Curmudge's Sutff

something I am grateful for today

2026-04-24T12:13:43Z

my birthday!

For decades, I have usually treated my birthday as just another day, nothing worth making a fuss or big deal about. But, a couple of weeks back, I realized that I was genuinely looking forward to it this year.

And I don't know why. It's not like it's a landmark number, or like I have any unusual plans, or whatnot. I guess I'm just happy to be here.

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epiphany

2026-04-18T22:21:10Z

Ever since I was about ten, I always hated my nose. Way too big.

I complained about it to anyone unfortunate enough to be nearby, and during high school I'd often tell people how I planned to save up for a rhinoplasty. Once I reached middle age, I was more or less resigned to it and didn't dwell on it so much, didn't plan to change it anymore cuz it seemed like a waste of money... but I still never liked it. Even today, I am fussy about my selfies, finding tricky camera angles to try and minimize the “damage”. Clearly still self-conscious about it.

But, the other day, when I was talking with a friend about those old days, I suddenly realized: no one else had ever said anything about it.

I mean, I was bullied and picked on a lot as a kid, about numerous things... but never about that.

Why was I the only one who had a problem with it? Where did this idea come from? [Will I ever know? And how much does that matter?]

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called out

2026-04-08T22:55:22Z

In the novel I'm reading today, I suddenly felt pounded by the realization that someone else Gets Something® that I thought I was The Only One Who Got It®. Here's the relevant passage from Star Shipped by Cat Sebastian:

“Why isn't it enough?” Simon asks when they're in the car heading back to the city, Edie passed out on the back seat between them.

“What isn't enough?”

“They love me. And I love them?” He doesn't mean for it to be a question. “I mean, I do. But not, like, actively. Except Nora.” He tries to fill his lungs. “And my mom?”

Charlie doesn't ask what it means to love someone but not actively love them, which is good because Simon doesn't have any answers. All he knows is that he's unsatisfied down to his bones, greedy for something he can't identify.

[emphasis added]

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something I am grateful for today

2026-04-02T01:21:02Z

Today I finished drafting the script for my graphic novel. ~~Now to draw it!~~ Now to figure out how to draw it!

This is such an odd project for me, and such an odd place for my head to be in during a project. I can imagine all sorts of problems and complaints readers will have with what I'm doing and how I'm doing it, but none of them dissuade me. I feel like I've never before made a comic that is so much for me, and if other people don't like it, that doesn't mean I'm wrong. It's weird not needing to worry about audience reaction....

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This is the year.

2026-03-30T22:07:12Z

This is the year I re-invent myself.

I didn't choose this year, more like it chose me... and why now, I don't know. But there it is — I can feel it. This year I re-invent myself as a cartoonist, as a painter, and [if I can manage to tackle poetry] as a writer, too.

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something I am grateful for today

2026-01-10T01:11:59Z

Getting the dishes done, even though I so felt like bailing on them: Tomorrow Morning Me will be very grateful.

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something I am grateful for today

2025-11-18T23:14:55Z

making a breakthrough [okay, maybe more like a baby step forward] in designing a character for my graphic-novel WIP

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No Idea: 1967

2025-10-19T18:24:24Z

My 61^st acrylic is another in my projected No Idea series.

( the 'story' behind it )

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No Idea: 1965

2025-10-05T17:51:11Z

My 60^th acrylic is another in my projected No Idea series.

( the story behind it )

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life teaches us some lessons over and over

2025-09-29T22:27:45Z

And over.

At one point this afternoon, I was completely stymied by traffic and could not drive where I wanted to when I wanted to. At which point I began to loudly and relentlessly F-bomb the other drivers around me [a couple in front of me in particular, who had behaved less than ideally]. After the jam cleared and I was on my way, I continued to curse no one in particular [the cosmos perhaps].

And then, as if I heard a voice in my head, I suddenly thought, I am so sick of being The Guy Who Does That®. At which point I went quiet. And felt a bit teary. And asked myself if I might do better to simply play the hand that traffic deals me [as I must do regardless], without all the agitating histrionics.

We shall see how long this new leaf remains turned over. After all, I've turned that particular one before....

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moments

2025-09-22T17:13:55Z

The other day we went to visit Ma [my mother-in-law] at her long-term care placement, as we've done semi-weekly for like half a year now. During that time, I've come to recognize and be more familiar with some of the other residents.

