No Frills Prompt #1

Posted by melydia on October 19, 2010 1 comment

I did a quick sketch of the photograph from Daisy Yellow’s No Frills Prompt #1 over my lunch break, then took a photo with my crappy cell phone camera, then played with brightness and contrast. I like how it turned out kind of like an old-timey movie.

Wandering Watercolor

Posted by melydia on October 18, 2010 No comment

I am not a painter. At least, not an experienced one. The only paints I own are cheapo watercolors in the impulse-buy art sets I’ve picked up on clearance or at garage sales. Today, on a whim, I decided to try out the paints in my 80-piece Creatology Art Set. (This is just the only link I could find, not an endorsement of this retailer. I paid something like $4 for mine at Michael’s.)

A note on this kit: the markers are nothing special, but I haven’t tried out the crayons, colored pencils, or oil pastels yet. Considering I tend to use one medium at a time, an all-in-one carrying case like this actually isn’t all that convenient for me. The paint tray, for example, is part of the case so you can’t remove them. It was a bit of a pain attempting to balance such a large, bulky item on my overstuffed desk.

The Setup

I started by laying down a bunch of scrap paper and wrapping my keyboard in magazine pages. I am a slob with food; why should I be any different when I art? And before you ask, yes, my desk is always at least this cluttered. I feel accomplished to have cleared off enough space to paint.

Cheapo Watercolors

I suppose that watercolors are by nature pretty inexpensive to manufacture, especially since they can’t dry out the way acrylics can and thus have a near-infinite shelf life. I don’t think I’d used watercolors since I was a child, and fully expected to make an utter mess.

I always keep a stash of free/ad postcards around for just this sort of thing. I went through the stack and pulled out a few made from rougher cardstock so the paint wouldn’t bead. I drew a quick pencil sketch on each, then played with color.

A couple sitting out to dry.

Once they dried, I inked them, erased any glaring pencil marks (a little tricky since the eraser also wanted to remove the paint), and got them ready to mail to some folks on my mailing list (and yes, slots are always open). I have no idea how well they’ll mail; there’s a possibility the paint will all flake off and everyone will received mysteriously blank postcards from me. But hey, at least it’s not another bill! :)

The finished product.

Jack Fell Down by Kenneth Underhill

Posted by melydia on October 14, 2010 No comment

Jack Fell Down by Kenneth Underhill: Jack Stabbish is a salesman who realized one day that he could make money without actually selling anything. He “works” for four companies at a time, riding on charisma alone and quitting before anyone notices he hasn’t actually done anything. At the start of our tale, one of Jack’s former employers is looking into legal action against him, another is facing a major meltdown due to Jack’s neglect, and his bank is looking askance at his four weekly paychecks. The story deals largely with the impact of Jack’s (in)actions on an assortment of reasonably believable characters, with all subplots tying together in the end. (Well, save the one about Janice. That one didn’t serve any purpose.) Jack is a bit of an anti-hero, beloved by all but generally self-centered and conniving. I spent much of the book hoping he’d get his comeuppance, but I didn’t feel any real animosity toward him, and in the end he came off as more genuine than I’d expected. The ending, though somewhat anti-climatic, was surprisingly satisfying. Usually I don’t appreciate that sort of technique for finishing a story, but it worked in this instance. The writing was decently down-to-earth except during the sex scenes, when awkward and flowery metaphors sprouted all over the page as soon as the clothes came off. It amused me. All in all, a good first novel. I’ll be curious to see what Underhill does next – whether he continues to draw on his experiences as a salesman or branches out to something completely different.

Also posted on BookCrossing.

