The Hangout

At the library, this twelve-ish girl waited for a parent or a big sister. Claiming a chair near the entry, she casually hung, curled and draped herself in it's cozy arms. Flipflops and backpack went everywhere, just as if she was in her own livingroom...

Oh, I never did "live" in the library as some kids do. But I always, always found one in whichever town we lived. There I found books to carry back in our room or wherever we were staying while traveling. One summer when I was about this girl's age, we spent in Roseburg, Oregon in a small apartment across the street from the rail station. All night long the locomotive engines kept idling...and I read and read and read. It was a waiting summer, and at the end of that long summer we found a place in Ashland and we stayed there until I left for college. But I always remember that summer, and being that age, and the waiting for something to happen.

Desert Dancer

I've set myself the task of learning a bit about using "layers" in Photoshop. The image in black and white is a sketch of a statue outside the Phoenix Art Museum. The Blue image above it is a snapshot of a beach wrap I picked up last summer at Venice Beach. The combined image at top was created (eventually) but I'm not sure how. I think it was necessary to save the blue layer as a PDF in order to add it to the drawing which was a JPEG. Then the whole thing was locked together but when I tried to add it to the blog, it was still a (forbidden) PDF, so I had to re-save the final image as a JPEG again. Oh, well ... I'm just glad I have something to show for my first attempt. Enjoy.

If There Were No Lines

http://www.lightmanifest.blogspot.com/

There seems to be an engine that starts me seeing and wanting to draw. I've found a powerful one in my little digital camera. For years I "saw" but had nowhere to put the intensity. After a while, I learned to draw in my mind what I had no time to really draw: at various jobs, while raising kids, while remodeling houses, etc, etc.- all the things we do. Now making up for that is a big priority. The little camera, like a net gathers up all those fleeting impressions and saves them valiantly for me to process later. Framing things in the LCD monitor trains me, and this helps to decide what is interesting and worth further investigation. Learning from so many wonderful Flickr photographers is like being in a worldwide school. Here are three of my captured "sees" and what they led to. Using light and tone rather than line is very satisfying. It's a good reminder that most lines, like the boundaries of nations, are created in our minds.

Post-it Posting

I like this format: so handy and ever-present. The Post-it square works better than I would have thought, and helps contain a single, simple statement. More to follow.

A Few More Sketches While I Unpack...

Until I get settled, can't share any of the color and ambience, but...

Gestures like this quickie above are the drawing equivalent of what my photo instructor called "grab shots." But sometimes I get an urge to enlarge a tiny quickie like this, so that it covers an entire wall, because it seems that only in a little sketch can you get that spontaneous feeling or the largeness of the feeling you are actually trying to express. The ocean is SO BIG, and my sketchpad so small.