One in particular is a woman who might well be about our age or maybe not much more. Wheelchair-bound [like almost all the residents in Ma's section], white-haired, tall, very thin, with an elegant patrician face, the sort of bone structure that preserves your beauty for life. Most likely she was movie-star lovely in her youth. The thing I notice about this woman is that she always looks sad. Almost half the times I've seen her, she's been crying about no-idea-what. Sometimes she will let out an angry outburst of "Get out!" directed to the empty hallway in front of her... but except for those times, she is non-verbal. [Again, like almost all the residents in Ma's section.] When she's not crying or yelling, she sits quiet, gazing above everyone else's heads, looking utterly forlorn.

I remember a time that I couldn't help thinking that this must be a helluva way to live.

Last time we visited, a man about our age showed up. I don't recall seeing him before, but the staff greeted him by name, so he must be a regular. [TBH I've never noticed many regular visitors in that section besides ourselves — maybe we visit at unusual times.] He had a generous colourful bouquet with him, and brought it to the aforementioned lady, announcing that today was their fiftieth anniversary.

And that woman lit up. She wasn't able to speak to her husband but she kept her eyes locked on him and her smile never dimmed. She took the flowers from him, posed for him to take a picture, then a nurse took a picture of them together, and the whole time she looked rapturously happy.

I'd been thinking that she lived a joyless life, but here a moment of deep joy came to her, and she recognized it and revelled in it. And I found it so intensely moving to see her, that my eyes got wet and I had to take care not to let people see. We took Ma off somewhere else then, but that meeting of that couple wouldn't let go of me. I've been thinking about it ever since [my impetus to write about it, obviously].

I keep thinking that her life does have its own moments of Goodness, and those are probably what she lives for. And, in that respect, she's perhaps no different from any of the rest of us.

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No Idea: 1960

2025-09-04T01:16:05Z

My 59^th acrylic is another in my projected No Idea series.

( the story behind it )

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No Idea: 1962

2025-08-29T20:15:50Z

My 58^th acrylic is sorta my 55^th because I did the underdrawing for it back in January, then left it untouched til now. An attempt to let Expressionism [and maybe Fauvism] inform my approach a bit more than usual.

( the story behind it )

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something I am grateful for today

2025-08-16T21:23:54Z

Getting enough comic strips drawn to give myself a buffer of time so that I can try to produce a painting as a gift for an upcoming special occasion.

[Sometimes my creative life feels like I'm spinning plates.]

[Actually, the other parts of my life do, too. Just Sayin®.]

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good?

2025-07-24T00:02:36Z

I was recently talking with Barbara about a local artist [acrylic painter] I have met and conversed with a few times... and how I always find it flattering but odd when I realize that said artist talks with me [and about me] as if I am a peer. Barbara says that I am one and should certainly see myself that way, but I have trouble with this. Then she got talking about whether I realize that I am a good artist, and that my art is good.

Afterward I thought about it for a while, and realized that I do think that my work is generally Good Enough®, but I don't think of it as Good®. Since then, I've been struggling to define for myself just what the difference is, between good enough and good.

Finally I settled on something like this: if I look at a piece of mine, and I don't see things that I wish I had done differently, or parts that aren't quite what I would like.... if the flaws are not glaring, but are acceptable instead, then I can say the work is good.** Then I got thinking about which pieces of mine I can say that about.

I came up with four. Out of sixty years of arting.

Not sure where I'm going with this, I still need to mull over and hash out. Wondering if other people make a similar distinction between good-enough work and good work. I just wanted to get this down while I thought of it.

** and is this how I judge whether other people's work is good? Not sure that I do. Yet more sutff to mull over....

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New Me For No Reason!®

2025-07-21T23:50:20Z

Seven years ago I grew everything out:

and kept it that way until today:

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something I am grateful for today

2025-05-26T22:07:32Z

An entire day free of obligations. I honestly cannot remember the last time. [I always figured that days like this were what retirement would be like, but boy did I figure wrong.]

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something I am grateful for today

2025-04-24T13:23:57Z

making it this far!

Dunno what's different about this year, but I was really looking forward to this birthday and am glad to have it. Shaping up to be a great day!

[What's more, it's my first day this year wearing my summer shoes — always a Big Event®]

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lesson

2025-04-16T00:05:16Z

As a part of training my eye and hand for a new upcoming project, I've been drawing studies of Lee Holley's Ponytail panels from the early 60s. And I find myself learning [yet again] the lesson that comes from pretty much any 20th-century cartoonist: while the drawing may appear and feel pretty simple, it is deceptively simple. There is always a lot more intricate work involved than that. Always an inspiring eye-opener for me.

