Rejuvenation

I've spent very much of the Covid times sheltering in place, as they say. (Don't tell, but I haven't had a haircut in nearly 18 months.) When I step off my own yard, I'm surely headed to the grocery store. You couldn't fill both hands counting the number of times I've left to go anywhere else.

What with all this time to myself, I've tried to improve and rejuvenate myself. Besides the pandemic "kick off", early 2020 found me with an unexpected surplus of serum cholesterol. Not the good kind either. Happy ending though, I got it down so much my doctor was shocked. Since that glorious day, I've kept up with the regular exercise and I do feel better. I definitely look more fit. And now I have hair like Fabio except my blonde is more platinum and the ends curl.

Continuing with the themes of improvement and rejuvenation, I've been taking some online art classes, one of which focuses on designing better pages in your sketchbook, and a lot of the design can be applied retroactively to years-old sketches, as you'll soon see. These two pages are from 2013, about 5 weeks apart. I did the left side sitting at the window counter inside a Starbucks. The right side was from the top of the east Marina Towers tower, and what a great autumn day that was!

I always like these two pages, so I made them the subject of a couple lessons. The right page got upgraded in January and then I thought quite a while about what to do with the other page, to give some cohesion. A few weeks ago I got around to executing my plan and the rejuvenation is complete. Here's how everything ended up looking.

I've been good about keeping at my self-improvement and rejuvenation efforts... making new pages in my sketchbook along with elevating the older gems. Eating better, working out consistently -- although last week was so hot I didn't feel like doing much of either. But that's August for you. See you in September!

Art in the Times of Covid

Wow, things got dusty in here while I was away!

Resurrecting the blog today with this sketchbook entry. Featuring my brother's dog Smudge; the original images are ghosts of Christmas cards past.

 

 

I've picked up some tricks while I've been away. Back in the day, I would have used transfer paper to render the images and then painted them out. Instead, I went out from the nose and tongue, painting directly, then over-painted and inked. I abstracted the background grass using watercolor pencils and, conveniently, their complements for the hellish background.

 

Here's the interesting backstory. When designing the page, my hands were tied from the start... by the other side of the paper. It's got a large drop-captial A in red sharpie and so a touch of bleed-thru you can see in the "nose" photo. (Lesson learned.) Thus the need to over-ink the "A", which drove the placement of all the other text and page elements we see here. There's hardly any text, but it tells a story with an economy of words.

I've been doing a lot of sketchbook work lately because I've learned I can fit it ten minutes here and there and get things done. You'll see more of that soon, along with some more thoughtful "thoughts". Meanwhile, best of health!