watching her grow

If you didn't already know, I was once married and from that marriage I was given a daughter we called Olivia Grace. Thinking about her today brings about a lot of emotions and feelings that are both good and bad. Good about her, bad about me. Olivia lives with her mother in KY and I don't get to see her often. It's a five hour drive (which gets better every time I make it) and school is a five day a week job that makes it a scheduling exercise to come and see her.

Olivia is standing in front of me watching a big screen TV and coloring in a Sesame Street coloring book. I'm sitting on my ex-wife's couch in her home in KY and I will drive back to IL Saturday afternoon. She tells me she wants a cracker and I give her one Ritz cracker and watch her chow down. I've been up since six thirty and the daylight outside is revealing a beautiful day. Little Livy is still in her pajamas (I think they were clothes at one point in the past) and her hair hasn't been cut in her life, so her little blonde (I have no idea how this much blonde can come from two brown-haired parents, but I don't mind a bit) curls are constantly pushed out of her blue eyes by two little hands. For the moment, I let her play on her own.

The house is large and right now empty save for the two of us. Savannah (ex-wife) and I split up just before Christmas of last year and Olivia has lived with her since. It will most likely remain that way for the duration of her young life. When you go from seeing your daughter every day to a couple days each month, it makes each trip very poignant and 'important.' I put it in the little '' things because I actually don't know how to put it into words. I want to teach her and raise her and protect her and love her and all these crazy dad things in such short amount of time that it sometimes weighs on me before I even leave. Is my time with her going to be meaningful enough? My worst fear of showing up and Olivia not recognizing me or even worse shying away from me has yet to be realized. She actually shattered that fear when I got here this time by opening the door and saying, "Daddy" and giving me a big hug.








Moments like that make it all better.

dénouement

I can do this shit all day long. This time it's panoramic shot of a tug of war rope. Now on top of that is laid the pictures of one person pulling the rope. Now I'll take a bunch of shots in such a way that it looks like 3 clones are on a team pulling rope against the other team of clones. Each shot would be different enough in attire and attitude do differentiate between the same person. Does that make any sense? It looks pretty nifty in my head, but the execution of the tug of war rope didn't work out like I needed it to. Valerie actually helped me out for these pictures that I did take, though, thank you very much. :)

i don't mind too much.

Round 97, FIGHT!

I'm still thinking about a series of somethings I can do for photography. I don't really give myself much slack, sometimes. Here I was kicking around with that idea of many shots coming together to form one big one. Instead of a face, though, I went with a framing standard that - when put together - would create a house of people looking out like from a window or opening. I don't know enough people that would actually help me with this, I think, so I bailed on it.

Do you listen to the good one or the bad one more often?

Flying through a brainstorm here, bear with me. This is a picture of a face broken down into six components. Each component is a different picture representing a certain emotion or narrative. There are two additional shots on the "shoulders" of the forehead (I know that sounds odd, lol) and they are the classic angel and demon confidants. Working this through my head is what generated the cover I used for my process book.

Actually sitting down and taking these shots was interesting. First of all, I used a tripod and a backdrop (a blue towel FTW!) and established a posture I couldn't easily lose and tried to move only the component shot I was taking. So one shot of a smile... one shot of a snarl... so on and so on. The interesting part was looking at the results. I don't normally look at myself in such a critical method. It's your face, you know. I look at it to make sure there is nothing in my teeth or to see if I need to shave. Now I'm looking at it like I would any other school work, and the contrast in thinking there is not to be understated. Tsk tsk... what is that freckle there for? I didn't want that there. What about this snaggle tooth? Wtf am I supposed to do with that? lol At one point it just kind of hit me that I was sitting there critiquing my face and hadn't really thought about it. So that was kinda funny.

gotta leave soon

Right about here was where I realized I didn't have a good leg to stand on. I learned that I like drawing storyboards and I also like sketching. Just looking through this book again makes me chuckle at the memories made in class and elsewhere.

how the hell do you make a large rope knot look like yin-yang?

Page 43 holds some more of what was mentioned in the last post. Here you can see Will gearing up and looking vague and sketch-like. Also, that is him in stick figure form rushing out to my car. When I showed him the sketches after I got home, he informed me that my car was actually a turtle. o.O lol My car is a great many things... cheap, gas efficient, armored with a hard shell on top, always wins against the hare. It's pretty much the shit.

The other car shot is just horrible, hahahaha. I'm not even gonna talk about that.

stress creates creativity?

