A Person, Artist, Software Engineer, Geologist.

 Got some Gouache from a gift certificate that I was given.  What is Gouache you say?  It's a watercolor that is mostly opaque instead of translucent like regular watercolor.  It can be used in combination with watercolor or just by itself. The effect it has is that of a flat look that I find appealing.  I'm adding it to the many other things that I want to try our. Instagram!  I have my Instagram account setup (todd.blackley) where I've started posting a bunch of my artwork.  You can also find it using my hashtag of #BrokenAnkleArt Enjoy and Merry Christmas.

These are mixed media (ink + watercolor) yesterday. It appears that I’ve got two different styles going on, the Value Markers and Watercolor mixed media. Trying to rotate between the styles. Watercolor one week, value markers the next. I went up Big Pine Creek road the other day looking at the fly fishing options for spring and the canyon had a ton of old barns with character. Took photos so that may be my next project. Mixed Media Watercolor approx 5×7 and 6 x8 in size. Happy Christmas everyone.

Been a stressful early part of the week but turned around to be a great week.  Mostly about my latest ankle visit to the doctor.  It's healing and just needs more time but there is light at the end of the tunnel and I can see it.  Next doctor appt is in 6 weeks and that should be the end of it!   In the house I can walk around without my brace.  This is a big deal.  The feeling of a soft sock on that foot has been missing for almost 3 months.  Oh it feels so nice.  I've got some P.T. to perform on it and heating but I've entered a new phase (end phase?) and I'm starting to see my life getting back to "normal" in the near future.  By "normal" I mean fishing and hiking in a few months as I was before.  I may buy some better boots for hiking, just to be on the safe side. In other news, I've got my latest drawing done.  You don't get to see all the other work I those away because it's so bad or I'm just trying different things out.  On a

Yes it's a (the) holiday season but it doesn't feel much like one.  Not getting together, very little travel and in general there has not been very much to be thankful for.  But there are some things. I connected with an old work buddy just to make sure he's OK.  He is and that is all good.   I make some apple pies and handled them out to the sanitation truck guys (there are 3 on the truck) as I have for the last couple of years.  They are always a happy bunch that gets to ride around one the back of a truck.  The other pie went to the local police department.   Handed out cookies and treats to local friends that I made.  They went quite quickly. Mailed out our cards and got them done. Ordered the last gift for Bobbie. Paid our next's months health insurance. premium (Jan, 2021)  This is a big deal as 1) it confirms that we have health insurance for next year and 2) my ankle's needs are still not out of the da-woods as far as surgery is concerned. Enjoying the lack

Latest artwork of the day (week or year).  This is an area just above Park City by about 1/2 mile.  Hiked there zillions of times in summer and winter.  Anyway just wanted to capture an old building or two before they succumb to winter falls. Been interleaving between mono-marker and watercolor w/ink artwork.  Kind of pushing both forward to something..... 3 more weeks for my next broken ankle DM visit and x-rays.  Time will tell if it's healing fast enough. Enjoy.

I've discovered that a danger in retirement (don't like this word) is all the time you have in perusing your own direction is the danger involved.  The danger I speak of is being injured by the activities you have chosen.  Offices are save and real accidents are rare but if you find yourself spending 10x - 20x more in the outdoors, playing tennis, biking, whatever, the chances of an accident go up.   When working for a living (as opposed to living for a living), I would spend at most 1 day a week fishing and hiking.  That's about all the extra time I had.  But now I've been (before the incident) hiking about 3 days a week and fishing another 3 days (some combined).  Now hiking and fishing risks are low but they are much higher than sitting in an office.  So times the outdoor risk by 3x-6x, whatever and you start looking at when your number will come up.   I have become a member of the "Broken Husbands Club" that my wife has started and already has a few member

