A Person, Artist, Software Engineer, Geologist.

It's been just a bag of small things that have been going on lately.   Did a couple of new drawings. Getting hearing aids Tried my hand at mat cutting for framing my art. Great weather outside for hiking and fly fishing. I did a couple of drawings.  One was of the old RICE store on the way to Rocky Fork State Park in TN.  We go there a lot to hike and fly fish.  Very nice place and only about 20min from the house to the north. Did a 2nd drawing of part of a barn that I liked as it had a "Keep Out" sign on it, but the door is open and you can see through to the other side.  I just though it was funny and typical of old barns here that are wide open and you can see everything inside (nothing inside mostly). I, like most older men have hearing loss at the high end of our ranges.  I'm fine most of the time but in noisy places I loose conversations, thus the need for hearing aids.  Soooooo, I waited and waited and waited until now.  I hear and read abo...

 First things first.  Here is a little (5x7 vert) drawing I just did of a sign on an old building.  Not a barn but you know, related.  Made out of week, seen its best days and has character. Now about my break from posting (with teeth).  It's all do (mostly) because my wife (Bobbie) got her new puppy and it has teeth.  Sleeps most of the time, but when not, watch out.  Need to watch "Pipper" as she is interesting in chewing anything and everything.  Lot's O toys and one eye on where she is and what she is chewing.  Always chewing.  Chewing Chewing Chewing. Our other dog (Barney) is very good with her and lets her beat him some something awful.  This helps a lot but man the chewing.... Needing to get back to fishing, I mean drawing and painting but these warmer days makes it a wee bit hard to stay indoors.  Between hiking, dogs, fishing and art work, there is not a whole lot of other things to do. You can also see that I've been...

Did another barn drawing yesterday, but I'm trying some new things.  One is vertical format with some cropping of my photo that I took of the barn.  The size is much smaller (only 4x6 inches for the drawing on a 6x8 sheet of paper) and I was only doing some sample studies but the result turned out better than I expected. I had a photo of a barn with a stand of trees behind it but I was 1) not sure how to draw it and 2) I wanted the trees to stand out to balance the image of the barn. So I did a test drawing of the trees on the left using negative drawing (aka, draw everyone BUT what you wanted to draw).  I wanted to show the light / shadows through the trees but in a way to make the trees stand out.  And it worked. I then did the complete drawing on the right to see how it looked in a full drawing with the barn.  I thought it turned out really well.  Just as I don't show the complete trees, I also don't show the complete barn. Well, that's my 2-cents for to...

 I really don’t have a clue what the future holds, but we can also make plans. My art work keep making progress.  My first (test?) printing (3 different ones) of 5x7 postcards of my barn drawings arrived and they look pretty good.  So good that I’ve ordered another printing of 2 other barns to make a complete set of 5 with different barns on each one.  When these come in I’ll linkup my online store for ordering sets.  The orders will be for sets only as it’s not worth it for orders of a single card. I’m working with the local Madison County Visitors center and they have bought some for the visitors center.  The barns are from Madison County so that makes sense.  The cost is minimal, but I’m working on that. I made the postcards large (still work with postcard stamps) 5x7 so that they could be frames if so desired (as shown here).  So the postcard is and is not just a postcard.   I’ve asked around (art stores, folk style) for what they would c...

It's been a while since I last posted anything, let alone a new watercolor.   This is what is keeping me busy: I created an order for my Art Post Cards and they are arriving today! Update my website for my future Store Front.   Evaluating PayPal vs Square.  Still working on this. Did an AT section hike in GA over Blood Mountain.  Perfect weather on the 11 mile hike up an over the mountain. Yard work.  Playing (but not juggling) with my new chainsaw.  Thinning out many small trees in the yard. Working to keep the lower acre and discovering a couple of new (dead) fallen trees. I keep a list that I make of things todo and a new watercolor painting has been on the list for a while.  Yeah I'm stalling but yesterday I got it done and it turned out pretty well. Now that my list is complete I get to create a new list and yes, a watercolor painting will be on it, along with a drawing and making an order for some Art Greeting Cards as well.  I ordered the P...

It took a while but I finally updated my website to reflect my current life.   ToddBlackley.com   My "past" life is just that, past.  Current life, more art and such.  I didn't put up my other information as that's for this blog. Now that the weather is getting nicer, I'll be busy with hiking, fishing, yard stuff and art stuff.  I just wanted to complete this site so that I have someplace to put all this stuff, well the better stuff anyway. I went with using WordPress at the WordPress.com site.  The site is cheap and I could redirect my GoDaddy domain to reference it.  Plus I got the learn the WordPress Block Editor.   Onward and ...... whatever.

 Drawing these barns has led me to reflect on life.  We have limited lifespans, will return to the earth and we change as we age and that shapes our lives.   Life is not perfect.  It's wonderful and imperfect.  I don't try to draw all the detail or even draw all that well.  I miss lines, dimensions may be off and perspective is not perfect, but the feeling comes through.  Thank goodness not being perfect is an asset sometimes.  In some fields perfection is required (surgeon, pilot, etc.) and there are checklists and backups in those areas that demand it (yes).  I worked in a profession where perfection was expected but not supported (Software Engineering).  There are always lawsuits where some company is not found to be perfect (Apple Batteries, bugs, etc.) even though what they are doing is incredible hard and consumers expect new features quickly.  Do not expect perfection. I once was in charge of a flagship product for a company ...