Another idea for the photography stuff. This time, I went all out. I wanted to do a 8-12 picture spread and tell a story. Will, my friend, gets a notice that the Assmbly Hall will be hosting a squirtgun war. He is excited and buys a squirtgun and mods it to have a larger diameter pump so he doesn't have to pump as many times. He then drives down to the Assembly Hall and rushes to the gate. It's closed and the parking lot is empty - no one around. He realizes that I gave him the notice and takes it out of his pocket. The time and date for the notice has clearly been altered and he didn't notice. Fuming, he rushes home to enact his revenge on me.

Yeah, this became another victim to the "not good enough to make my own shit" criteria. I might have been able to pull it off, but it was way beyond the scope of the project and I scrapped for something more colorful.

The trick here was trying to make each picture as concise as possible. How do you show Will is happy when he gets the notice? How do you show an altered notice without drawing too much attention to it? Like a little foreshadowing action. I had the notice posted on the fridge for one concept and then the time was written on it. Next to the fridge is our stove that displays the current time and it matches the notice. Would the viewer recognize that and realize that Will must already be on his way to the squirtgun wars? There were a lot of things to think about and it was fun. Maybe one day when I'm not overwhelmed with 80 billion exercises I can do something like that.

The clouds are hiding the rising sun. Damnit!

I have two older brothers that were in and out of my life while I was growing up. Like me, they are creative and plagued with unreliable love lives. One of the earliest artistic things I remember them doing was taking pictures for school. One of them climbed a house or barn or something and stood on the edge of it with his arms held wide. The sun was aligned behind him and blotted him out and created a shadowy figure instead of man on top of the roof. This is.. uhh... pretty much how I remember that.

rhythmic ceremonial rituals are held here

the Assembly Hall here in Champaign looks amazing. Like a damned UFO has landed and people go there and play basketball. Or whatever, I hear famous people also sing sometimes. I was trying to paint a frame of reference for some pictures I was going to be taking and instead of drawing the Assembly hall, I ended drawing a UFO with little skyscrapers on it. lol Yeah... that was a bad days for artists everywhere.

the sun is breaking behind the clouds.

Yet another idea for the same photography series: hats. Ok, here me out for a second. hats have been worn as a social and cultural symbol since they were invented. Today, a lot of that power that they used to have has faded away. I wanted to go around and take pictures of important people that still wear a hat to convey their position of authority. Then I would take some pictures of everyday people that didn't wear their hats for power, but for individuality. Could you call that self-empowerment, Lori? that might defeat the whole thing. lol Anyway, I also drew a picture of the Popester but that somehow missed the scan train. Probably a holy thing.

it centers on a woman

The final idea for the book cover was to do one for my daughter. I already knew the story, the characters, everything. My ex-wife and I have a book for Olivia right now that we keep a journal type ledger of thoughts for her to see when she's older. It's a really cool idea and I hope she'll enjoy it... there's gonna be some interesting questions, of that I have no doubt! Think of what your parents may have been like when you were a newborn? Am I going to be the same person in 18 years... I don't know, but there are things I want to tell her now that she can't either hear or understand or whatever. This book is like the visual counter part to the other book we have for her.

Elizabeth was on the money with the diapered and dangerous tagline, thank you! She's not all that dangerous, but it's funny and I like it. I ultimately removed the "Priceless" line from the final version and it makes me a little sad. I mean, wanted posters always have the bounty on them, and I wanted to make it clear that this one does not get cashed in.

like any good story

A book cover from scratch was - for me - way too hard. I'm the kind of guy that when I design the book cover, I have to justify it. So the book cover then needs a story underneath it... then the story needs a plot... now the plot wants a protagonist and a climax (who doesn't) and blah blah blah. You see where this is going. Beside learning to control my creative thoughts, I needed to get some inspiration for my story and such. I have learned that inspiration is a powerful tool for the whole creation process. It gives you colors, ideas, form, unity, everything. These first book covers were inspired by my own foolish pride, if the title didn't give it away.

The actual scenes are (checks again) - make that one scene from the top cover - fake. I just wanted a dude walking out on a girl in tears because of his own foolish pride. Then it became the issue of how to communicate these things in a simple and rapid fashion for a book cover. like most things having to due with pride, it didn't pan out.

The bottom left one was going to be the big color printer in the lab that has all those ink cartridges hanging out of it. Each one was going to be a sin or something and the paper was going to be freshly printed on the tray in front of the paper. On it was going to say "Foolish Pride" or something akin to it. I still think it's a decent idea that could work, but I dropped that one, too.