OK, I've just had my 6 week broken ankle checkup.  Hoping for the best, got reailty instead.  Some good healing but not as much as the doctor or I was expecting.  Did you know that age is a factor in healing?  Yeah I did but I was setting my expectations for more. The good news is next week I'll just use an ankle support and then be able to drive.  This will take a big load off of Bobbie hauling my broken A@@ around.  This helps healing on two fronts.  It puts some light stress on the bones which prompts growth and also gets my muscles back into shape.   My new timetable is : next appt in 4 weeks which would put me at 2-1/2 months.  There is a 3 month window (cutoff?) for when healing is very slow and a call can be made to perform surgery if progress is not sufficient.  Here's to progress! On the good side, I do not have any pain so that means progress has been made, just it appears at the lower part of the break closer to the joint.  When they ask you how your pain level i

Just a jumble of thoughts today.  But first some art! This is a barn, store front, whatever that is on the side of a road that people (like me) bike on.  The facade is normal for this area where it's built-up organically with no specific architecture in mind.  It is what it is and produces a strong character when weathered to the point it's falling down. Done in ink and greyscale-markers. (just my thoughts and opinion below) I was looking at my old company's web site and discovered a couple of things. They are still selling and using the application I designed and wrote.  Even saw it in a video they released this summer.  It's really long in the tooth now and I tried to get it retired years ago.  Not good. They appear to be rehashing the concept of using "Behavior Rules" to determine risk.  It failed before but hey, sure give it another go and see how that works. No wonder the parent company off loaded to a private equity firm recently.  Nothing succeeds like

 Still working on my art.  Still tough.  Still moving.  Still copying. Cut that last part.  When I try to copy a style or technique my results are, well, poor.   Still Inspiration is better. There are so many styles and everyone’s is different (mostly).  I can see parallels to this when I started fly fishing.  I didn't know what I was doing and my success rate was low and frustration level high.  It was nice to be out there but for a long time I didn’t think I was getting anywhere.  I copied the flys, I fished in the same area and the same line placement and handling, but not really.  I was copying but not understanding.  I had not yet reached a level of knowledge and technique for do my own thing. Fast forward to today.  My fly fishing has greatly improved so that almost every time I go I catch at least 2 (and don’t break and ankle).  I’ve found my niche.  I don’t do all different techniques, just the ones I enjoy and it works for me. I saw this when I was working too.  I had done

 Well, everyday is a new day but from my perspective a new day is when something that effects the rest of my life occurs.  In this case it’s a couple of things.   1 - I’m walking around without my scooter or crutches!  I’m still in my boot and will be for a while and if I have pain then I should cool it for a while but for know, pain free and walking kind of like a real human. 2 - Check the news today.  You’ll see.  Things have changed! I’ve also been doing some sketches and light watercolor.  This one is the view from a friends house in the evening.  He sent a photo and I cropped it and did a quick sketch based on it. The second is another leaf watercolor that I also quickly did.   With my new found mobility I’m looking forward to doing all sorts of misc things around the house with my newly freed arms.  Nice. Driving will come soon enough but because it’s my right ankle and I still have to wear the boot, driving will have to wait a bit longer.  Bummer.

Here is my latest.  Same barn but with ink + watercolor and a little larger format.  I'm pretty happy about how it turned out. I'v decided to create a private group site for budding (?) artists or artists that have broken bones and are stuck at home healing (like me).  I've called it "Broken Ankle Art" works.  I'm using the WordPress P2 site for this and it's invite only for us budding artists to be peer feedback and nudges to each others.  The last thing I want it every Tom, Dick or Sally to make all sorts of suggestions (or even steal the art) on what we should be doing.  It's only for select friends for now. So sit back and just enjoy what I've done or am trying to do.  I'm not just working to get better but also to get different.  My new set of Winsor & Newton Watercolor markers arrived and I'm excited to see what I can do with them and where they lead me. Enjoy

(Just my thoughts & opinion folks) I quit working (at least for a company) 2-1/2 years ago.  It appears my timing was pretty good.  I'd hit my peak with the company and there was a sense that the company was either rudder less or had too many.  I couldn't tell.  What I could tell was that (in my opinion) top management believed in the philosophy that if you believe something strong enough and force (?) others to do the same that it will become true.   It doesn't.   Buy a bunch of small companies and mush them together, tell every one that they must be "ALL IN" (or else) and have middle management in echo chambers will produce great results.   It doesn't. My timetable was my own and I had my own plans.  I followed them and I left.  Turns out my timing was good. I was there a long time (in Software engineering time it was forever) and saw the company change hands (or primary structure) about every 3 years.  People stayed the same and for a while times where