Anthem by Ayn Rand

Posted by melydia on October 12, 2010 1 comment

Anthem by Ayn Rand: Dystopia stories fascinate me because they say so much more about the social issues of the author’s own era than the future. Here we have a collectivist society, where the good of the many outweighs the desires of the one. Our hero is a street sweeper, so designated because when it was his turn for a job, what was needed most was another street sweeper. He dreams of being a scholar, but is shot down for thinking himself better than others by rising above his station. When this was written in the late 1930s, collectivism was a popular idea, though in its extreme eventually contributed to the rise of fanatical nationalist groups such as the Nazi party. This particular story is not an especially memorable tale, since it is just about a misfit in a repressed society who eventually escapes, sees the light, finds the truth, etc. Hurray for individualism. Sometimes I wonder if Rand’s vision of a dystopian future is so popularly maligned because she preached not just cultural individualism, but economic individualism as well. This book in particular emphasizes the importance of every man working in his own interest rather than for the nebulously-defined public good, though she tends to gloss over the drudgery of factory work and those jobs that don’t provide a living wage. Sadly, not everyone has the option of doing the job he wants, or even the job that might serve as a stepping stone to the job he wants. If they did, the world would have a whole lot more artists and a whole lot fewer waiters.

That said, I find Rand’s writings interesting because they represent such a different way of thinking from the norm. Yes, they are preachy, but I don’t find them offensive. After all, the biggest tenet of the philosophy put forth here is the right to choose one’s own path, rather than allowing it to be dictated by another. I can see why that would be an appealing idea, even if in many cases it is woefully unrealistic. After all, we aren’t all lucky enough to inherit copper mines or train companies.

Also posted on BookCrossing.

Good Harbor by Anita Diamant

Posted by melydia on October 8, 2010 2 comments

Good Harbor by Anita Diamant: I started this one on the heels of another Diamant novel, The Last Days of Dogtown. It wasn’t intentional: I had a last-minute drive up to New Jersey and I needed something to listen to should Dogtown end before I got home. I picked up The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown, figuring I should be familiar with it before the BookCrossing Convention in Washington, DC, next year, but I only got about two discs into it before realizing that it was far too stupid to be enjoyable. Not only has Brown evidently never stepped foot in DC, the so-called “facts” he relies on in his narrative have been so often disproved I couldn’t even suspend my disbelief. Life’s too short to read crappy books.

But anyway, this is not a review of that excreble book. This is a review of a very nice book. So let’s start over.

Good Harbor by Anita Diamant: Joyce is a romance writer who recently purchased a vacation home near Good Harbor, Massachusetts. Kathleen is a children’s librarian living in the area who was recently diagnosed with breast cancer. The two meet at Synagogue one week (both are Jewish, though Kathleen converted from Catholicism before getting married) and become fast friends. Together they journey through many changes in their marriages, children, and selves. It’s beautifully written, and has instilled in me a desire to see this magical place called Good Harbor. It sounds just lovely. I was also a little spooked by this book, because some of the details hit pretty close to home. Kathleen’s experiences with breast cancer, for example, are almost identical to my mother’s – who also used to work in an elementary school. The details of a child’s death described later in the book is eerily similar to a friend’s child who recently died. But despite some chills that aren’t really related to the story itself, this was a very pleasant little journey through two women’s lives. It’s not exciting or suspenseful, but it would make a good beach read.

Also posted on BookCrossing.

The Last Days of Dogtown by Anita Diamant

Posted by melydia on October 7, 2010 1 comment

The Last Days of Dogtown by Anita Diamant: Dogtown was a real place in early Massachusetts, reaching its peak population around the turn of the 19th century. Near the end, most of the inhabitants were misfits and loners: widows, freedmen, escaped slaves, prostitutes, and supposed witches. This story, detailing the last decade or so of the settlement, is not so much historical fiction as fiction inspired by history. Little is known about the residents of Dogtown, but this tale weaves a beautiful tapestry of birth and death, love and hate, kindness and cruelty. I think my favorite characters were Cornelius and Easter, and though I was disappointed in the tale of Sammy, it was a reaction to his decisions in life, not the writing style. All the characters felt real, like old friends. The time period fascinated me too, giving me a real sense for how ordinary people lived without weighing it down with famous historical events or people. This book was my introduction to the much-heralded Diamant, and I was not disappointed. Good Harbor is already on the TBR pile; I’ll have to keep an eye out for The Red Tent.

Also posted on BookCrossing.