The final cover on the right is one that makes me smile because I have no idea what was going on when I drew it. It's just there. Wtf is "How to Avoid the Law?" lol, I have no idea.

nothing like showering in a chair! oh, wait...

This one hits pretty close to home. I honestly cannot recall why or wtf was going on in class when I drew it. I wasn't upset or anything, probably content like usual and the next thing I know I have this in my lap. Visually, I think it captures how I felt for a while when I was bound to a wheelchair. there's a little bit of humor in the actual display of a guy in a wheelchair having to get to his destination through a set of stairs and then there is only one light around him keeping the shadows back. Kinda funny, little awkward, tad depressing. I thought about using this for a book cover, but after talking with Paul I shot it down.

ding ding ding ding look up that fork thing Pirate Chewie can do.

this page was initially about dynamics or change. I wanted to show this dude in pain or hurt and anger, like he was reeling back and howling. The uhh... yokel... dude... is kinda how matt groening draws Homer Simpson. See his ear? That's an M on top of a G. I have no idea where I picked up that bit of trivia, but I never forgot it.

Pirate Chewbacca!

My old friend and roommate William wouldn't shut up about how cool a pirate Chewie would be, so we both drew one. I mean, c'mon... Pirate Chewie is pretty cool. Don't let the pegleg fool you, though! He can do one mean Fork in the Garbage Disposal. ding ding

I love how calm and quiet the night is before dawn

More ideas for a possible photography schtick. For some reason I remember being happy about the little fat man I drew in the top picture. lol Honestly, I don't know why.

I did end up taking a picture of the counter, though

Now that I can bang out an idea in my sketchbook, the idea makin' machine is running wild. This time I was brainstorming a "series" or body of work to do for my photog class. As you can see, these are chaotic and disheveled and if I hadn't doodled these myself, I might not know wtf is going on. I don't see it... oh there it is. Yeah, my nice camera is sitting in my bag in that drawing as 'camera bag.' I'm not real sure why I didn't just take a picture instead of drawing all this, but I'm glad I didn't. I would have missed the text and maybe some of what I was thinking that night. I was also pretty hammered.

it was just as awesome as you might think

I almost made my own font there. it's called, "crap."

Seriously, though... drawing those words was a little fun, but it would seem to me that I wouldn't like doing the work.

Grand Central Station was something I was fascinated with as a child growing up in Decatur. There is a GCS of sorts in Decatur that was physically picked up and moved from it's original spot and put somewhere not so much in the way. Now it's something of an icon for the city. I'm not fond of Decatur, but that building can stay.

Back in the day when the railroads were the only hip way to travel, train stations were big deals. In 1869 the two oceans flanking the US were connected by a golden spike in Utah. Sometimes I think what it must have been like to take your first train ride... those massive, loud as fuck machines churning out smoke and speed as they crawl across the lands you had never seen before. There are people all around you that you've never seen before but looking at them you can instantly see and recognize the same look of wonder that they must see in you. The whistle blows and when I get off the train, I hang up my top hat and cane and go back to hanging posters of Winona Ryder in Paul's office.



:D

have you ever seen two sunsets in the same day?

I wasn't satisfied with the current state of direction indicators in maps. lol. Oh yeah, I just typed that out loud.

Using the same idea of focusing on smaller components, I made a few examples of how a circuit board would indicate a direction of current that was easy enough for people to understand. I kind of like doing these little proofs, as I am still contributing honest work toward whatever my larger goal is and that frees up my mind to go crazy on whatever detail I'm working on.

some things never change

I was falling asleep during a lecture and didn't want to be rude, so I busted out the lesser evil and started mucking around in the my sketchbook. I wondered if I could handle a perspective drawing on the fly with no references or warning so I fashioned myself a bookshelf. can you see it?

