:tumbling within:

Mostly a week of more introspection, as I perused the box full of sketchbooks some more. I'm fascinated both by some of the forgotten ideas in them that I think could still work and could probably pull off better than I could back then, and also the often cryptic writings along with the drawings, some of which I can tell had to do with several different relationships I was going through at the time but are in some sort of shorthand that makes no sense now, so I presume I expanded on them elsewhere in other writings that I haven't unearthed yet. I did notice that writing overtook drawing at some point, and I changed that by having two separate little books for those different outlets.

Also linked to the past in a way is an exercise on Facebook that I'm involved in right now that involves artists, when people "like" the post, you give them the name of an artist and they are supposed to find something of theirs that they like, whether they know the artist or not, re-post it and spread this virus even further. It'd be nice to see Facebook full of more artwork than ads by the end of the week (although I have ad-blocking in place). I was given Salvador Dali, which was an easy choice, as he was an early inspiration of mine. I also recalled that when I was in art school he was barely covered in my art history classes and he also passed on during that time too.

I've noticed thus far that I've chosen more recent artists than older ones, which probably says a lot about me. In fact I did find a lot of art history uninteresting. Dave McKean, Moebius, Michael Parkes, Joel-Peter Witkin, Ralph Steadman, Masamune Shirow, Aubrey Beardsley, Rick Berry, Mark Ryden, HR Giger, Max Ernst, Robert Williams, Man Ray, Rick Griffin - not many of these are ones you'd find in a big 'ol museum. At least not yet.

So that this posting isn't bereft of visuals, here's a shot of last Saturday night, when we got our first big snowfall of the season.

:documented:

Slight pause in working on the photos from the last shoot, as I may have said before, I'm planning one that may use possibly ten layers and I need the right time and state of mind for that. Sometimes.

For the past few days I've been looking through a box full of old sketchbooks that I filled up, little ones that I would carry around with me anywhere should something pop into my mind, and it appears that it often did. I'm up to 16 of these things by now, which I started around when I went to art school. Appropriately enough those early ones were filled with ideas for class assignments and some very ambitious ideas that didn't bear fruit. It appears sometimes that I'd have just a title or a character and I'd think it would lead to a comic story of some such, but it didn't always stick. I have no idea where I got something like "Pinkfish Rising" from, and apparently I was stuck after that. There are plenty of "cool" song titles and lyrics and such scattered throughout, too, not that I made music beyond some bizarro noisy tracks and collages that I really need to get off of cassettes and into digital format soon.

At times these little books are like a diary, I can definitely trace the rise and fall of one relationship and the long desert after it just from the drawings and what I wrote -  I'll spare you the writing -  plus notes on concerts I saw or trips that I took, like my first time to New York City (wasn't that good), and lists galore. I still make too many lists, this just reminds me that I need to get better at following through on my ideas and plans. It's just that too often real life gets in the way.

So I'm still not one for resolutions but I hope to improve upon this in the new year. Just looking at these sketchbooks alone show that I should have a much larger body of work.

:flash:

More photowork from the recent photoshoot. I have one in the works that may be a combination of possibly ten different shots. This one is interesting, in that I was making a conscious effort to not use the auto settings on the camera, in the hopes of learning about it more, but I tried it on a few shots, and it inevitably pops up the flash, even in the daytime, so this was an interesting result but totally not what I was aiming for on the whole shoot.

Speaking of learning, I've recently started an online course in photography, as there are still aspects that I could use improvement in, and I don't have the time nor money to go to any local schools/classes. I've only seen the first one so far, which was as basic as basic can be, but I hope things pick up a bit. The speaker thus far is not very animated, and if the .ca website address weren't already a giveaway, he's clearly Canadian and I keep hearing subliminal "ehs" in his speech. We'll see how this goes.

:thankful:

More shots from the last photoshoot. I'm pleased that I keep finding more that came out really good, although there are a few that would be contenders if not for one element that I can't fix, even digitally.