 OK, yeah I do have new art work (via Broken Ankle Art) but I also learned some interesting things this week.  Here we go. Thing #1 : The NASA asteroid probe collected some samples from a quite touch down.  A complete success that they are not even going to weight it.  So how do you weight something in space?  In this case they have the collection at the end of a long arm.  To weight the sample, the spin the craft and from the amount of thrust used and the resulting spin rate they can determine the mass of the sample at the end of the arm.  Pretty cool. Thing #2 : The earth is always producing sounds (volcanos, earth quakes, asteroid strikes, man mucking around, etc), but there is a constant 26 sec vibrations coming from the south Atlantic off the coast of Africa.  This was discovered about 30 years ago and through modern equipment has been narrowed to the bay (way off shore) off of Equatorial Guinea.  From a map you can tell the alignment of volcanic islands trending to the NE, but a

Still Fall.  Actually it’s right in the middle of Fall and I just love the this season.  Just wish I could get around better to enjoy it. But back to Fall.  The colors, oh my gosh the colors.  It’s life’s last gasp before the grays of winter take hold.  What a palette to be seen.  I’ve been in and out of a funk because of......my broken ankle.  It’s healing but the doctor wants me to be careful or it could “go south” so sometimes I’m in a funk and not wanting to do anything. <Enters Bobbie:> “Here are some fall leaves that would look nice as a watercolor painting.” If you have been in a funk, you know that pressure, no matter how well meaning can be .... difficult.  Yes they would look nice but hey, I’m kind of funky right now, so maybe later (not know if I’ll ever get around to it). Each day is new and no funk today.  Got up with my standard list in my head, but this morning I was going to actually do some of the items on the list.  The fall leaves are on the list so I did a pai

Got my 2 week checkup on how my ankle fracture was going.  So far so good, but....  on looking at the latest X-Rays and from what I now know about Fibula Weber zone B factures, I'm very very close to requiring surgery.  How close?  When your doctor says just be really careful over the next 2 weeks so this does not "go south", my ears stood up.  You can see that the fracture starts way above the joint at an oblique angle and continues down to the other side of the Fibula.  Not much bone left to retain a stable joint.  Seeing that the ankle is a hinge joint and the Fibula closes the lateral side of the joint, it's kind of important to the ankles stability.  Good thing I did not tear or damage any ligaments as those are what's keeping everything together. Whew.  So at least 2 more weeks before any weight and then slowly adding weight and some walking on it from there and see how it feels.  So far so good and my pain level has been low and getting better.   It will be

My life has slowed down a bit because of my broken ankle.  I look at the wonderful fall weather, the colored leafs and wish that I could just walked around outside.  Not so much.  The first week was hard as this was all new and I had the knowledge that the rivers had just been re-stocked with trout.  Bummer. This 2nd week has gone much faster.  My pace is about the same but I know that time just takes time and not much I can do about that.  I can ice and elevate my leg but in the end, healing must proceed at it's own pace.  I can't hurry it up much.  Did I tell you about the different colors that have appears on my foot? Sometimes I just stop and do nothing.  Hard to do at first but it takes work.  Works best outdoors and in the sun.  Very very nice. I have an artist friend that sent me a craft project for Halloween and that is making some crows out of newspaper print.  So here is my current work towards that.  I emailed her back with the first evidence of completion with the u

 Ouch! I knew it as soon as it happened.  I had been traveling the low water at the South Toe's headwaters. working my way upstream.  Caught a couple of fish as I'm working my way up.  When it happened I knew it was not good.  It was a small step onto another rock that went sideways.  Right foot, toe landed first then slipped to the left just as I was transferring all my weight onto it.  I was committed and down I went, with my right distal end of my Fibula on the lateral side taking the brunt of the weight.   I was hoping for a sprain, but I suspected it was much worse. I checked the different axis movement of my foot, all good there.  Up / down, left / right, tilt left / tilt right, ligaments appeared ok.  Sprain ???  hummm not so much. I was on the far side of the river (large stream really) and needed to wade back over then go up the bank and to the gravel road about 100' away.  OK, did that.  Pain not too bad, but that was the easy part. The gravel road is a forest ser

