I draw and paint things and write silly stories to go along with those things. It's something I do because why not?
As much as I'd like to take a day and go hike somewhere beautiful to paint, it's much easier and realistic to not do that. And that's okay. While I don't have a fancy marble fountain in my yard, the bird bath provided by a previous owner is a fine subject. And so are birthday parties.
Keep practicing the things I'm not good at because, well, how else am I supposed to suck less? It's neat to see progress. And continually humbling as I gain appreciation for the skill and technique of the artists out there who make things look effortless. Talent, sure. And thousands of hours of work. Never discount the work, effort.
I'm a fiend for the confident loose sketches of urban artists and watercolorists who can paint buildings and make them blend in with everything else. And it's going to take hundreds, thousands of practice attempts. Maybe, one day, I'll get smart about my process and more efficiently iterate on smaller details. No. That's silly talk. And two film students make a boom boom.
I watched a tutorial that was supposed to transform my buildings from boring to better. It took a few tries and... slightly better? They're just boxes, how hard can this really be? It's wild how something that looks so easy requires a lot of practice when the easy doesn't come natural. Also, bulldozers are cool.
Discouragement. It sucks the motivation right out of me. These five attempts at an old seaside manor were tough to do because I kept doing things that didn't produce the results I wanted. That's part of learning, right? I need to try and fail a lot. Fail repeatedly and hopefully learn from the mistakes. Also, a human in charge of capital golfs no more.
It gets easier to give myself room to play and not expect too much from what I try. And I sometimes use movies as sources of inspiration on what to practice, especially with faces which will remain a challenge for the foreseeable future.
I pass by a beautiful grazing pasture with a small river frequently and, ever since taking up art, have wanted to paint it. This is my third attempt. I still have a lot of practice to do. Back to the original, did I intend to paint this pasture with the forethought it'd go on this site and be related with a story about wealthy death? No. And that's okay, too; my site, my rules.
Sometimes I'll spy a weed growing out of the street and smile. That a seed found it's way to fertile ground and springs upward out of a concrete crack. Nature's rad. More rad than an expansive data center, even if its foundation contains a tomb.
A neighborhood lemonade stand manned by children who sell Molotov cocktails. That was the idea. I initially tried and failed because complex scenes are beyond me. And that's okay, because I'll try again. Such as with the watercolor of matches which are an integral part of arming any Molotov cocktail. Then, a couple of months later, some watercolor sketches of people holding flaming bottles. Are they awesome? No. That stroller in the new version is WAY better than the stroller in the original. And that I am happy about.
I guess this is more a practice of patience than anything interesting. The story was stuck in my head. I had to go with stairs at a gala type of event. And it's obvious from the noodly ascending lines for stairs there's room for improvement. Not that I want to draw technical stairs. There's visual tricks to make things in the distance a bit abstract, less defined, yet still obvious as to what it is. Things to learn.
When I look at some of the "simpler" watercolor nature paintings, I think "that's not so hard." And then I try it. And realize that "simple" isn't easy. I knew this, though. It's the brush strokes, they look like something I can ape. Two different greens next to each other give depth to a patch of grass, yet I try and it gets muddy somehow. Technique. Don't have it yet.
Sometimes I get an idea in my head and I see it through despite the idea's shortcomings. Like these attempts at "The Shining" elevator without the blood. How hard can painting an interior setting be? Well, shit. Three tries and I gave up. Not that I want to throw any of these away, no. They're going to the island of misfit artworks, like so many others.
After a recent video watch of using a water brush with a mix of permanent and non-permanent fountain pen inks, and then another video demonstrating a water brush with a carbon pencil, I ended up with some sketches. And the charcoal tree looked like a whale tail. Naturally, I had to try to sketch a whale tail breaching the brine. And then came the inspiration about our oceanic mammalian brethren.
