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.