Master Control Program

Some more concepts here. By now I have determined a few parts need some additional sketch time. Just like building a car or a C-130, if you break it down to it's smaller parts and focus on those individually you can do some great things. In this case, I wanted a real sharp looking legend. most of the legends in the book Paul rented were crappy, like they were an afterthought. Maybe for an actual city project, things like how cool your legend looks or which arrow you use for direction become a little less important. Carrie threw out some impressive Tron verbage and I included it as the thing the compass points at due north. "M.C.P." I love teamwork.

logistics

here is where I actually start to get shit done. I was referencing the London Underground (mind the gap, you) and Washinging DC, and somewhere else. As you can see, Somewhere Else had a lot of influence. Nvm, bad joke. The first thing I wanted to do was establish what everything else but the map looked like. Art direction, uniting composition and theme, that kind of stuff. The actual little lines for routes is easy enough, but giving the rest of the map a feeling that people can like? tough to do. I believe this was also the first time I asked Team Awesome as a whole which concept they liked better. Thanks for your help, ladies. :)

moving day today

The birds eye view of the city. A beauty, isn't she? I thought it looked cool. I used a random image from google and my old active duty smart card for inspiration for the city layout. I also wanted it easy to lay a transit map over the top of it. I don't think I actually followed it that well when the time came, but that's how these things go.

Now if you'll excuse me, my electrons need mass transit.

full moon out tonight

The Mass Teleportation Device! I tried digging into until some artistic talent was found, but what came out was a strange hourglass made of thin strips of metal and a rough estimation of what the top would look like. It stills seems pretty cool in my head. People would walk into the MTD and just phase out here and phase back in at the next MTD station. The top of the device is covered with silica plates and beautiful geodes that shimmer with energy when the MTD is used. I could probably keep drawing this crazy city until I was happy, now that I think about it...

This never made it into the actual map project, either. Most of the stuff I thought about initially for city 73 was completely useless for building a stylized route map, lol. I was disappointed when i realized that and didn't finish the project until the last minute. hahaha, i was angry that I wasted so much time on something that ultimately didn't matter. It happens.

CB073

Hrm...

I remember Lori saying something about the level of her ideas were beyond her level of skill in creating them and this is a fine example of that.

When Paul was uttering the words that we could make our own map, this appeared on the sketchbook beneath me. It was an instant genesis of an entire city. There were crazy blends of technical components and geodes and trains. People could teleport to the nearest I/O port and get to work. (it's a computer city, remember?) lol. About five minutes later I knew I would never be able to reproduce it and I smiled a bit. I wonder if this is the part where a god would just snap it's fingers and make shit happen. Unfortunately for me, I am given a pencil and some fingers and I make the best I can.

Quiz1

These were for the quiz numero uno. The final page that I turned in looked pretty damn close to the top picture there. I got a 23 because I had inadvertently created some emphasis by isolation somewhere I didn't catch.

The bottom is supposed to be a square erased out of the pattern of lines. If you can't see it's because it sucked.

Supertroopers

This craziness was me getting my ideas onto paper for the purpose of moving on. If you can't tell, these are not to be considered pieces of fine art. I did like the crazy big arrow in the top, though. There's that little guy off to the left of him.

I wouldn't worry about that little guy. :)

An exercise of class

This was done with an understanding why using a sketchbook was a better method for concept design. As I fleshed out these two ideas on paper, I was comparing the same process done using a computer or not done at all (as in, keepin' the concepts inside your head). The results, maybe not surprisingly, were numerous.

I keep a mechanical pencil (with no eraser, natch) stuffed down the ring bindings for my sketchbook. This quick, easy prep has enabled me to whip out my book, snatch my pencil from the binding, and get to sketching in mere seconds. This simply cannot be done without a dedicated computer used only for sketching. Think about it for a minute. What's the first thing you do when you get onto a computer? Get on the internet. One way or the other, you will be logged into some browser and putzing around the web. Are you just checking your email? Why would you do that? Because you're expecting something to be there! When I open up my sketchbook, I don't look for a message from my family or friends. I don't check the weather or the news or start shopping. I open it up to put my ideas onto something. I don't open it up to get information.

I can't draw very well. My hand and eye coordination has been developed in other areas. Using a sketchbook may seem counter-productive to someone who isn't naturally skilled in drawing, but I was wrong on that account, too. I can put my ideas down on paper fairly well now that I've sketched a mere 50-60 pages in my book. It's the placement of the elements and improving your idea into another medium (other than your head) that keeps me coming back to the sketchbook. I swear I came with 13 wildly different concepts in an hour or so the other day for a photog project and some of them were really neat. On an average day, 12 of those 13 ideas will be half way remembered once or twice more in my life before they are gone forever. Each time I'll think to myself how I should have wrote down the original idea because it seemed pretty interesting... It honestly feels good to get those ideas on paper and then move on to something else. Liberating for me, in a way.

I can't wait to go back through my old sketchbooks in a few years and just smile.