Sunday, May 22, 2022 -- Second chore day in a row, and the return of my first love

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Today was a cooking day. From 9:30 to 4 pm I was baking vegan loaves and cornmeal encrusted tempeh buffalo wings. Oh, I almost forgot the gallon of tomato sauce I cooked.

On another front, I feel my old first love beckoning me again…film photography. I was totally into film photography from 1967 to 2001. I was a camera addict with my share of Nikons, Leicas, Hassleblads, Pentaxes, and a shit ton of no-name cameras I found in pawn shops. I had my own darkroom, enlarger, the finest lenses, and 100-foot rolls of 35mm black and white film. My true loves were Kodak Tri-X film and D-76 developer.

Then, I went insane and stupid and sold all of my gear. Why was I so dumb? Simple. I was going to go digital! From that day in 2003, when I bought a shitty digital camera and tried to make it work, my interest in photography eroded year by year until all I had to take pictures was my telephone.

But now, the sleeping giant has awakened. My partner has been talking madly, passionately about film photography, and I feel excited about shooting someblack and white film. Tri-X, of course.

I’m not sure how deeply I’ll dive in. I still have picture books to illustrate and stories to tell. Will their attraction be enough to keep me faithful, or will my first love consume me…again?

A blast from the past

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1-3-2020

A marker sketch from 2020, back when I was drawing on actual paper with pen and ink, and markers. I didn’t think much of this picture in 2020, but now I like it a lot. Whenever I like an old picture, I think, “I should have stuck with the style and gotten really good at it. I would have a style!” Instead I jump from one style to another. I’m fickle and easily distracted. What a mess!

To make time for working on my book, I’ve stopped studying Spanish, and Swedish, and Finnish, and Japanese. I need that study time for my big project — my book. Instead of studying in the morning, I now work on my book for an hour. I miss learning all of those crazy languages, but my time is short, and art is long.

Almost Al Fresco Art Club day

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Today was and extra chore day. I baked to vegan peanut butter cookies that actually turned out to be delicious. Besides the cookies, I baked some tempeh buffalo wings, which also turned out delicious, thanks to the vegan ranch dressing. I even had a few moments to move my book one inch forward buy correcting the color or my floating volcano demon, who happens to be a tabby cat.

An my partner, who a professional book compositor, looked through my two books and found that I got the ISBN numbers all wrong. Oh well, rookie mistakes.

Putting Together A Portable Wacom Setup

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Krita, Wacom One, Windows 10 Laptop

I want a portable graphics station that I can move around the house. When it’s too hectic in the studio and I need a quiet place to think, I’ll be able to go downstairs to work . My hardware is an 8-year old laptop and a 12-year old medium sized Wacom tablet, both of which still can do their job. I have access to a nifty Wacom One pen display that has a drawing area about the size of my large iPad. The Wacom One has a great display and stylus and it has the added advantage that I can use the desktop versions of Krita, InDesign, Clip Studio Paint, and Photoshop.

I drew the picture above at an impromptu, unscheduled Al Fresco Art Club Challenge. I was just sitting at the kitchen table with my laptop experimenting with the Wacom One when my partner joined me to do a pastel drawing. We worked together for an hour for the first time six months. It was fun just sitting there quietly with her, working together.

Attempted Al Fresco Art Club Day, and page 49 is finished

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page_49_finished.jpg

The Al Fresco Art club attempted to meet today, but I was the only one who showed up. My first impulse was to pack up and go home, but then I thought, What the hell. I’m here. I’ll do it by myself.

After 10 minutes I was kicking myself for trying to work outside on a bright day with the iPad. The screen is so reflective that it’s impossible to judge colors and values. In the end I took a nap and went home happy. Sleeping outside under the sheltering sky is most satisfying.

Sep 12,2021 -- Almost Al Fresco Art Club Day with Krita

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Krita, Pencil 6 (Quick Shade)

Krita, Pencil 6 (Quick Shade)

Though the Al Fresco Art Club is still on hiatus, it’s still in my thoughts as each Sunday rolls around. Each week I feel that we’re a little closer to getting organized enough — and feeling relaxed enough — to turn out attention away from our pressing responsibilities and start taking an hour a week to meet up and draw.

Today I drew for the first time in weeks. I used Krita’s quick shade pencil so that I could only lay down fuzzy marks. I then erased where I wanted to carve out a feature. One of my favorite Krita features is that the brush toggles to an eraser when you press the “E” key. You erase with the same texture that you paint with.. Clip Studio Paint also has this feature mapped to the “C” key.

August 29, 2021 -- Almost Al Fresco Art Challenge Day

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Were it not for life threatening air pollution, the Alfresco Art Club might have actually gone outside today. Instead we decided to relax and have some fun. My idea of fun was to try to install Linux on one of the eight hard drives in my system, but that became boring after a while and I decided to learn more about Krita.

One of the problems with Krita is that it pretty much ignores Photoshop keyboard commands. What’s with using the Ctl key to select colors? Every other drawing program in the universe uses the Alt key.This annoys me. I suppose that giving the BIg Giant the cold shoulder might be satisfying in some way, but if Krita had a smoother learning curve, it would have more users. Despite the little things I find annoying, it’s Krita is awesome in many ways.

Sophie Campbell is one of my favorite artists. Besides Wet Moon, she draws the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Al Fresco Art Club in Suspended Animation, August 22, 2021

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In honor of the Al Fresco Art Club, which is on hiatus, I challenged myself to be patient with Rebelle 4 and try some digital “dry” tools. The tools look good to me. Now I have to practice using them…or not. If I can accomplish the same thing with Photoshop, I would not use Rebelle 4. Phtoshop has the best feel for me.

I’ve been studying from Steve Huston’s awesome and amazing Figure Drawing for Artists — Making Every Mark Count. When I first started drawing six years ago I bought a year of membership to New Masters Academy and Steve’s courses got me excited about figure drawing. Six years later I’m as challenged as I was when I began. I’ve drawn thousands of heads but it’s a rare, magical day when I get the eyes right. As for hands, I’m still a newbie. No matter, though. When I look over my old drawings, I can see that I’ve made good progress. An inch a day may be a slow way to go, but it’s still progress.

August 15, Alfresco Art Club Challenge, Sort of

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Pentel Brush Pen with colors by Photoshop

In honor of the Al Fresco Art club, which has been on hiatus since the arrival of the new family member, Nacho the Pug, I held a little private solo session and drew a sleeping beauty with my Pentel Brush Pen. I used a reference photo for inspiration and attempted to capture a likeness, which I did not. I’m satisfied that I made something that looked human. When I was done with smearing ink around, I scanned the sketch with my A3 scanner, then added some colors and shadows in Photoshop.