Illustration Friday: Artificial

So maybe this is cheating, just a little bit, because I don't happen to think there's anything artificial about playing cello. I'm much more interested in the real, the connection, the melody, the music....

But here's a story. I've known this girl since she was a baby, and one day when she was ten or eleven, it broke my heart to see her flash me the most artificial smile I'd ever seen on anyone. She'd been having a really bad day, and I didn't really expect much of a response from her, but it didn't seem like that kind of fake smile was something a child should be able to do.

Happy Sax

I'm going to stop apologizing for these images, and just say that they are what they are. I don't know how old the boy is here--thirteen, maybe. He's a senior in high school now, and doing band again after a year hiatus.

(This looks better if you click on it to make it larger).

Memories in Ice

I know this is making my blog look uneven, to have both traditional and digital stuff, but alas, it's what I finished today, and if it's really really basic and crude, well, I'm slowly learning how to manipulate these things. When I started this last week, the stupid program kept crashing. I saved every couple minutes today, just to be safe, but it seems to have gotten over whatever it was that it was doing.

This was the month where everyone important in my life was gone--partner out of the country , boys at Cape Cod with their dad, and even my mom gone. The boys are back, but I still feel like this sometime, like I'm all alone in an empty house (the dog doesn't count), haunted by echoes of distant joy.

Art Date drawings

So cool to have a friend come over to make pictures together. We have completely different sensibilities, so worked on two very different sorts of things. I spent most of my time sketching out a picture I've been wanting to do for several weeks now, but never got around to starting, but then after I'd applied mask and an initial wash layer, I needed to wait for it all to dry, and made these two drawings in the meantime. I'm not very pleased with them, but am happy to have made SOMETHING. It's only when you're making stuff that you ever make GOOD stuff, and if you don't do the mediocre stuff, well then.... (or maybe that's just some kind of totally lame excuse.)

Accordion Guy # 10

I don't know what to say. This is the first "accordion guy" picture I've done on the computer instead of with pen and ink. Though it's fun playing around with this digital stuff, and seeing what different effects you can get with different settings, I really miss the real stuff. It's messier.

I find it interesting though, that whatever medium a person uses, they have the same kind of basic urges. This seems very clearly MY picture, despite the fact that I made it on a computer instead of on paper.

But now I'm going to go start a paper picture.....

Telephone Doodle

Here's a doodle that lasted for four telephone calls--first with my sweetie who is out of the country for a month, then two rather short businessish calls, and then a long chat with a friend. I used to do these on paper, or wash dishes, fold laundry or sweep the floor while I talked on the phone, but since the battery in my portable phone died, I have to sit here (in front of my computer) and talk on the phone, so there it is.

Summer Sketches

Here are a couple sketches from the jam last night. There were a bunch of out-of-town people, so new folks to sketch. They don't look at all like the regulars.

The other piece is
addressing expression again--can you tell that she's smiling. Her eyes don't look like they are to me. These are tough...I might try this drawing again.

Seventeen

I should be drawing, really truly. I have a piece I really want to do, but it's complicated, and will require many hours of concentrated work. I have the time, and I should just do it.

Old Barn in Alma

*******Where does a giant go to hide, when he really can't face the world anymore?

This is really pretty addictive, working on these. It's not like I don't have a billion other projects to work on around the house. But I'm starting to get the hang of some of these functions. This went much much faster than yesterday's experiment.... Of course it's a lot simpler, but I manipulated more "stuff". Really, I should be drawing, shouldn't I? But I need to figure this out too....

Back in my photography days, I was fascinated with double exposures.

Summer Fiddler

Don't anybody laugh now, but I had to buy a book to learn how to use my Corel Painter program, and now that my boys are on vacation with their dad, and my sweetie is out of the country for a month, now finally is the time to learn how to use it. So here's a montage (I wasn't particularly interested in using their already-provided images, so I used my own). Even though I'm sure that everyone and his dog could do something like this in Photoshop in a tiny fraction of the time it took me to do this, I learned a LOT.

This is about the magic of summer and music. And yes, this is my sweetie, whom I miss a ton!