when I am still sitting inside!
My work is going well! I'm in the testing phase with the program. I've gotten thru about half. NOTHING HAS HUNG ME UP YET! Every test has worked out!!!!! (So far.) I make up tests, do them, and record the results...
Getting better pictures sometimes. It's risky but frisky. I can't remember but I looked up from a photo I was working on and tried to get a hummingbird. Off he was. Looked again and he was right there. I hadn't moved in an eon. I got one closer shot and it (Amazingly was not a bad stance) I had all my settings right and it was almost perfectly sharp! That is the first real shot of a Hummingbird I have ever gotten, and probably the last. I know how hard it is to set up a environment to photo them perfectly! They are so sweet, so fast. Saw some super big fish in a river (got photos too and amazingly the camera focused somewhat well on them thru water at a distance)! No big cat paw prints I saw. I'm looking always. Never got the lightning shot I wanted at the place I wanted it. I blew some gas money. That first spring morning was the only crown. I found again my yellow flowers I remembered in the same spot. I don't know what they are. I wanted to take more pics of them. One morning this huge noise! I looked up and here was a Ultralight (I don't know what the term is for the ones with a motor onboard) taking off! Deer cross the road and Bluebirds sing from the meadow. I even tried Butterflies by sitting by a flower. I don't want to give this up.
I have squeezed in house painting but not as much. I'm getting the peak of one side. That raccoon was starting to tear the screen off! Really glad I got him down that cold night, and happy I still saw tracks after. [Sorry, can't get bold off.] I'm going shopping now. Watching the events on TV. I'm pretty tired after working the church lunch. Maybe sometime I can get some pics in here!!
Maybe I need to stop and find a guy! 9/18/14
I've had a wonderful two days. Am drawing, and I got that much closer. It seems like leeing is coming together. Only thing in the way is my figure, and it wonderfully dropped down this summer a bit more. I wish someone could figure out what this was, so maybe I could subtract bone and build more...would that help get this closer?
Because EVERY time I look at my last drawings a year ago, (that I had to stop on before I finished because I didn't know where to go with it), I now know where to go with it much more!!!!!!!!!!!!! This is something with my body. Like I said, did my dental braces do this when I got my teeth straightened as a kid? Or was this just in the works for me? All I know is in college I knew how to finish EVERYTHING. Ten years later I didn't even know how to shade an apple. And this continued for years, until now I'm coming back out of it and I'm getting closer to my college days in art. But this time I've worked other things into my stuff. So I am so happy with the results. Years ago it was a train wreck. But not now. I've put everything else off to draw. I need to paint...{the house}. It's so wonderful when something you have worked your whole life for really is going to come together. I didn't know? I theorized that I could draw already in some ways, so that would be it. But I was working towards other subject matter in other forms. This all came about when I read and heard things like...'You need to draw with your heart, not just your eye.' This hit me like a truck. I knew there was something to this and I needed to explore it. By then I also had the idea of human evolution. I was somewhat skeptical of this advice, coming as it did, from my great grandfathers in time. How would this set with me? 100%? I was ready for a block or two along the way. But with my beliefs in evolution, there was far less of a problem if drawing more loosely did not work out for me. You can't draw what you don't house. Knowing you really can't do something is a plus. I must know reality with me. It's freedom, you can plan your life around what you know! Well so far I am piecing together looser cartoonish form with some of my work. Depends on the subject matter. I still don't want all of them like this. I look for subject matter that I could do more realistic. Sometimes I thin it down a little. All depends on the form or composition. That part is being worked on. I can't teach my body what my mind thinks it knows. My body has to be hit and hit with bad tries and good victories. I mean how far do I take changing a form until it looks more sophisticated and fine. It's no wonder with all the variables, that this is taking some time. I used to draw just by eye, measuring every part. Now I combine everything, eye, contour, blind contour, tracing. I don't really trace but sometimes...like I could never draw a horse standing there with it's four legs. I'm too thin. I've never been able to get on to that. It doesn't look right when I try to draw it freehand. (Some things look right when they are not drawn right and some things don't.) I hyper studied Vincent Van Gogh's work and he is RIGHT ON in places! I don't know if this was by eye or by trace too, but parts of his work are right on, where the rest is cartooned etc... That's what got me to try this with compositions that I couldn't get right. Just spots, or a spot I would line up. Or close. It helped put it back on track. So there were many drawings I was testing on. I love my student papers! You know they are still good to display from too, if something gets good. So don't be afraid to botch drawings...just put them in the computer and finish it better!!!!! If you like art, it likes you, and it doesn't have to be a death sentence. Doing art will lead you more towards knowing yourself. It can uncover things for you. Do you want to teach? Do you want to do art entirely? Do you want to read X-Rays? Do you want to run a gallery? If you like art and are just starting out, art is your friend, no matter what happens between you and it. Jump in at it and it will help you find your way. Just don't let it sink you, if that is what it is going to do. But then you have to look up sometimes. This is kind of my ongoing experiences with it. Everyone always used to say, "You will always have that [art]." I guess, I hope I am going to for the future. Now the real trick is to balance drawing with Photography! I guess I try and make passes at photography! I get some!! 9/24/14 I finally got out. Getting adjusted to cooler weather. I have not stopped drawing for a peroid of time. No real hangups except I can't finish some. Going to try working over back wash again. I've almost got a side of the house painted! 