I took advantage of extra free time over an Easter weekend to practice back-to-back watercolors of the same scene. Three versions. Three times the practice. These are done from a reference photo of a seaside scene from a book about Shetland knits. Yes, it would be way cooler to be en plein air at the scene. The source image was gloomy and gray, quite calm, actually. A fitting scene to imagine a story of a bloated billionaire's corpse gently bumped against shoreline rocks by calm waves.
AI slop permeates through online image searches and it gets difficult sourcing images. There are still amazing artists who share their craft. I thank them. Click that YouTube link, "Easy Cityscape Watercolor". Watch it. Think, "that doesn't look too difficult." Try it. "Shit. It's not that easy." What is easy? Working an Archer quote into the inspirational story.
Oh the rush of group lawn darts. Stand in a circle facing outward and, at the same time, all yeet the jarts into the sky as high as possible. Then run to all corners of the compass. Fun. Almost dropping the cell phone in the toilette gets the heart up, but not like running from metal darts falling from the sky in unknown trajectories. Sometimes low tech is best tech.
How believable is it that, during a routine flyover inspection of a power plant in a helicopter, a passenger would fall out and drop straight down a smoke stack? Swish. It's not uncommon for people to fall out of helicopters in action movies, right? So a rich coal baron falling to his death down a smoke stack doesn't seem like too much of a stretch. Maybe my memory has a glitch, but wasn't the Salieri actor from Amadeus also dropped from a helicopter in Scarface? Maybe that's where I got this idea.
I miss the days of riding bikes and jumping rickety ramps made out of scrap wood. Would I have jumped a dead body with my buddies if we came across one? Probably not. Who knows about kids these days and the urge to post radical stuff to the socials. If I ever feel bad about the content I post to this site, I remind myself there's greedy people out there perfectly content with starving children as long as their profits go up. That's, like, one of the tamest examples I can think of. We're a sad species in many ways.
I found a reference photo from an old TV show that would be perfect for the diner who loves the lobster bisque. I'm still learning how to draw people. Obviously. There will be lots of uglies in the future. What I didn't realize, until a few weeks later when I watched the episode that the still came from, was that this Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode featured a secret restaurant of wealthy old men where the prized special entree wasn't a rare meat from the stepped of Africa. No. The meat in the special comes from one of their own ranks, selected by the matron at her discretion. Which I think is neat.
The 1980's buddy cop comedy Beverly Hills Cop has a scene that could be used for civil disobedience. Or teenagers who want to cause low-risk trouble. I used the memory of that scene to paint a still life of a rag and stick. I could have used a potato instead of a rag in remembrance of the potato I spied shoved up my truck's tail pipe as I walked to it one morning on my way to work (lucky eye spy). I didn't have a spud on hand, so an over-folded rag it is. Maybe after a lot more practice, next year's version will look like a rag and a stick.
How much remorse would you have for the person who came up with adding commercials for paying streaming subscribers if they were found drowned in a toilet? Also, I didn't want to draw or paint a toilet, so I found, what looked like, a nice vanity to paint. I learned again that color is difficult. And how much detail am I willing to implement is limited only by my patience, which is limited. So there. Sometimes my patience lasts and I can work through mistakes, or I give up. This one is about 70/30: stick with it/then give up.
Ever wonder if an escort snaps and kills their client because of their dumb requests? Yeah, me neither. This isn't about that. It's about how I struggle to draw from a concept that isn't clear in my head. Thankfully, the Internet is a huge repository of things I can draw from for my own detestable creative desires. Mental note: subtle curves of the body are just as difficult as facial features. I can botch a line for a door frame and it will still look like a doorway. Get the arc wrong on a person's calf and it becomes a blemished focal point.
The thought of a religious pastor owning a private jet inspired me to draw a picture about it. Yes, I understand I'm going to hell for my hateful thoughts. Thanks. But really, though. Which way would his soul go? Does God dig prosperity teachings of wealthy pastors? I don't have any answers, much like I struggle with smudges on pieces like this. Again, practice. And pay attention to how different paper textures respond to pencil and smudging because there isn't enough things to remember.
