Creating Three Dimensions

Hi there,

I'm back already. My schedule is still manageable this early in the semester, but once I get toward the last few weeks, with all the long essays and projects due, and the tests, I will have very little, if any, time to blog, and around April and May the entries will probably have to go on the backburner for a while, until the semester ends. Anyway, for the new few weeks I should have a good amount of time open for blogging.

Anyway, I had some time open in between classes yesterday, around 11-ish. I was able to grab about 45 minutes to an hour at a table on the top floor of my campus's main library. Most of the floors have this big study area, with a huge section of windows looking North (away from the ocean), but on the top floor, they have these tables with these really comfortable chairs right next to the windows, and from there, you have this spectacular view of the whole LA area, all the way up to the San Gabriel Mountains.

The inside of the Library's top floor study area (taken from my Iphone).

My main goal was to get some reading done. I was doing some play reading from The Pillowman by Martin McDonagh, and Death of a Salesman. The Pillowman is pretty dark and twisted comedy, but there is lots of interesting character development in it, which really makes it worth reading. Today, I really got into reading Death of a Salesman. I worked with it about a year ago, and I've just gotten it out again. Anyway, I was staring out the window, with my personal notebook out. It was a fully-illuminated day, and the mountains were clearly visible, in all their towering presence.

This was the view from the Library's top floor. This was also taken from my Iphone. Blow it up, examine carefully the view in the picture, and then look at my drawing of it, seen again below for comparison's sake.

If you blow it up, you can see some of the small details which were nevertheless done with care. This was a more rough, approximate rendering of a scene than I usually do. I do not always do the grand drawings with the full coloring job. However, I knew this one was worth putting on the blog from the time I was working on it yesterday morning. The point of drawing it so rough was to create the visual feeling of depth, of three dimensional space and objects, on the page.

I did a similar work about a year ago. When I was up in San Francisco, on my own last April, I was walking past Ghiardelli Square, and I found this view that looked north across the Bay, with Alcatraz, and the hills up in Marin County (toward Sausalito and Novato) were nice and green.

I took this picture to give you a sense of it. I decided, however, that this wouldn't do on its own, and given that I sometimes like to challenge myself, since this challenge is what makes creative work vital, alive, I sketched this in as little time as I could do it. This is the "finished" product of what I came up with.


All told, this work took twenty minutes to complete. I was sitting on these big concrete, stadium-style steps, in the shade overlooking Ghiardelli Square and the Bay for that time, while I was working on it. I put this up because I took a similar approach here. I was trying to give the feeling that the mountain actually goes back in space, that there is this large bay between you and it. Here, I had to do it as quickly as possible, so I used the bare minimum of lines I needed, indicating the form of whatever it was that I was seeing. An example of this would be, if you were trying to draw someone's arm, and it was coming toward your eye, to draw a cyllinder, and the circles indicating it coming toward you. It's a basic trick most drawing teachers and instructors teach, and it works. It really gives that depth to what it is you are trying to produce.

Perspective is what a lot of people get hung up on. Perspective can be a really tricky bastard. It can be difficult to accomplish for people who don't draw often. You can indicate it, though, if you have the patience to take that step. Look at the difference between a perspective drawing, and a line drawing.

You see? There is just a line indicating the top of the mountains. Not nothing, but still, doesn't go as far as it could. Now look at the original again.



See the difference? It goes so much farther in showing you the depth, all three dimensions of the scene. Add in the shadows and that makes the perspective so much more apparent. You can see those structural lines that I described better in this one than you could in the other one I showed.

One thing people say a lot is "Oh, I can't draw! I'm no good at it!" Bull. It isn't about "being good at drawing." It's about getting into what you're doing. You have to have enough patience to express yourself through it. Having patience is the key. That's what a lot of people don't have. I didn't have a lot of patience when I was young. You can learn to draw like a photograph, which I do, but I only do it because I have been doing it for 15 years or longer, at least since I was 6. You can do it, but you don't need to do it. All you really need is a willingness, a patience, and a creative drive to communicate something through the image. I'll have more material for you soon.

See ya, and keep wondering, folks!

Cats & Dogs in the Afterlife

Hi everyone,

I just finished this one up today. It took me a while, because I needed to find a picture of my old dog, Lucy, whom I mentioned. Like I said, she died a long time ago, about 8 years ago, and we've digitized our old photo album pictures since then. So it took me a while to dig it up. I managed to put up a picture of her below.

I think this was taken back in 1999. She was in Denver at this time, as she went to live with my grandparents. I remember being really happy to see her when I would go visit them. I just loved petting her, and being happy to see her, and the fact that she was just so furry. Lucy was an Australian shepard, amd I get the feeling, looking back now, that she was probably a farm dog at heart. Like Fuzz, we adopted Lucy (I think she was from a shelter, but I do not remember how we got her). My parents say she was a nervous dog. Being couped up in an urban house with a small backyard probably made her stir-crazy. I have a feeling if we had lived on a wide-open pasture, she would have been right at home. Anyway, she was a damn good pet to have.

