Original version: Take your pick

This is the original artwork for the one below. I guess it's a judgement call, but once I saw the black version, I just couldn't go back to this one...

Trick or Treat! A Spirited Illustration Friday Theme

For Illustration Friday, I drew this with Indigo Blue and Vermilion Red but succumbed to the temptation to invert the colors after it was scanned. It looks just like black light!! What fun...now I'm really getting into the Halloween "spirit."

Panic time: TAGGED!

I've been TAGGED by Meinhild in France at http://meinhild.wordpress.com/ ! My first tagging, so thankyou for the honor(I think) and here goes. I like what Bill Sharp did listing former jobs on his blog http://billsharp.wordpress.com/2007/10/20/tagged/, and listed a few myself....

Here are seven random things about myself, 4 of them old jobs:
1. Once helped an artist who designed Watergate Hearings parody “postage stamps." (I did the color separations - this was pre-Photoshop.)

2. I commercially cleaned swimming pools - including fishing dead salamanders out of icy skimmers barehanded, carrying nets and poles through shrubbery, and schmoozing irritable dogs.

3. Took my 2-year old to work with me in a harness and leash. (He forgives me)

4. Did darkroom processing in a warehouse for a guy who sold vintage fan magazines by mail.

Three other random facts:
5. My college French teacher looked down our throats with a flashlight to check for pronunciation flaws.

6. I have eaten the dreaded Durian Fruit & have photos to prove it (which will never see the light of day.)

7. I LOVE to drive under the approach path to airports and look up at the planes flying low overhead.

With thanks and apologies, I am tagging these inspiring bloggers:

1. Ganga Sunshine http://gangasunshine.blogspot.com/ for her lightheartedness, inspiring work, and encouraging comments.

2. Fellow Arizonan http://crimsoncat05.blogspot.com/ who does beautiful art papers and glazes that defy description: just go see them!

3. Nevada artist and librarian/traveler http://desertsuburbia.blogspot.com/, also visit her terrific bird-photography blog at http://pictographica.blogspot.com/)!

4. Jeannette, an awesome artist and adventurous lady at http://www.jimmyjanesays.com/sketchblog/, whose new blog from Japan, Alone in Kudamatsu, is on her profile page. I'm not going to actually "tag" you Jeannette, because you have plenty to do already, I'll bet.

5. Child of Atom at http://www.childofatom.blogspot.com/Thanks for his awesome subway sketches, which he has just started doing again.

Safe in the Center of the Fire

So many are facing unexpected challenges with the terrible fires in California. First I started looking at all the photos on Flickr. Then I decided to do something about it; not near the danger myself, to focus on the safety others can find in the midst of all that. May everyone find safety this week.

Run

I liked the look of this runner suspended above the ground to promote e-books at my library.

Now that the weather has cooled, there is a real possibility of going outside and doing this too. The summer has been very hot, and hard on non-natives to the region, like me. Sometimes the coolest thing around was a Flickr photo of a cool forest in Canada or Alaska. Many thanks for the contact with wonderful artist-bloggers in Northern regions and distant (and cooler) countries: you helped me get through it!

Time to go out roaming and find some new creative raw material.

Chasing Cranes

Today I spent my lunch time chasing this construction crane to get photos.
The Valley is awash right now in these graceful monsters looming all around. I often see the most arresting images while on the freeway or at a traffic light. Today I tossed caution to the winds and tracked this one down. The crane, blue against a very blue sky, was difficult to photograph. There was even time to stay a bit and watch it lifting lengths of steel with its long cables. I took the photos as reference for a future project. Did this quickie sketch as soon as I got back to work....Next day off, another "chase" after a huge red one near the Airport.

Grow in the World

This is for the weekly "Illustration Friday" theme GROW.
I used a combination of methods for this. The line work is graphite pencil that I went over with colored pencil. The words are printed with a plain pencil (should probably by done in ink next time). Then I colored in parts of the letters with Prismacolors. I got stuck at this point and scanned it in and added fill colors in Photoshop. The diagonal lines are made with the "artistic" filter, on the rough pastel setting. I like the general idea, but can easily see how I'd do it differently next time. So much art seems to be try things, slip, fall down, get up, fall down, etc.

