A Crow for Sting

I got up today thinking that I had to work because I always work on Wednesday. And I was a good little cog in the machine and covered shifts in an emergency so I thought that I would still work with a few hours of over time as my reward. Imagine my surprise when I got to work and found out that I wasn't supposed to be there. Not unusual for things to change and people not tell me. I am after all I am a good little cog in a not so vast corporate machine. But still...

Not complaining at all. I like surprises like that. It's just that rather than work til I hit my 40 the big cogs and the control arms decided to short me 6 hours on my schedule. Now the upside is that my " further any big picture" paycheck is only short 3 hours since I did get paid for 3 hours of overtime last week. So in the grand scheme I am not really too far behind in earnings. And I do have a day for me and my projects that no one knows about. Which means no one can commandeer my free time with demands of their own. And it feels like rain.

It has been so incredibly hot that this cool 68 degree morning feels like a breathe of Heaven. It is the perfect day for painting watercolors at my favorite cafe table with a small collection of my favorite Schlagerkunstlern (German pop music artists). And it is the perfect day for working on the motif that has been in my head before the real fall weather gets here.

Crows.
Not just any old run of the mill "Nevermore" spouting crows or counting crows. But the whimsical "make it your own" stuff that I am leaning to these days. A crow with a pun... ya know cause it bugs the Jeebus out of Old Uncle Willie*. A crow with that "gypsy soothe-sayer familiar" kind of familiarity that may or may not end up wearing a Mr. Clean ear piercing. A crow with uncharacteristic "Don't shoot the messenger" contrition. And a crow for Sting.

So since I skipped all sorts of headaches in learning figure drawing I had to find reference material. And I did. Oodles and oodles of reference material. And I accidentally found the blog most recently added to the list: junipurr. Please go have a look. This is a spectacular print making blog. And I wonder why this person is not designing rubber stamps. I would love to have some of her work to create with. But that is for another post.

So I have decided that the crow theme either means I am looking forward to Fall or feeling murderous... I think I will let the augury tell me which.

In Progress

As much as I love what cafepress offers for me. I think I found a better company for what I want to do with my artwork. While traipsing through the blogosphere today I found some artwork that sang to me. So I did a little digging around and found that it was printed by a company called MOO. And here's the think, unlike cafepress, MOO will print multiple images in a pack. AND I do not have to buy special software to convert my images. They have an uploader and I can edit the stuff in THEIR house. Not mine!!! I am so excited. I can't wait to make stuff.

But now I also have to ask myself if that means that I have to go schlepp my work myself. Cafepress will manage my store for me. Now I wonder if MOO will do that too. These are two great resources. Now to merge them. How does that happen?

I need to do this. It could be the easiest thing in the world to do. And the most profitable. Well... of to research.

How Cool is This?



I was doing a bit of research for another project and discovered

this which jarred my memory.

I lifted this from a wikipedia article. The cylinder is a rolling stone stamp. The rectangle is a piece of clay that was stamped with the roller. This particular example is in the Louvre.

I'm thinking a lot of things right now. 1. There really is nothing new. This art form is thousands of years old. And while the article doesn't say it specifically I'm thinking that if you want to do a frieze or a border around a central figure and don't have a lot of time to do it because some Babylonian overlord with a whip is being an asshole about finishing a temple.... this is how you are going to get the job done. Slap a layer of wet clay over the substrate and roll for a ll you're worth. Granted the story is only going to be as long as the cylinder is in circumference. But if you are going to hit the highlights and have a great artistic design.... what more do you need?

2. I'm thinking that what I love to do with a passion was high art back in the day (3500 B.C.E) and now is relegated to puffery.

3. We are unimaginative idiots to think that someone almost 6000 years ago stood out in the hot sun and carved these things with crude tools on the wall surface. Why would you not build task specific tools to do your work? I mean holy carp Anne Bagby carves her own rubber stamps to do the same kind of thing in her artwork. Why do we think that ancient people wouldn't do the same? There is a uniformity in the work back then that defies the many hands concept of construction. Sure... Dale Chihuly teaches his apprentices his techniques and they build the pieces he designs. It would be insane to think that one guy can blow all that glass by himself. Just like its insane to thing that one guy carved all those walls. He built the tools that the workers used to decorate the walls they built.... I think.

4. Most importantly and positively in this pondering : We rubber stampers come from a long and proud and awesome tradition. Yea us!