The week Lucy died was not a good week for me personally. There was other bad stuff going on in my life, and that came on top of it all. Unfortunately, we hadn't gotten to see her regularly in the last few years of her life. Back when we first adopted Fuzz, I wondered whether it was disrespectful to Lucy. Then I wondered what it would be like if Lucy and Fuzz had been around at the same time, whether they would get along. It seemed mismatched to own a dog, and then own a cat.

This brings me to one of the central points of this post, and this artwork. Dogs and cats, as creatures, are usually pitted against each other. People see dogs and cats as polar opposites, hence the above movie poster. "Dog people" are supposed to dislike cats, "cat people" are supposed to dislike dogs. This makes me really sad. I like to say that I like both dogs and cats, having owned one of each. It's fun to have all that outward energy and enthusiasm of a dog, like Lucy. The way she used to go after people was sometimes nervewracking for us, but she was a lot of fun for us, too.

Fuzz, on the other hand, was decidedly not a nervous, well, for lack of a better term, personality. Fuzz was not even afraid of dogs. One day, a woman who was walking a rather large dog, asked us if "that little grey cat that was following them" was ours. That was a a surprise reversal of events. Many people think of cats as being aloof, antisocial with people. Fuzz was not that way. Yes, she was solitary, as many cats are, but she would happily introduce herself to people. However, I think Lucy and Fuzz would enjoy each other's company, although they say a dog and a cat take some time to get used to each other.

That's why I got the idea to draw this. It was meant to be a representation of Lucy and Fuzz in the Animal Afterlife together. I drew it as if it were in Colorado or Utah or Wyoming, at the foot of the Rockies. I had no real specific reason for this, I just got the impulse, and I am fascinated by the topography found in these places. This was another landscape involving mountains. Mountainscapes are tricky to capture, but I really enjoy doing them, and seeing the whole thing come together.

I also did this as a late-afternoon, early-evening piece. I love playing with this quality of light. Again, it is a challenge, but I love seeing it come together. In this illustration, you can see that I had difficulty with the light on the grass. I wasn't certain of how the shadows of the grass blades were going to reflect. So I colored in the grass itself, then the light, then the shadow. It came out as an interesting blend of green, orange, and dark.

The source of light here is also particularly important. Notice the shaft of sunlight coming over the mountain. This was intended as religious symbolism. Usually, shafts of sunlight, especially coming down through the clouds, are used in images evocative of God. I have noticed this so much that I have taken to calling such shafts of light "God Beams." Below is just one sample of such an illustration.

See if you can think of any similar images you have seen. I like to use such images from time to time in my own works. I did in my illustration of the Divine Feminine figure clutching an M16 rifle. I do it to keep in touch with that deep, unitary dimension of the Unknown that connects all of us. It finds many expressions in religions, but the religions of the world have their own human flaws and moorings that hinder this expression. In my drawing and storytelling, I like to connect it back with that Spirit. I am still uncommitted on whether to call it God, in the Abrahamic sense, but this does It some justice.

My point was to show Lucy and Fuzz united together in the Great Unknown. I had wondered if they would one day be together, and now they are, and I did this as a celebration, in a way, of that fact. Not of her being dead, but her being in a Peaceful Place now. For Fuzz, I am glad, not that she left, but that she left the way that she did. Even though it was a painful surprise, with how it happened, we did enjoy all of our time together with her. We enjoyed her company up until the very last day. There wasn't a pall of dread hanging over our relationship for the last few weeks or months before she died. If nothing else, I am thankful for that.

Over these past few days, I have mellowed slightly in the emotions I have gone through. I still have flashes of sadness, but it seems to have dissipated quicker than I thought. In a way, I am concerned that I am not more troubled by Fuzz's death. Odd, but sometimes, I feel like the lack of a really potent emotion indicates apathy, even though I do not feel it. Then when the sadness does come, it is always too powerful and overwhelming, and I try to get away from it.

I hope this drawing can be a celebration of Fuzz's life, as well as my love for the pets, past and present, in my care. Even though my level of sadness has gone up and down, I still feel, on the whole, like I want to keep my life as quiet as I can, to honor Fuzz's memory. I don't know exactly why, but that's how I have felt since I learned of her passing. I do feel, however, that I am on the way to doing what I set out to, to moving my life forward, but never letting Fuzz just fade out or be forgotten. I intended this as a testament to the memory of Lucy and Fuzz, both of whom gave and received much joy in their worlds.

See ya, and keep wondering, folks!

Let's Delve into Two Thousand Twelve!

Hi there! To everyone who says that there's nothing that rhymes with 12, I say, "Suck it!" Suck my delve! I'm just kidding, but I just realized a few weeks ago that "delve" rhymes with "twelve." I just had to put that into a title of this post.

