Lots of Little Things

When I had a regular job (like 40/hr week, software engineering), my job was the over riding factor in my life. It dictated when I got up, got home and what I did with most of my time. So when I quit, my life changed quite a bit to say the least.

Some people have a single over riding “thing” in their life. Good for them, I do not. But what I’ve found out is that I have a bunch of little things in my life that can change over time. I have or had:

Construction around the house (Bobbie tells me what to build)
Hiking (local with Bobbie, myself or Friends)
AT Hiking (This is NOT the same as local hiking and can involve longer distances 12+ / day) that does require driving a while to get to the next AT section).
Fly Fishing (Some local for a a couple of hours or distance for most of the day).
Video editing / creation (either in iMovie or Final Cut Pro).
Drawing (mostly ink pen with watercolors).
River Kayak / Tubing (summer time)
Art movies (there are 2 art movie theaters in Asheville).
Baking (half for myself and half for others. Breads, Pies, Cookies).
Reading (Books, and magazines)
Some tech stuff (Swift, Blockchain, AI, etc. Just keeping up)
Bike riding
Travel (once we don’t have to worry about our old dog 14+ years).
Local Travel (2-3 days away).

I’ve been a goal person, but this has been changing to a “journey” thing, as life is a journey and not a goal. If I work on something now, I can leave it and pick it up later. No (well almost no) timelines for what I’m doing. This is OK.

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A Process

Once in a while I take photos of a work in progress. This is for me as well as others as the work moves from stage to stage. And it is done in stages with defined processes for each step. On this walkway overpass up in Spruce Pine, I've done both an ink / marker and an Ink / Wash on the same piece. This is the finished watercolor of the work. To start the process I did an ink drawing of it and then took a tracing from that. It's the tracing where I did another ink drawing but this time on watercolor paper. Tracings of a work is done with standard tracing paper. I get mine from CheapJoes.com and use the 8x10 size as that covers most of my needs. The tracing is done with a 0.3 ink pen (Winsor & Newton Fineliner). Once I have the tracing I can then use it for other paper or to do another work of the same subject. The tracing is just a start as I still need to get it transferred onto other paper. For that you need a very bright light...

Still Life

Life is never still, at least I don't think you would want it to be. That's why so many of us (i.e., retired care free people) travel. Keep seeing new things and places. Well the Hurricane so far inland was a new thing and one I would have rather forgone but life is what happens. Life keeps moving. Except a still life is forever and captures a slice of time frozen in a painting. This is from a wooden bowl of pears onboard our ship during dinner one nice. Again, just thought it looked nice. Enjoy.

3rd Try is a Charm

I've been trying to draw / paint these barns for a couple of years but never felt or got them right. This time I think they turned out right. So What went wrong before and what's right now with this drawing? This time, the light was right. It's coming from the upper right and the shadows just looked right. The other thing is the corn field on the left had to "be in season", otherwise it's just a plowed field. I had taken other photos from different angles but they never felt right. This angle has the road, power lines, corn field, etc. all leading to the right. The shadows on the lower right helps fill in that corner (don't forget about the corners!). The last part is trying to draw (ink paint maybe) the trees in the background. Not so easy when they are kind of a blob is green shades. So yeah, it's composition that is king. Many times I just don't see it until the drawing / painting is finished and when it's right it feels goo...

A Person, Artist, Software Engineer, Geologist.

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