4 boards to go...on the bottom, which is so much easier than the peak! I didn't mean when I was talking about tracing drawings, that to go ahead and trace!!! If you can, you should try and develop your drawing skills as far as you can go. Only use a bit of it if you hit a wall and can't go any further, and you know this! I worked it in to a few of mine, but I use a spot or line (mostly not right on) to do this. Just if it doesn't look right at all. I also use leeing or cartooning. These mostly make some of my pictures look better. But I have a really tight exact line and this makes some of my drawings from realistic outlines look too fat. Sometimes what I draw looks okay drawn realistically or close to it. The more simple it is, the more I can draw it completely free hand. Like an apple or Teddy Bear. I've been doing Teddy Bears and drawn most freehand. I got another yesterday and it is different. I had to trace parts. I finally got it better. 9/26/14 I got the house side painted!! Oh sooo glad that is done!! We have a repreve in our weather, it's warm again. I love it! I fin Drawing is like an ongoing adventure and skill you follow. I never got on to the skill like I see others do. But I have become more at home. Drawing for me is always now one step from disaster. I have to get over that. Yesterday I did another Teddy Bear drawing. I wanted one thing... to cover page with med to dark subject matter. You get on and suddenly you see a great drawing before you finish! That is the worst problem, you have to work over it and lose that version forever. I've even taken pictures of that step! But I clamped down and filled in the bottom. I did get where I wanted to be and I have a picture that way, I just can't finish the details yet. So now I am less tight when I want to be! Cover the page! And that is good. I just don't have a great way to apply dark passages quicker. I have got to experiment with wash and powder too. Paint? But the drawing went on. I have neglected my photo work for this because in the past my drawing impluse was gone and I didn't notice. I hope it stays. I was taking photos this morning. Some sweet cameos. 10/1/14 Sorry no pics. Working hard, nothing to show. 10/3/14 A super bad problem of living 2-3 hours away from major cities and having very little money. I really would LOVE to atend a lecture on human evolution coming up in Chicago. This hurts. I've looked into it and I just can't take photos and attend the lecture. It's too far away with no money. If I had friends in Chicago (that I knew about) or anything, I would go. No one here that I know about is interested in human evolution. It is very important to me and has helped me so many times and I have had so many interesting thoughts on it and it's ramifications for today. I don't want to miss that lecture. It's really a sin. I wish it was availble online or something. I try and not miss the few tv programs that come by on evolution. I'm so busy with photo and drawing and moving?, that I have not the time yet to read books. And the whole wonderful adventure did start with that first television program by Louis Leakey in Olduvai Gorge. I watched it over and over again, going down level by level. What a wonderful intelectual adventure, I think for many people. It seem so fresh and new! And I have tried to follow events throughout the years. This is so near and dear to me, I really hate to miss that lecutre. If only I had someone to go with to split the cost. When I hit a city I could stay for months. Along with the art institutions, who give drawing oportunities, I feel I could have met someone also really interested in art or photo if I could have attended or had a closer association with these institutions. I really can't lose more of my life to this. On the flip side, living in the country gives you easy access to, at least seeing countryside and nature. But, you know, our immediate ancestors could have the best of both worlds, because the city and the country were not so far apart. It's a problem, I need to be in a city too. So I am really down about so much I miss going on in the city. Just hurts, and because I'm not suppose to get mad, I do get mad about it. 10/9/14 More drawing. The more I do, sometimes I can see in. Taking a bath, TV, I can drift off and feel just what is going on as I draw, what I draw, how I draw and the outcome. I go back and do un cartooned and then do more stretched drawings. Don't have that down real yet. The uncartooned look fat, but maybe they won't when I get to 100% and can see again. But you do become more confident the more you do. Wether it be because you have drawings to fall back on that worked or you are just more confident. I'm not picking out what to draw 100% as I did before either. But who says you can't do a subject over and over! The livingroom has become a studio, but I put everything back after. Drawing is easier to clean up after than Photography. Well if I don't stop now, I will not have time to draw. If I could just get some pics here!
10/21/14 Love to run...RIGHT NOW...my new pics of frosted wildflowers...fits right now! I can't get anything up here like that out now. Just not in posistion. We are cooling down. It pains me to see the flowers still sitting there, I will miss them so. I really could use more warmth and sun. This area sits there until spring, clouded over. For awhile the muted grays and blue are a landscape for deep thinking and cozy up, but day after day after day there is no change. The same dull nothing to look out at. I remember this in highschool. Seems like it went on forever until a snow. Inside was the only humming thing. We do get a one day break every now and then with clear skys and sun, and I mean one day. The leaves are starting. I got my first dose in rain. I've been drawing and I've got to get back on my program. I was making headway in it and I hope I can hop right back in. I have made so many extra notes on just how I am setting this up I should be abe to. But all going for naught. I've got to get on track. 10/25/14 Nothing to write about. Just thought I'd check in.