From this photo always speaks to having hope.  It's from the Isle of Skye from a trip Bobbie and I took in 2017, when people could travel.  It was from a hole in a rock wall ruin of a house that this single, small strawberry grew and produced a single berry.  Yikes, I though that sometimes I was having a hard time (COVID all around and all and the current GOV), this plant has lived in a harsh environment and succeed in producing a berry.   Way to go. These times are the toughest that I ever remember occurring in my lifetime.  The government is headed by a gangster, thug (take your pick) and has led to people dying (by their lies and inaction) and at the same time removing the medical and financial safety nets for times like this.  History will not be kind to what is happening. People are resilient, but there are many that will not recover to what existed before.  The historians in the future will categorize this administration with that of Franco, Mussolini and Hitler.  We now know

In the Mountain west there are a lot of areas with native wild trout, but the east is a bit different.  The mountains are lower, the temps are warmer and the headwaters are much smaller.  We have native wild trout but this all results in them being much smaller.  Yeah, you can find bigger beasts hiding out in some deeper pools, but for now I'm focusing on the mainstream trout that are found in most of these areas. Let me set the scene for you.  The head waters range from about 2300' to 5000' hight.  There are no high mountain valleys as the mountains are old and worn down from millions of years of erosion.  The resulting topology is that of streams creased into a network of drainages scattered throughout the Appalachian range.  The streams are almost always at the bottom of these V shaped drainages with few flat spots for slow waters.  What you find instead are rounded boulders where silt has created pocket water pools spaced up the elevation gain and the banks covered with

I was doing what I normally do during the week and that is looking for places to fly fish.  This last week I tried out a new area on the South Mills River via the Turkey Pen road and trailhead.   Drive on a short gravel (2 miles long) road to the trail head, then a short 1/2 wish mile downhill trail to the river and suspension bridge over it. Once over the bridge there are rough trails (very) on the banks of the river for accessing campsites and fishing spots. easy right? This is where the trouble started... The terrain in the Appalachian is quite hilly and twisted as the forces of erosion continue, the rain abundant and the river contains many twists on its downhill run.  The foliage on the banks is quite thick and deep so, even from 25 feet away, you may not even see the river.  These two factors make location awareness a bit tricky as the same foliage, twists and terrain keeps repeating along the banks.  When I crossed the suspension foot bridge I failed to make a mental note of wha

Summer heat is peaking and I'm looking forward to the waining temps.  We gotback from our trip back to Utah where we stayed at our empty house that is in-between renters.  Got to play fix-it man again for a while.  It's not that it needed a lot of help but more of keeping ahead of issues that where starting to appear.  Save now or pay big time later.   Just before we got there some mice had chewed through some of the sprinkler valve wires, preventing a couple of the circuits from working.  Replace a couple of heads that still sprayed but did not rotate (just old age) and replaced the old toilets with new low flush volume ones.  The past tenant liked the old incandescent bulbs for some reason but kept my LED's, so I had to restore the LED's back to there proper place.  Garage opener bulbs needed to be replaced so there would be light if someone used the opener or entered the garage.  You know, small but important things like this. Off all the time living at the house in

Being that I quit work a couple of years now (and nave not missed it a bit) I feel I have some suggestions for friends of ours that are looking beyond the office (or regular gig). If you miss work, you will be in for pain.  Just let your old work life go.  It’s been good (maybe) to you but it’s time to move on.  Life is all about change, this is what it looks like. The more hobbies / passions you have the better but it’s still a lot of time to fill.  It’s one thing to enjoy doing something on the weekends, but now you have 2-1/2 times more weekends to fill.  It will take you some time to figure this out. Enjoy some Zero-Days (from long distance hikers where days not hiking are called Zero because they are hiking zero miles).  Don’t feel bad about not always being busy, just reserve some time for not doing a whole lot.  Unless you have a “border collie” spouse, then hide on this days. Try lots of different things.  Even those things you wanted to do but through you would be bad, etc.  Y