Theobroma

from the artist's sketchbook

It is the latin for chocolate and its literal translation is "Food of the Gods." After doing a little research a few years back, learning how it grows and is harvested, I have a greater appreciation for this luxury.

The cacao pod at the left was supposed to be a quick sketch... a colorful doodle at lunch. But it ended up being an hour and a half at the coffee shop. It isn't even 3 inches tall. Just a little something to keep me in the art groove while I am sorting out  some personal issues.

Promise Made Promise Kept: a picture

Original ink drawing by Sherry Crocker
commemorating the 2011 Matthias Reim concert
series that she will regrettably miss due to lack of
funding.

I mentioned this was in the works a while back. And  then I mentioned that it was done. Then I promised that I would post a pic. And how many months ago was that?

Let's not look. There have been technical difficulties a-plenty.

This is so totally and completely me. Which is great since this is going to be a totally and completely one-of-a-kind shirt. I was going to wear this to a concert when I went to James' wedding. But I think the intention makes it perfectly clear that I never made it there. Stupid job! Stupid people who have rotator cuff surgery at inopportune times! [sigh] But what can you do? Gripe.
Been there. Been doing that. Got me nothing but this t-shirt design. Which is still something pretty cool.

I am so geeked about this. It is in black and white. The coloring is an accident of photography. I took everything out onto the porch in mid afternoon light and this is just what happens when you play with settings. But it has me thinking.

When I make this a t-shirt. [And I will] do I want to do a gradient on white like this? Or do I want to do this in metallic on black? Or shall I color it in with greens, golden yellow, some burnt sienna, red and a dash of violet? I do not know. I like it as it is. But I think I would like it a couple of other ways.

Its on Bristol board so I will be able to make some crisp copies and play with it before rendering my final verdict.

The Smoking Jaguar

Today was a mental marathon at the coffee shop. While I had intended to deal with digesting some more German. I ended up inspired by the peace and quite and Matthias Reim's "Du und Ich". I'd made a watercolor for a friend who once asked me to do something for him. I don't think he thought that anything would come from the question. And it took a few months to be inspired to do anything for him. He is kinda a hard guy to know. But one day he did something that just about knocked me on the floor because it reminded me so much of my favorite cat, Spock. But he isn't a trekkie so forget the obvious. He is into Mayan stufff.

Again that is a surprise because he doesn't go for all that "hookey religious stuff". He is fairly straight forward and not given to flights of fantasy. But he is abso-smurfly intrigued by the Mayan Calendar and related prophecy... go figure. So I did a little research. I'd thought about doing his name in myan glyphs. Great idea but the mayans don't have letters for his name. The substitutions would have, from a design stand point been sloppy. Great. What next?

So I read about how long it tooko to decode the Mayan codex. I guess those missing letters made things a bit complicated. The linguists weren't invited to the first round of research so the archealolgists assigned literal translations for some of the kings. One poor sap in particular got a bad name. Bad as in it made him look as ineffectual and foppish as a french dandy on the throne when everything about his rule was anything but foppish. A smoking ember and a stylized frog to represent his name in a cartouche got him called "The Smoking Frog". Like I said, poor sap.

But it all coalesced for me in one of those "Duh" moments. My friend reminds me of a cat ready to pounce despite the very laid back posture. He so closely associates himself with his bad habit that the name just got in my head and stuck... The Smoking Jaguar.

Yes he liked it.

And I needed one for me because he is going to leave.

I know. Not cool. But people these days have to do what it takes to survive in this economy and if that means leaving for better work I guess I can't stop him.

I get my computer back tomorrow so I can do a download soon and show you my copy.

Crests

Working on personal crest. This weekend turned out to be very good for that sort of thing. I spent the day on the porch drawing things that just seemed to flow into the concept. It was a good day. Fresh air, shade and warm enough weather to be in the shade.

I am realizing though that it is going to take a while to get a finished product. I haven't drawn in so long that the gears in my brain are kinda rusty.

But at any rate there is the crest sitting in front of a banner. The ink pen is the rod the banner hangs on which drips an exemplar of my own artsy writing style. The sun above the parapetted crest is a clock and compass rose. I haen't quite decided what I am going to do about hte tassels on the banner. But they will represent my jewelery hobby. I've filled in parts of the sheild with symbols indicating my interests and character. I am thinking about something florid in the background but it may be that there is enough going on here already.

Though I am still uncertain of all those sun rays......