I get ideas while I sleep …

On Saturday morning I woke up with an idea to do a papercut. The subject I wanted to do is not actually this, but when I try something new I usually do flowers the first time, it’s a recurring theme. This was one of those usual times, so I did this.

It was fun. Papercutting. It was nice to think of something and do it in one day. Most of the things I think of take a lot more time. It looks nice with light behind it … so I’m trying to think of a way to mount this so I can have space in between the two layers and allow some light to filter through as well. I sense a trip to a framing store coming on.

While I was doing this one, I was talking to my brother. He saw the final and liked it, so I said I’d make him one. I figured I could handle something a little more complex on time 2. His request was expected – he also has a usual theme that he requests on a regular basis, and it’s not flowers. I’ll give you a hint, his email signature is “I fear flat planets.”

Can anyone guess what mountain this is? If you follow the picture to Flickr, you will see, but if anyone can guess that would make me happy that I got it sort of right. The inspiration for my original pencil sketch was a great photo by birder7 I found on Flickr. This one also does well being backlit. An Jeremy, once I figure out the frame, I’ll send this to you.

Papercutting is fun, if a little hard on the fingers holding the X-acto knife. Next time, I’ll investigate using a thimble on my forefinger. All those tiny trees! The backgrounds are watercolors. I’m not sure if I’d like these as much if they weren’t transparent colors.

Since this wasn’t exactly the theme I had in mind – I have a scene in my head I’m not sure how to execute – I think I will try a couple more (once my finger recovers) and see if I can really manage to put on paper (or cut out of paper) what I was thinking of. Ooh! Just thought of another one too …

Trying my hand at wall art

I finished three projects last Sunday. This would be impressive except that I’d been working on them for some time, it was really just that day that I could slap all the pieces together and make the end result look intentional. Projects are like that. You figure out your idea or bang, it smacks you in the head. Gather the materials, do the prep, work on the pieces and finally, put it together.

I did a lot fewer projects when I was younger because I didn’t have the patience to work through the process all the way. These days I really am about 50/50 on process/result. Sometimes I get impatient and just want it done–instant gratification is a hallmark of growing up in suburban consumer culture, doncha know! But I’m finding more and more that even if things turn out like crap, sometimes it’s the doing and the learning that really makes it worthwhile.

But I don’t think this turned out like crap. I mentioned this one a few days ago, it’s called a piacere because literally it’s letters that spell out a piacere. I’m still a musician at heart, and so it was really only appropriate that I chose this musical term.

It means that the player can perform the music at her/his discretion with regard to tempo in particular, but more in general to just play the piece according to their own inclination. If you follow the link you’ll see the definition and the various related words (rubato, ad libitum).

I chose the term as a nod to the way I think I like to do things – in my own way. Of course, we can’t in general do the things we want to do how we want whenever (darn!).  But I try.  So the materials I chose were from things I found around my house that I had kept as memories of things.  The A’s were music: the one on the left contains pieces from a postcard of a page in a medieval antiphonal, then I imitated the painting style for the rest.  I have pieces of medieval music and chant on the sides.  Medieval music and manuscripts were my favorite part of graduate school.

So about the pictures – Jeff dislikes picture frames sitting about everywhere, so I have to get creative in the ways that I have pictures in the house.  Since the whole thing is really about life, and the fun you can have living it, why not?  The P is a picture from the Central Park exhibit The Gates with a picture of Jeff and I looking out at the statue of Libery.  The I is for my brother, though bamboo is just fun to paint.  The nonprofit Pandas International has been sending me updates on the damage from the earthquake in China – the whole area is still not doing so well – that’s been a really sad story to hear.

The C is pictures of the Cloisters Museum, an entirely medieval-oriented museum in far north Manhattan. The E is from the Maker Faire last year (the picture below from SXSW interactive – nerd-E!!), the R is about all my hiking, and the E … well, I just love flowers.  And I love New Orleans, and there I am at Cafe du Monde.  I was pretty worried about New Orleans this past week. I grew up in Houston, so there were always hurricanes, and bad ones are always a real struggle and worry.

OK, now to stop with the reminiscences. I thought that was a fun project – got to try out some new paints, it was meaningful to me as well as autobiographical, and it’s nice to see in my front hallway. 

My Weekday, Comic-Style

I have a drawing tablet, and I’m not afraid to use it. Wait! That should read “I have a drawing tablet, and I have no *$%&* idea how to use it. But I’m fixing that. In my ongoing quest to conquer my nemesis, Illustrator, I knew the next step was to draw something from scratch. So I got out my Wacom drawing tablet and selected the pencil tool. I soon remembered that my drawing tablet is an older variety and takes a bit of blunt force determination to get it to do kind of what you want it to do. But I prevailed! As proof, I present to you a bit of levity in my first comic, entirely drawn on computer! I can tell that drawing with the tablet is going to take practice, it’s a little like learning to write all over again.

Guess I should say something about what I drew? The first 2 are morning – I go find exercise of some type nearly every day, and I am working on running in a fun run in November, if you can imagine (I can’t). Coffee is a daily requirement, a beverage which my colleague Will usually makes. I will euphemistically refer to his concoction as “coffee” but it’s more like “coffee-flavored mud.” I advised him of the one-scoop-per-cup method of measuring this morning, and he laughed at my insistence on measuring.

The middle is my whole workday. I sit at my computer with periodic trips to the printer. Woo! Excitement! Action! Adventure! Seriously, I think that 95% of my work is computer related. That is why there is morning and sometimes afternoon exercise. Otherwise I would turn into a boneless puddle or would have to resort to one of those foot-pedalers under my desk, and I’m not ready to admit defeat yet.

In the evenings I play with my computer and cats and dog, and occasionally cook, and usually I do some more sitting and watch some sort of sci-fi and do some handiwork. I love sci-fi and can often be found watching old episodes of Star Trek and Firefly (gorram cancellation) or perhaps a new episode if the TV stations can be convinced to make new ones of the three I like. I prefer to do my more active crafting work on weekends, but I’ve been known to paint on a weeknight.

What to draw next??