So we have this holiday of sorts tomorrow, I suppose I could try and find things to be thankful for...I'm thankful that I still have a creative pulse, especially after years of almost being at zero, and it wasn't a pleasant feeling. I'm thankful for the two who posed for the last two photoshoots I've been documenting here, that's been a tremendous kickstarter, and hopefully a sign of more to come. I'm thankful that I'm aware that I have so many more ideas in store, I just need to master the time, place and money thing to make it all work. I'm thankful for those who appreciate my art. When I was younger, it didn't matter as much but I find that I need more positive feedback, or just feedback in general, as time goes on. Otherwise these would never see the world beyond my own walls. I'm thankful that you actually read this far!

:point and shoot:

Further progress on shots from the recent photoshoot. As stated before I may go back and do further digital modifications, but I'm finding that I do that less and less these days. And I see others go in the other direction and it looks, well, a bit quaint to me now. Just because you have 100 filters in Photoshop doesn't mean you have to use them all. I learned that pretty quick.

Recently I also succumbed to the allure of Instagram. I may be a bit of a camera snob and a bit annoyed at people thinking that their phones are equal, but actually it's quite frightening what quality you can get from them these days. Heck, they're even marketing one mostly as a camera that just happens to be a phone as well. And as far as Instagram, I'm trying to remain "arty" with it, as opposed to posting pictures of food and such. Okay, I did do one shot of sangria. At first there was some annoyance at all the filters that can do the work that used to take me hours to obtain, thinking that people don't have to "work" for it anymore. But you know what, why not make it easier?

I'm rocketnumbernine in case you're curious.

:chrysalis:

Working away at shots from the last photoshoot. I was trying several different settings on the camera, still learning the ins and outs. I found it curious that some of the settings that were recommended for what I was doing seemed to give the shots a blueish cast, which didn't look awful, but not what I was aiming for. That was easily enough corrected, though.

I am pleased that I am doing minimal corrections with each new shoot, but the ultimate aim is to not have to do any at all, unless I'm seriously altering them, and unlike other photos I've done in the past, I find that I don't want to go too crazy here. Although there is still the possibility of further work on them down the line. I don't think I'm done with the pics from the August shoot either.

While I do do some touch-ups to the models' appearances, I try not to go overboard. Unless the concept calls for it, I don't want to alter reality too much here. Of course I want them to be flattering, but I'm not a fan of what I see a lot of where the model's skin looks as smooth as plastic. It's images like that that give people self-esteem issues, I'm sure, even though it's common knowledge by now how much digital alteration goes on these days.

However we get to the end result, I'm fine with it as long as we enjoy it while we're doing it.

:precarious:

This past weekend I succeeded in doing a photoshoot at a location that I had found only a few months ago; usually it can take months or even years for such things to come to fruition in my world, so this is encouraging. The weather even seemed to work in our favor too - it had been rainy all morning but stopped by the time we got there and it wasn't too cold, windy or sunny. In fact the sun didn't come out from behind the clouds until after we left. Spoooky.

To fully capture how these cliffs looked I would've had to either shoot from a boat or use some bizarro lens, but I believe I did my best. I'm still sorting through the shots.

  

 







Despite all the seriousness you see in these shots it was a fun shoot. One can strike dramatic poses overlooking the sea for only so long before you start cracking up.

After all that, in the evening I went to catch the Cinematic Titanic show, which is a live show put on by former cast members of Mystery Science Theater 3000, of which I may be still a tad bit obsessed. This is the farewell tour, alas, as their separate lives make it too difficult for them to get together or tour regularly anymore, but they did it for six years or so, and were thrilled to finally meet their fans. They said they really didn't get much direct feedback back in the day. Except for maybe the letters and artwork people sent in to the show, which they often showed on-air. With that in mind I remembered that I had done a drawing myself, so I managed to unearth it and gave it to Joel himself. He seemed pleased by it.

Mind you, this was done in the proto-internet days, no YouTube or even DVDs, so I drew this from a freeze frame off of a VHS tape.

My experiment in giving away free downloads on deviantArt of my Halloween pics is over, and what was the most downloaded? Can't say I'm surprised:

Let them eat cheesecake, I suppose?