Here is one of my distractions. I’ve been hiking in Rocky Fork State Park (in TN, just across the state line) for about 1-1/2 years and I’ve seen this stream that runs through it.  Been scoping it out for a while for fish and have seen plenty, but never fished there because I don’t have a TN license and non-resident licenses cost.a bunch more than resident ones.  But I took the plunge and bought one the other day and fished this stream. What a joy.  Small, clear, wild and lots of native / wild trout in it.  I used my Tenkara rod because of the over growth and small fish size.  Worked great.  First day out caught 4 fish, hooked but lost 2 more and had lots of bites.  In the park only single hook artificial lures are allowed which is great for fly fishing.  I also crimp the barbs on the hooks to minimize and damage to the fish. The stream was clear, cool and not a single piece of trash, waste or human pollution around.  Only light paths from the main trail near by (between 0-

Be not afraid, go ahead and post what you want. It’s not all going to be great stuff, but it’s an evolution of thoughts process and where one may be going.  In my case it’s all over the map, but still making progress.  I’ve got a list of things I want to paint and it’s sometimes hard to sit down and do them.  It’s not something that I just sit down and start to paint, I’ve got to get into the mind set, clear my mind of all the other items of distraction.

Sometimes you're just going to be lucky, so be prepared for it. I took this photo down on the forgotten coast of Florida's panhandle.  Bobbie and I where doing some work on her uncle's beach house and we where driving back to Port St. Joe heading back home.  I wanted to get a photo of the layers of trees (foreground, background) that gave a kind of spooky dinosaur era effect.  I rolled down the car window (while driving) and pointed my iPhone out the window and took a shot.  Only later when I looked at the photo (and did a little cropping to remove the power lines) did I discover that I had gotten lucky.  It happens sometimes. The composition with the lower foreground blur (from moving) to the twin trees in the center and the tall foreground tree on the right with the line of background tree just turned out great.  Way better that I was expecting.  I just wanted an example for a drawing / painting I wanted to do.

It's been a big switch when I quit my old procession (Software Engineer) and ventured into the unknown.  So this is my current desktop.   First it's a REAL desktop and not a computer screen. Second, I've had to learn a whole new set of tools.  You would think a pencil is just a pencil and a paint brush is just a paint brush, but noooooo, they are tools into you mind and that's what needs re-tooling. The tactual nature of these tools and operation as much more rewarding (and frustrating too) than typing code in an IDE.   That had it's incentive but that well went dry and life changes,  so I changed. The pleasure of creating colors (no RGB involved) ad hoc wise is interesting.  Getting the technique to merge them on paper is very tough.  You do not know what you're going to get, so you just have to go with it. I'm glad that I can do a lot of other things instead of Software, but I hope that others in my past procession work on other paths fo

Let's just enjoy the simple things.  Todays painting is easy to make (thanks Cheap Joe) and very pretty. The random lines the bit of color just makes for a pleasant picture to look at.  I'm kinda good at this style (somewhat) so maybe this is "my" style.  Don't know, gotta try a lot others and find out more about this whole "painting" and "watercolor" thing. Not a whole lot of others things to do in these times (except hiking and fly fishing of course). Till next time.

For Fun this time.  Just a house along a walk Bobbie, Sherlock and I take some mornings. Enjoy

Just a photo of the front yard.  It's a nice composition with the Cherry tree, bench and yard art animals.  Just seemed like a good balance for a photo. I'm still working on my watercolor art, with many "working, practicing" pieces between the good ones.  That's to be expected.  I keep moving on. Good thing that the AT trail is not closed.  Many of the trailheads are marked as closed, but road shoulder parking is still legal it appears and not an official "Access Facility".

