A week or so ago, I was in the Fergus Scottish Corner Shop to pick up a few UK treats, and on a whim picked up a pack of M&S Digestives. When we got home, I had one with my tea, and was suddenly flooded with memories.

( a lengthy memoir-slash-rant not just about cookies )

the songs of robins

I'm sure this is not the first time I have posted this one, but it remains ever true

My 35th acrylic is a study of Walk to the Museum NYC by Brian Blood. I cropped and modified the composition to fit my canvas and focus on the area that most appealed to me. Unlike the original, I limited myself to a minimal palette of ultramarine, burnt umber, and white. I've used that palette once before and have been wanting to get back to it — this picture suggested to me that it would lend itself to such treatment.

This morning someone phoned our landline. Which is enough of a shock as to be post-worthy on its own, but not why I'm writing:

The guy left a message [cuz I always let unknown numbers leave a message] and it was clearly intended for someone else. So I called him back to let him know he didn't reach the guy he wanted to, and checked to confirm whether he had A) typoed the number or B) been given our number by mistake.

Just wondering: is this the common response to this situation? Or are people more likely to ignore the message, say fuck it, and not think about it any more?

getting something creative done this afternoon when I didn't feel like it

in this case, it was only doing some lettering for upcoming comic strips, so not like real artsy or anything... but at least I did something and didn't just sleep [so wrung out and beat today]

getting a bluetooth running for the first time ever — I feel like a Jetson!

learning a valuable lesson — today in particular, a valuable art lesson

Almost every book on drawing or painting stresses the value of values [lights and darks], and they are an aspect of art I have long taken for granted. But, now that I've started painting [and working in colour as opposed to the black and white of my comics work], the whole concept of value becomes more challenging for me. Learning to see the lightness or darkness of a colour is not always trivial for me. But all my recent lessons have been emphasizing the importance of this learning, so I finally reached the point where I am trying to pay more attention.

Almost every painting book recommends the exercise of painting a value scale, which looks something like this:



However, since my art skills are surpassed by my procrastination skills, I have never done so. I always handwaved and said yeah yeah I get it. Until today.

I approached the problem logically, and figured that a half-and-half mixture of black and white paint should give me a middle value like 5.

Not so.

It was with considerable consternation that I discovered a 50-50 mixture gave me a result barely distinguishable from 9. In fact, a 90% white - 10% black mixture gave me a result much like 7.

Up until now, when I painted, I mixed what I needed but never paid too much attention to how much of what I used. I just mixed til it worked. But today, by approaching this in a systematic fashion, I have learned a new appreciation for the darkening power of paints. That's gotta be worthwhile knowledge to have, right?

a perfect nap

I was sitting on the couch after getting a few things taken care of, and accidentally nodded off... not for long, maybe half an hour. But I woke up feeling like it was exactly what I needed then, and like this is how I always want to feel after a rest. It was so restorative that I was a bit stunned.

a new album from The Linda Lindas



Gotta tell ya, I find a lot of these songs uncommonly well-crafted for punk rock, and for such young creators....

My fifth gouache is a tribute to musical and visual artist Gizelle Smith. The hair was particularly challenging — I don't think I nailed it spectacularly, but I also don't know that I am capable of doing it much better than this now, either.