June 2005

An experiment in watercolor.

Color stands out in my notebooks because most of what I’ve ever made has been with pen and only pen.

Another one of a girl. Again, slightly punky hair.

I like the cross-hatching on the sweater.

Funny that I never know, as I look through old drawings, what will catch my eye to post. I think I’m trying to post things that look “finished” somehow.

Have you noticed all these “drawings” are in pen? Yes, most were done with a Micron Pigma or similar fine/very fine black felt pens with sharp points.

I feel like I “discovered” the Micron Pigma in Little Tokyo (in downtown Los Angeles) in one of the small shops there. It was relatively cheap, made a great line, and seemed so exotic. Now they’re much easier to find, thankfully.

I remember being obsessed with finding the right pen back then. Like, the key to being a good artist or cartoonist was to get the right pen.

A naive view.

Do what you can with what you have.

For those of you who miss me posting more links, like artlung.com/links, you should check out del.icio.us/artlung to see what I’ve been looking at lately.

The hair is good. I liked doing drawings of girls back then. They all seemed to have the same or similar hair. Cropped close or slicked back on the sides, with a wild mane on top. Quick strokes in pen that were made expressively and fast. No editing. No pencil. I hated pencils back then. Get it right the first time. Mistake? Do it again.

Hands, not so much. Those hands are in their pockets not just because she’s playing it cool and standoffish, but because drawing the hands of a pretty girl was difficult.

With colored pencil.

He’s got a nice, circumspect look to him.

I also love the hair.

Anyone else use Rojo to read and find RSS feeds from friends?

I just joined up. Looks interesting.

Dear Lazyweb,

I know I’ve never asked anything of you. But my stepson, Tony (11 years old) just got the gift of a PSP (Playstation Portable, and if I have to tell you that I don’t think you can help me) for his birthday from his bioDad.

Said bioDad is having a hard time finding anything but “mature” games for the PSP.

Any ideas for kid-friendly games for the PSP? Up to “T for Teens” would be awesome. “M for Mature” is a no-no for him at this point.

Any other ideas for cool stuff for the PSP are welcome too. I know it can do more than just games, no?

Suggestions of games or trustworthy sites to do research on would be most welcome. I’m videogame illiterate. Though at the laundromat the other night I got the high score on Ms. Pac Man.

Wow that makes me feel old. Ms. Pac Man was pretty cool TWENTY-FIVE years ago.

I remember this one as one of several I made by looking out the window on a train trip from Roanoke (well, actually, from Clifton Forge, Virginia) on my way to Washington, D.C.

My 19 year old self was on his way to see a David Byrne concert in D.C. I had no reservations for a hotel or motel, and I went a day ahead. I was either not crazy about the idea of driving, or I had been banned access to the car because of the two wrecks I had had prior to moving to Virginia. That’s a whole other story.

Anyway, the train ride was really wonderful. I got to read, and to draw, and to think. It was the furthest I’d ever gone anywhere, alone. I had gone to Fullerton and Los Angeles before on my own, but never where I was going on my own, and not staying with anyone. I had no idea at the time, but it was a big transitional moment for me, where I was starting to realize I had some measure of independence.

I arrived with my giant backpack, after sundown. I wandered around Georgetown and found a dinky little motel. The room, I swear, was about 5 feet wide and 20 feet long. I settled in, walked to the Tower Records in Georgetown.

In the years before the internet one could not find good music easily. A Tower Records was like a temple of music. Roanoke did not have much in the way of music stores, and like the character in High Fidelity I was just enough of a jerk to judge people by their music. Well, not entirely, but music taste was a much larger factor in how I judged people back then. I picked up two cassette tapes— the soundtrack to the movie Stormy Weather, and The Sensual World by Kate Bush. And I think I found a by-the-slice pizza joint and went back to the dinky motel for the night.

I remember feeling dislocated, but it was an okay dislocation. Like, I could have done anything, but I really sort of didn’t.

The next day I went to the Library of Congress and took the tour. I was geeking out in Library mode. I had worked at the main Downtown Library in San Diego the Summer before and it was so cool to see the inner workings of the LoC. I think I also went to the National Archives to look at those old, crucial pieces of paper.

That night I saw David Byrne on his Rei Momo tour. It was a good show, but the thing that sticks with me more than anything, and which I think I have never shared with anyone, was at one point Byrne yelled at the crew that they were messing up the lights. It seemed to be so out of step with the clinical, logical Byrne who I had idolized in Talking Heads, and whose collaboration with Brian Eno My Life In The Bush of Ghosts was so inspirational to me.

You kids may not remember, but My Life In The Bush of Ghosts was full of tape loops and was part of the curve of electronic and experimental music that now we pretty much take for granted. Of course then it was all done analog.

Byrne’s outburst was a “these gods have clay feet” moment for me, and while the concert was a lot of fun, 16 years later his meanness to the crew stands out to me. Perhaps because I too have moments like that, and it’s something I have been working on understanding and lessening. Not the outburst itself, but the mental state that leads to it. Sometimes a person has to vent, but usually if you need to vent, somewhere along the line you were not taking care of some other vital aspect of yourself.

I think the show was at Constitution Hall. Somewhere in one of my scrapbooks I think I have a ticket stub.

I think I took the train out the next day. Perhaps I went to another museum the next day, but my memory is hazy. I remember it took a lot of planning to pull this little trip. A trip pulled off without the use of email, the web, mapquest, or cellular phones.

It was a good trip and I’m glad I kept this drawing as an artifact to stimulate my memory of it.

Leah came home (Yay!)

Had my first class. It’s not so much Visual Basic as a Visual Basic.NET course, which is fine by me. .NET is something I’ve managed to learn nothing of, so this should be fun.

The instructor warned us that it’s packing into the summer session of 7 weeks what would normally be a 16 week course. He warned us to be ready, and if that doesn’t sound like something we can do, now’s the time to bug out.

Bring it on baby.

G’nite!

Or thereabouts.

Pretty nifty how you can plug a flight number and airline name into google and get links to flight status information in pretty-much realtime.

The irony is Leah’s going into work when she arrives, and by the time work is over, and she’s on her way home, I’ll be off to my first class at Moorpark College.

But I’ll see her tonight. :-)