These times are tough for most people.  The virus is around and in full swing.  Where and when it stops nobody knows.  So we are hold up in our house doing the isolation thing with everyone else on the planet. Whiling a way my time is done by hiking (alone), fly fishing (alone), drawing / painting (alone) and streaming shows (with Bobbie).  Oh yes, we sill take Sherlock for walks almost every day. This is my latest painting and I’m trying out a different style. I’ve got lots of styles and techniques to work on.  It seems endless (like this virus).  Gotta keep my mind off of the kids and how they are or are not holding up. This is a big mess and will change history (I hope as the old path was not great).

Here is a drawing of a trail blaze on the AT (Appalachian Trail) that I did this week.  What this is doing is laying the foundation for painting.  Drawing first, painting second. Everything has a foundation.  If if software engineering, it's logic, state handling, etc.  For painting (except maybe for Abstract) it drawing. Drawing, creating a foundation takes time and practice.  Wish there was a better way but it appears not to be the case. Enjoy

I'm continuing on my artist path and thus far it's going much better than I was hoping for.  My teacher is a working artist that is mostly self taught and eager to share his steps and missteps from his path. This has worked out great for me!  I think that my background (no joking, really) in Software Application development and UI helps with this.  The concepts of overlays from Light to Dark, Large   to Small, details mirrors my UI thinking.  Because of this and following the required drawing and perspective steps (gotta have a foundation dudes), the lessons have worked for me.  The latest result is this image of the photo earlier in this blog.  It turned out great. I always thought that art was something that was magical and only a very select few contained it.  But after reading the book "Art and Fear" and taking this class, I've switched my thinking.  Almost everyone can do art. What a nice concept.

OK, so what does Progress in Art mean?  For me it’s like progress in almost any area of learning.  Skills, understanding and practice, practice and practice so that the basic foundation becomes normal and allows the freedom to build upon it and explore away. There is still a long way to go for the foundation that I want.  Hey, it took me years to get a software engineering foundation that carried me to great things.  I expectation would be the same for anything I do, including art work.  The secret is there is no secret, it’s a lot of learning (and discarding old habits you may have learned before), process (yes there is a process) and practice. Very interesting to see the steps of progress before ones very eyes.  Not so much on developing software as it’s mostly hidden.

It’s not how new or old the technology is, it’s that its different from what you know and how it teaches you to view life in a new way. My exploration is going back, way back to the pencil and just drawing.  All of the concepts are still there, light / dark values, composition and last color.  It takes time to draw an object from hand and have it look OK, but you learn a lot about it and later, everything else you look at. The image above is actually a watercolor painting, but you still need to draw the forms and understand the values in order to paint it. How much we miss in everyday life when we look without seeing.  Be it light values or other aspects of life that we normally “gloss over”. I did the same thing with video creation and learning about creating videos and production.  This same “Back to the roots” process allows to never watch a movie the same way again and understand how much work goes into a movie, drawing, life.

There are times in my life when I've come to a junction where my life will change dramatically, either in part to a choice I am making or events that are occurring around me.  At these times (sometimes they are hard to spot, others not) I like to pause and really reflect on just what is occurring. All choices and changes are not the same.  I make decisions all the time but most of the time they don't amount to much as my life will keep chugging along as it's has been.  But getting married, divorced, having kids, changing professions, etc.  These will change your life. I liken these moments as a "can't go back" commitment.  Actually there is a good poster by Mary Engelbreit that speaks to this. Companies are not that much different.  For the most part, decisions are made day in and day out and the path, culture and outcomes do not diverge much.  But there are times when I company should or needs to change. If you have been with a single company any le

Just to define what a Murder Room is, it's a game not unlike the board game Clue, where the people in the room are told about a murder and the people playing (and paying for it) can ask the staff (role playing staff) questions about the murder, victim, etc. in a effort to uncover who the murderer is.  Lying is not allowed and the enjoyment is in piecing the clues together for the final outcome. Because it's a game, players ask simple questions that build a trail of discovery to find the murderer.  This is fun in a game, but if you really want the cut to the chase, players could ask more pointed and direct questions for a quicker outcome.  But for a game the fun is in the journey. Not as much fun if the "game" is your job and the murder room is the company you work for. Company employee polls are not unlike a Murder Room, except he company never really want heavy truths (would prefer "light" issues only) and the staff never really gives the direct an