I didn't post anything in January, probably because it wasn't an awesome month. The billions spent on AI hasn't slowed down, so that's neat. Anyway, here's Wonderwall.
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.
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.
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.