Ood to a Grecian Urn

I painted this for a friend of mine, who's an obsessive fan.

Not necessarily of Dr. Who - he's kind of an amazing dude.  Once he becomes interested in a thing, he learns - nay memorizes - whatever aspects of that thing interest him.  He can name the Yankees players from  the inception of the team.  I'm always in awe of the sheer amount of information that's packed away in his brain.

I'm the idiot who introduced him to Dr. Who.  Within two days, he knew more, and could remember more details about the series than I ever could.  I'm always impressed when talking to him about anything.

He's also incredibly clever, with this vast well of knowledge. As we were rambling about tv shows (Dr. Who in particular) he said:

'You know what would be hilarious?  If someone painted 'Ood to a Grecian Urn'."

So I obliged.

Celtic Thunder and crazy naked man

Finished that Celtic Thunder tech through and DVD shoot, and developed a dead-on Dublin brogue while doing it.  For whatever reason, if I'm working 12+ hours a day with people who have an accent different than mine, I end up talking like someone (someplace?) else.

I am now slowly working the word 'mine' back into my vocabulary, and filing away useful bits of slang in case I ever have need of them again.

The hours were bollocks (bad), but the crew to a man was the dog's bollocks (completely fantastic).  I guess this equates to the US difference between 'shit' and 'the shit'.  Interesting, how the entire connotation of a word can go from such a negative to a positive with just a little modifier!

I have some scene rearranging and thinking to do about the novella, and glad to have a little time to get back to it. I would like to publish again before I'm 80...


So the other interesting part of my week...the crazy naked man.

Originally, this fellow contacted me to do a charcoal drawing for a poster - a poster for some avant guarde theater performance where he's naked and tied up.  That bit doesn't really bother me - I have performer friends who stick fish hooks in their eye sockets, or get branded and suspended from piercings on stage.  (Not everyone's cup of tea, but I've seen some interesting things.)

This dude, however, managed to creep the hell out of me.  How?

He FaceBook requested me, supposedly to talk about poses.  The conversation quickly degenerated into things like 'will you enjoy tying me up' (no, it will be part of the job and you wouldn't actually be tied up - this is a drawing) to 'bring your friends and they can eat sushi off of my naked body' (ewwww - can we say sanitary issues, much?).   Around the time that he offered to 'let me make more money' by 'having my friends take him to clean their homes naked while his clothes stay at my place'  I told him that I'm an artist, not a dominatrix, and he really needs to find a professional to fulfill his needs.

Yeah.  Creeped.  I can't even make this stuff up.  There's a huge difference between commissioning a drawing and getting your jollies off, and I draw.  Gack.  Hack. Spew.

I hope you are as befuddled as I am, and at least twice as amused.  I need some mental floss.

Happy New Year! Goals and re-assessment

Hi guys, and happy new year!

First, I really have to thank all of you guys who follow and read this blog - it's great motivation to keep going on it.

Looking back over the year, I'm seeing one of my own issues as the 'scattershot' method - there are lots of things I want to accomplish, and I bounce around from one to the next without much rhyme or reason.

The real reason? I see something that inspires me, then 'woosh', I'm off and running in that direction until I see another butterfly. How on earth does one get around this problem when having so many interests?

I'm not sure. Maybe my short - term goals were too short term, and likewise with the long ones. So, I'm setting some new goals for myself this year, hopefully the clearer terms will make them more achievable.

1. In three months, I will have a freelance gig doing art with a gaming company. The two I'm interested in working with are WhiteWolf and Wyrd Games.

2. Now that the heat is not an issue in the house, the SO and I will take one day out of every weekend together and get out of the house to do something. That something will not consist only of driving to a local restaurant to eat.

3. By the end of this month, my Shoggoth manuscript will be 100 pages or more. It does not have to be perfect, or completely finished, just longer.

4. By the end of this week, I will have joined a gym. I will commit to going there twice a week whenever I am working from home.

5. I will bring my shiny new camera on all weekend outings with SO. I will NOT obsess about taking proper stock photos - rather, I will enjoy taking pictures. If some work as stock, great.

6. I will write at least one screenplay page every day, no matter where I am.

7. I will draw something every day, even if it's just doodling.


What are your goals for the year?

Threadless

I know I promised those pictures...I found my camera about an hour ago and am charging the battery as we speak. Yeah, I'm that person.

As a matter of fact, I just misplaced my ph-never mind, its in my lap. Yeah, totally that person.

While designing t-shirt for filmmakeriq.com, I got to thinking that I'd like to try some more creative ones. Don't get me wrong, those tees are going to be totally awesome, snarky, and fun!

They're not pure art though - they're promotion. So I'm going to just play around with stuff and maybe post some designs that don't mean anything on Threadless.

Sometimes, art should just be art, and a t-shirt should just be cool.

Music video I gaffed

playing with photo montages

window freaky3 copy
Originally uploaded by digitalis_vitae

Effects are cool :)

This is one of those situations where it's impossible to get what you want with one shot - the interior of the space was very dark, and it was a really sunny day.  So either the windows were blown completely out, and you could see wood, or you could see through the windows and the interior is completely dark.

A photographer has a number of ways to solve something like this, depending upon the number and type of toys at their disposal.

One way would be to have an external flash inside the barn,

and set exposure for the scene outside the windows.

I don't have one of those.

Another way could be to set up on a tripod and take multiple shots HDR style, that will meld seamlessly together.

Didn't have that, either.

While I'm generally a minimalist, I wasn't there to take pictures - I was at this location to do lighting for a commercial, not run around with my still camera, so no tripod.

I couldn't get the idea out of my head though.

So I took a couple of handheld shots at different exposures and mashed them together to the best of my abilities.

(I don't recommend this method if you have a better option, and I'll spare you the number of hours and explecitives it took to get those %&$^ window frames to line up from different angles.)

Considering the lack of forethought on my part, the final product isn't so bad.