Just Playing Around

There is something undeniably attractive about drawing on photos from flyers, magazines, etc. Partly it is appealing because you can doodle from an existing image: in this case a face in a flyer. One thing led to another, a little black marker, a little highlighter and it looks odd and mysterious. Then I put it on top of a photo of fall leaves. So there you are, art that might not "mean anything", but insists on being anyway. Sometimes images suggest a meaning later on. Meanwhile, take advantage of any opportunity to draw purely for the entertainment value of it. I often forget how much fun it is to try a new idea.
When we were kids, we used to draw a weird mark or squiggle on paper and challenge each other to make a drawing out of it. This was a fragment of a photocopy of someone: (the top of his head appears in the lower left.) I drew it as a hill, added a tree, and a horizon line. Then I began erasing the halftone and enhanced it a bit with black pencil to make a moody sort of sky. Photographing it with this bamboo placemat as a mat makes it look more important than it really is. That's a good thing to remember: almost any artwork you are struggling with takes on stature if it is matted. Imagine it matted, and see if you can live with it.

Illustration Friday: Extremes

I just got in under the wire, submitting something for last Friday's theme, "Extremes." This one sat on my work table in various incarnations, finally beginning to speak to me late in the week. How do illustrators ever work on deadline? I'll never know. When partly finished, at left, I couldn't figure what to add next.The version I sent to Illustration Friday, below, may not be finished, either.

"Miserable Among Men Am I

If I Continue On This Way"

I wanted for the figure to seem vulnerable, and to be resisting extreme forces. The text on the 2 pillars are from the same book , entitled (I think) Zig Zag. The heavy letters at the top are from that title. The quote at the bottom just felt the way war feels, so I added it. Mixed media on Academie 80# sketchpad: Collage and colored pencil over a tea wash. I wanted to introduce more color, but couldn't decide which one, and didn't want to color it up unless I knew the "why" of additional color. I had an intense feeling about the subject, so maybe it's OK monochrome this time, except for Crimson Lake at the top.

Hospital World

Many artists whose sites I visit draw in waiting rooms. Or, while waiting for something to happen...like in a hospital. This is a particularly difficult challenge for me. When I have given up all control and am just waiting for the next thing to occur it's easy to use reading to "shut out", rather than deliberately to "see" in order to gather information. Besides, hospitals are notoriously bland-looking places, as if a committee convened long ago and agreed to use the most boring possible decor. It's also likely that the drawings will be uptight, but on the plus side, observing all the interesting medical equipment and trying to render it distracts you from worrying about other things.

Later, I added colored pencil and a quick wash with a tea bag. Yes, a tea bag.

Yellow Fork, Sleeping

Honestly, I fell asleep on the sofa drawing this. I 've fallen asleep reading, but never before with pencil in hand! In the interest of Science, I publish this just because it was so strange. Nice to know drawing can be that relaxing. I've been up the last few nights tending R., who just had surgery. He's getting better fast, and I'm doing lots of art to keep me occupied while I take time off with him.

I just gave this the "values test" (removing the color in Photoshop to check contrast) and it failed miserably. So this time I'm getting by on a wing and a prayer ... and a yellow fork.

Illustration Friday: "Open"

I've had a idea in mind for this week's illustration theme. This is truly from a doodle, but I scanned it into Photoshop, inverted it to make two of them, flipped one, and did a photomerge. This is my submission for the theme "Open." When you open the portal that confines a force, be sure you know whether its opposite is also being set free...with unforseeable results. Below are the two drawings I started with:

This is what can happen when you do two versions of something and can't decide which one you prefer: use both! Prismacolor pencils on calligraphy practice paper. Inverted and photomerged in Photoshop.

Working Out the Theme

This week I've concentrated on having something to say; the theme for Illustration Friday is "Open." One idea was to show a child, open to learning and paying attention. R. is a teacher, and often tells me the kids he teaches are tuning out and have stopped being open to learning. So I wanted to show a child who is still open to that. First, I found a face and expression that was right, and worked out the skin tones. Then what I wanted him doing with his hands, and then what the pose would be. I haven't put it all together yet, but these are the parts.

Un Cafecito?

This was directly inspired by Belkis Ramirez, whose woodcut is on the cover of "A Cafecito Story" by Julia Alvarez. My version got a little colorful, but is in keeping with my wish to learn how to use color, and express feelings and thoughts more effectively through color.

Here's the entire drawing, but I cropped the top off. Which one works better?

There are many good lines in the book, which Julia Alvarez wrote in Spanish and English side-by-side.

"Read this book while sipping a cup of great coffee grown under birdsong. Then close your eyes and listen for your own song."

..."Lea este libro mientras saborea una taza de un maravilloso cafe crecido bajo el canto de las aves. Entonces, cierre los ojos y escuche su propio canto."

8 1/2 x 11, Prismacolor pencil on colored paper.