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Sands

2025-02-17T22:07:05Z

My 56^th acrylic is, once again, a visual that mysteriously popped into my head and stayed there. (As usually happens with any abstract that I feel moved to pursue to completion.) There's something about this colour palette that seems to connect with me, seeing as I used this same one last year. I can see me using these colours to sub for the white/gray/black palette I'm accustomed to working with in my cartooning, and doing value studies that way. (I even have a vague idea for the next one...)

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musings

2025-02-11T12:43:50Z

A few times now I've mentioned the graphic novel I'm working on this past year or so. [And, if it gets out of hand, it may get too long for me to get it done while I'm still here.] Anyhoo:

Today I got thinking, "Am I being ridiculous to work on something like this when the world seems to be falling apart around me? I mean, for the first time in my life, I am looking at the very real chance that my country may disappear and be swallowed up by a neighbour... causing untold stress and disruption and chaos. And then, being able to draw a comic will become the last thing on my agenda. Society may disintegrate beneath my feet, and I'm still just plugging away at my comic book like all is well??"

I've thought that a few times lately, but when it happened today, I thought something else: "Yes, there is a chance this could happen. But, if I'm being brutally honest with myself, there's a far better chance that I could have a heart attack or stroke at any moment, and I won't be able to finish my novel then, either. But this has always been true, and I didn't let it stop me from trying. So maybe I similarly shouldn't let the state of the world stop me."

Today I feel like I understand a bit better what the Beats meant in the Fifties when they said, "When The Bomb drops, it will find us painting and writing poems."

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pups

2025-01-19T20:01:52Z

My 52^nd and 53^rd acrylics are, as you can see, both pups. One is a gift, one is for putting up at the cafe and [hopefully] selling. I've already realized that my animal paintings are the closest I get to “crowd-pleasers”. So, when it comes time to make a gift, that's what I fall back on. But I've also already begun to wonder how much these paintings actually qualify as fine art. Like, do they say anything? Do they express anything about me? Maybe they're just an expression of “my love of animals”, and maybe that's enough, I dunno....

On the other hand, I can think of an artist I see on Instagram who only ever paints horses, and she quite cheerfully admits that's all she ever has any intention of painting, because that's what she loves most. And I've never questioned her legitimacy as An Artist®, so why do I need to question my own?

On the third hand, lately I've gotten more of an urge to spend at least some of my easel time working on less accessible pieces — I can feel things in me wanting to get out. I've already resigned myself to those new pieces not being understood or enjoyed, but I still feel like they'll be worth trying anyway.

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something I am grateful for today

2025-01-08T02:50:30Z

a clear sunny day, dry quiet roads, serene music in the car, and some peaceful time with just my thoughts

oh and a car heater that works [incl heated seat, woot!]

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my musical discovery of the year

2024-12-31T22:55:25Z

It seems that, every year, of all the music I discover, there is one particular standout artist for me who turns me into a major fan. Most often, it is someone new [to me]... but not always. For example, last year my musical discovery was Richie Kamuca — I was listening to records forty years ago that Kamuca played on, but at that time I wasn't focusing particular attention on his specific contributions to those records. Last year, I was given the chance to listen to him more closely and more widely, and finally became smitten.

But my discovery for 2024 is someone I had never heard until a couple months ago: Cory Weeds. He's an exciting find for me — not only for his own playing, but also for the record label he runs which issues work by many other wonderful artists, lots of whom are also new-to-me. There is such a wealth of good music to be discovered here! You can bet that Cory and other Cellar Music artists will occupy my ears frequently in 2025.

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latest paintings

2024-12-31T20:58:11Z

My 51^st acrylic is a nocturne of the Christmas fair at Hebden Bridge, which we visited in 2018. I got into how the night suggests rather than displays things, and really got into the depths of the lights on the tree. There's no razzle dazzle in this work, but I feel like maybe there's some honesty about a night I remember fondly.

My tenth gouache is a horned owl in the snow. This was my first time using an angle brush — I only recently picked up a few of those, in both bristle and soft synthetic — and I really enjoyed how it handled. I can see myself using them a lot in future. And, once again, the limited palette I have felt my way into for animal paintings came in handy here.

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