The reference image had thick batches of thorns throughout and I'm not sure how to paint those in. Anyway. Bits of progress. And a lucky guy bagged a billionaire. On accident. Because when you sight in a rifle atop a desert ridge amidst blooming cacti, the beautiful scenery can be a distraction. I'll be excited when I can paint such scenes.
My first attempt at quick color studies after the initial sketch. Are they awesome? No. And that's okay. I found I enjoyed the low risk, quick exercise. Disconnect myself from expectation and play with swirling together colors and see what happens when applied to paper. That's a couple of steps out of the many that requires practice. Muscle memory. Oh, and don't forget the dude without the parachute because that's important. Death comes for us all. Especially for those who exit an airplane in flight without a parachute.
Something amuses me about staff murdering their boss. And, until I can draw that, especially the people part, these concepts will have to do. What was the final straw? Was it an offhand nasty comment? Complete lack of recognizing humanity in another? Was it a team effort and how many people were involved? Do the wealthy with servants ever wonder if their staff wants to kill them? Do they worry?
I suck at watercolor and need practice. This is a couple of versions of a cab, both not awesome. Oh, and wealthy hedge funder gets rolled over. Did the idea to paint a cab come before the thought of running over a greedy person? I was so focused on trying to get a brush with just the right amount of paint and water applied to the right spots on the paper, I have no idea which thought came first. Doesn't matter. That insurance would cover a new bumper in such a situation brings me joy.
I dig pen and wash type images and tried an ink and wash version of a California mission. Article is about a bludgeoned-to-death billionaire. Because it's easy to think of reasons to accidentally disperse with bad people, ala every. single. movie. with a hero that kills bad people. Also, I couldn't help my brain from connecting the statue to a scene from a movie and I wanted to nurture that connection. Scalp the scalpers!
I'm not a hardcore manga fan, though I do dig the style and the artists' ability to handle complex perspective. These are examples of how not to handle perspective. Unless the perspective is about what's more of a loss to the world: a beautiful musical instrument or a greedy dick head? Yes, murder is wrong. Except when the Grim Reaper or Fate does it like in those Final Destination flicks. That last one with the high restaurant had some neat perspective shots, maybe I should hunt down some stills.
Want to see a couple of ugly sketches of a maid? Here they are, because I need the practice. It's not that I wanted both of these to arc. Am I going insane? Do I need to draw a clock and have someone confirm I can draw a clock with hour and minute hands pointing to the correct spots? Did watching an episode of The Expanse while drawing this subconsciously skew my perspective or some wacky thing? Like, I did it once in the first image and then did it again. WTF? Anyway. Though the plot of a poor murdering a wealthy asshole is as old as time, I like the idea of regular people making the world a better place.
These are a couple of sketches of waitstaff with subtle knives. I wised up and decided to use stock photos for a crutch. Why would I feel bad about that, I don't know. Should I feel bad about thinking up images to create and stories about death to go along with them? I blame horror movies! That's it. Because, in my head, the blood splatter of an accidental stabbing of a patron by waitstaff showers about like the severed limbs did in the club scene from Kill Bill.
Who misses being a delinquent youth that causes trouble? The thought of today's youths causing havoc with drones amuses me. These sketches are about one idea. Maybe, one day, I'll pick up a newspaper and read about some gifted youth who developed an open-source tracking and payload delivery system for drones armed with water balloons. And that system gets used on the regular to spread mayhem among the wealthy in their own backyard.
The sketch and article that inspired this silly site: a crude drawing of a head in a noose. And an article about a beheaded billionaire. But why? I don't know. Maybe the angst of growing older and things not getting better and I look around at the shitty things the wealthiest among us do for greed and... It's fucking frustrating. So I'll learn to draw and paint and other creative tasks away from the computer and post all the nonsense I want to post because I can.