Weekly Geeks: Read-a-thons

Posted by melydia on October 6, 2010 3 comments

This week’s WG is in honor of the upcoming 24-hour Read-a-thon – fitting, since both were started by Dewey, who is still greatly missed around the blogosphere.

I’m not much for read-a-thons, to be perfectly honest. It’s not the reading part (obviously), but anything that involves staying up extremely late is a bit of a turn-off these days. I don’t know if it’s from getting up too early for work or just part of getting older, but my weekends are about catching up on sleep, not avoiding it.

So while I have no problem with setting aside an entire day to just read, forcing myself to stay awake just to do so doesn’t interest me.

However, if I were to participate in the read-a-thon, this would be my strategy:

  1. Move around. I know if I spend too much time in my recliner I will eventually fall asleep. If I move to the kitchen table, the couch, my desk, or even a cafe, I’m more likely to stay awake.
  2. Short books: graphic novels, children’s/YA fiction, that kind of stuff.
  3. Avoid classic literature at all costs. Some of it is quite good but I find it takes a lot more concentration, and thus energy, to fully comprehend.
  4. Get prior “permission” from my husband. This is less about being “allowed” to do this than ensuring that he’ll leave me alone so I can read.

I’ll cheer on all you read-a-thoners, most likely from the comfort of my own bed, shortly before going to sleep. :)

On Drawing Upside-Down

Posted by melydia on October 5, 2010 2 comments

I don’t mean that quite the way it sounds. I learned this technique from my second Basic Drawing course at The Art League. The idea is twofold:

  1. When drawing something with defined corners or parallel lines, turn it upside down to check your angles.
  2. When drawing from a photograph or other movable object, turn it upside down and draw it that way.

The first notion is excellent for drawing things like cubes. I fixed many a wonky corner by turning it upside-down and giving it another look. I have absolutely no idea why this works. Shouldn’t parallel lines look just as (in)correct from any angle?

For the second one, the purpose is to remove your preconceived notions about what something is supposed to look like in order to concentrate on the shapes you are reproducing. This is actually a very good idea, especially when working with human figures, but I’ve found that sometimes very strange things occur. For example, these two drawings are of the exact same thing, except one was turned upside-down:


(Click on the images for larger versions.)

I have no idea what was going on here. I don’t have the original to share with you, which is probably better for my ego, but it was a fairly generic etching of a woman. I put a “viewing box” (that is, a piece of cardboard with a square hole cut in the middle) to define what part of the image I was going to draw. So I know these were of the same section of the same image. I dunno.

The rest of the turned out okay.

I like copying, but sometimes I wish I could create things like this from my imagination.

Excuses, Excuses (or, Blame New Jersey)

Posted by melydia on October 4, 2010 3 comments

I’m going to let you in on a little secret: my blog posts are almost never written on the day they are posted. I write them up days, even weeks in advance and schedule them so they post around noon. I feel terribly productive if by Monday evening I have posts scheduled for the rest of the week.

On Wednesday I was suddenly sent to New Jersey for work. Thus, I wasn’t even at my computer when I “posted” about Moominland Midwinter, my September Experiments, or 24-Hour Comics Day.

Unfortunately, due to this disruption in my schedule, I did not feel up to creating a 24-page comic in 24 hours. My husband didn’t either, as this week he’d had to deal with various stressors as well, including busted speakers and a busted foot. So we decided to sit this one out.

Maybe next year, eh?

24-Hour Comics Day

Posted by melydia on October 1, 2010 1 comment

For the first time, I will be participating in 24-Hour Comics Day, wherein you produce a 24-page comic in 24 hours. I’m doing it at home alongside my dear husband, whose 3D art is not exactly portable. That’s fine. The closest host venues are Baltimore and Norfolk, both a bit of an unwieldy drive away. If I’m going to stay up late being silly, I’d much rather do it from the comfort of my own home, where at least I can walk around in my jammies.

Because this is my first time, I’m going simple: retelling a famous tale with chickens. Just which famous tale will be revealed afterward. Look for a recap post early next week.

Anyone else participating in this (or any other) ridiculous internet challenge?

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