Now, onto the picture I have illustrated above. Last week, in the week between Christmas and New Year's Day, I traveled up to Nor Cal, specifically Santa Cruz, to my Dad's relative's place. Along the way, I spotted these rugged mountainsides just south of Santa Barbara. I took a picture, since I am a compulsive picture taker whenever I travel. Then I got the impulse to draw this.

Unfortunately, it took a while, and then got shelved underneath the other books I was working on at the time. However, I picked it up again today and completed it. That's the unfortunate nature of my drawing. For the last few years, I have had more and more priorities in my life, so even though I still draw, I have less time to devote to it. I love working with my hands, when it comes to this. When I am sketching, for a while, my mind is focused, but I don't feel any stress in this focus. I don't have to force it; it is just there. However, I often have to shelve (hey, something else that rhymes with "twelve") something for a few weeks or months, and then come back to it.

This picture below shows just a sample of the types of hillsides I was describing (just next to the 101 Highway, overlooking the beach).

Just for comparison's sake, here's my drawing again. See if they look alike.

So my point in following this impulse was to make a quick drawing (that didn't quite work), but also in doing a good landscape drawing, which I always love doing. I have always had a thing (a fetish, perhaps?) for sketching hillsides and mountains. I have always been fascinated with mountains, hills, slopes, cliffs, canyons and gulches as artistic subjects. So I have been doing sketches and detailed, color drawings of them for a long time.

Here are a few examples of some of the best ones I did in years past. This is one I did of the San Gabriel Foothills, just north of Arcadia, in 2007.

I spotted these from Santa Anita one late afternoon on a Saturday. I just happened to have my notebook with me, and I really wanted to do the late afternoon glow and brilliant shadows on the hills justice. I apologize for this photo still being turned sideways. I crop and rotate these photos in Picasa as soon as I upload them to this laptop, but that doesn't always show up when I go to put them in the text.

It was, of course, done quickly, so I didn't give it much detail. However, I think I got the texture accurately. Look, and see if you can find the brittle, dry-brush feel to the mountainsides with your eye. Admittedly, I did not go heavy on the shadows when I did this. It has taken me longer to make my shadows darker. My studio art teacher used to get on me about that. Speaking of rough drawings, here is one I decided to do while in up Lone Pine this past July, 2011.

Again, the Picasa edits I made didn't seem to compute here. You can see the tones of light better expressed in this one, though. Even though it was done in all of one evening, I did my darndest to capture that late afternoon, early evening glow that the sun casts. Challenging as that is, I love to draw it. I love that type of challenge. Speaking of this glow, I did one about three or four weeks ago, which was about that same light quality, and the shadows it casts.

There must be some trick I'm missing, here. It's been a while since I've used Blogger on a regular basis, so I am still getting used to using all its tools. As you can see, I have changed the blog's settings and appearance, and I am working on embedding videos properly, so that we don't have any more mishaps. I've got some pretty good ideas, so I'm gonna get all the kinks smoothed out.

Anyway, this one was even more rough than the one above it. I began putting the color down even before I had all the details laid out. That might not make sense to you, but to me, it is a big distinction. You have to understand that I used to be quite anal about putting in details, drawing them out very meticulously. I made a big risk of losing the visual details and texture of it by laying out grass in the field, and shadows on that hill.

I picked this because it was winter. The image in my mind of that time of year, December, winter, and Christmastime, was of this snow-dusted landscape. I have spent a lot of time in my drawings expressing the mental snap-shots that I get when I think of something. These aren't necessarily clear-cut or logical, but this is the image I saw in my minds eye when I thought of that time of year.

It comes from trips I used to take to my grandparents' house in Golden, Colorado, outside of Denver. A few times, we drove the whole way. We would always have to get up early, leaving at dawn. Along the way, we would have to drive past the mountains and valleys in Utah. I remember, when we went on this trip at Christmas three years ago, in 2008, the route was unusually covered with layers of snow.

I was taken by the qualities I saw in the scenery: the ruggedness, the cold air, the orange and yellow glow of the late afternoon, and yet, the warm familiarity to the scene. Even though this was a different time, it brought me in touch with my past and memories. These were the visual qualities I wanted to bring to the viewer in this work here.

My point in this drawing was not to make it look exactly like the photo, as it has been in past works. My point, as I explained above, was to communicate the visual feeling of what is in this image. Sometimes, I just want to show the physical texture to the scene, as I like to do with landscapes. Other times, I like to go deeper with my meaning. Especially with illustrations of people, there is often deeper meaning. Whether it is visual, physical, emotional, spiritual, or romantic depth, this has been a cornerstone of what I like to explore in my creative work.

Well, I feel really inspired, having finished that picture, and typed this post. In spite of the kinks with the photos, and embedding the videos, I feel really excited about the future of this blog. Like I said, I've got some really good ideas for artworks and posts brewing up. For instance, I went to the Occupy the Rose Bowl gathering yesterday, I'm working on a picture regarding that unique development, and I should have a good post for you sometime tomorrow night. I'm excited as to what this year holds for creative work in this blog. I have been excited to develop this blog and its spirit.

So see ya soon, and keep wondering, folks!