When a young man's fancy turns to thoughts of love... unless he has hayfever, in which case his fancy probably turns to thoughts of histamine blockers,
because it's hard to be smooth with the ladies if you have to break off for a sneezing fit every few sentences.�
I don't know how many of us actually engage in spring cleaning at this time of year, but I know Mother Nature must.� Two days or so, right around the time when the tax software gets installed, and again for two or three days in August, something happens that I call "the turning of the pollen."� Late yesterday afternoon, the itchy eyes, and by this morning, sneeze-sneeze-sneeze-sneeze-whathe-sneeze-sneeze-sneeze.
Writing is not going to happen on these days for the same reason as hayfever guy will have a hard time picking up a girl.� I feel fine, but the interruptions make it impossible to get into the zone and stay there.� Rather than trying to swim against the tide and winding up thwarted and frustrated, I do something trivial where the interruptions don't matter.� Today's project is coloring another one of Michael Bair's black-and-whites from DeviantArt.� I started playing with digital coloring last fall.� I'd never done anything like it before, but he made the offer in his DA journal.�
I like trying new things.� Experimenting within your medium and in others is part of the fun, and part of being an artist on any level.� One of the saddest damn things I ever saw was some college professor railing against all these dang pictures and sounds showing up on the internet - circa 1996 or 97.� Because it's a text medium, dagnabbit!� It was an infant medium, hell it still is.� None of us know what the Internet IS yet as a medium, and this was ten years ago.� To have started imposing artificial rules at that stage is downright idiotic.� I ran into that professor's spiritual sons and daughters a few years ago when I tried to play the Lost Experience.� Alternate Reality Games are even younger than the net generally, yet there they were, the self-appointed experts, declaring what a game could do and couldn't do, what was a legitimate way to play and what was cheating.� When you settle into that crotchety old man mindset, it's over.� Maybe you've got a formula and a skillset with which you can go through the motions in your field, but as an artist, you're dead.�
So, everyone's challenge for the week:� go find something new to try.� This is about the end product, it's just about reconnecting with the child's delight in the closed box.�
Mine is a beta site of Stanford University to make 3-D renderings of photos.� I was playing with it for a few days, and I totally suck at it.� Picking photos that will work and "fixing" the planes.� Far too spatial for me. But I had fun.� Here is the least bad of my attempts.
I don't know how many of us actually engage in spring cleaning at this time of year, but I know Mother Nature must.� Two days or so, right around the time when the tax software gets installed, and again for two or three days in August, something happens that I call "the turning of the pollen."� Late yesterday afternoon, the itchy eyes, and by this morning, sneeze-sneeze-sneeze-sneeze-whathe-sneeze-sneeze-sneeze.
Writing is not going to happen on these days for the same reason as hayfever guy will have a hard time picking up a girl.� I feel fine, but the interruptions make it impossible to get into the zone and stay there.� Rather than trying to swim against the tide and winding up thwarted and frustrated, I do something trivial where the interruptions don't matter.� Today's project is coloring another one of Michael Bair's black-and-whites from DeviantArt.� I started playing with digital coloring last fall.� I'd never done anything like it before, but he made the offer in his DA journal.�
I like trying new things.� Experimenting within your medium and in others is part of the fun, and part of being an artist on any level.� One of the saddest damn things I ever saw was some college professor railing against all these dang pictures and sounds showing up on the internet - circa 1996 or 97.� Because it's a text medium, dagnabbit!� It was an infant medium, hell it still is.� None of us know what the Internet IS yet as a medium, and this was ten years ago.� To have started imposing artificial rules at that stage is downright idiotic.� I ran into that professor's spiritual sons and daughters a few years ago when I tried to play the Lost Experience.� Alternate Reality Games are even younger than the net generally, yet there they were, the self-appointed experts, declaring what a game could do and couldn't do, what was a legitimate way to play and what was cheating.� When you settle into that crotchety old man mindset, it's over.� Maybe you've got a formula and a skillset with which you can go through the motions in your field, but as an artist, you're dead.�
So, everyone's challenge for the week:� go find something new to try.� This is about the end product, it's just about reconnecting with the child's delight in the closed box.�
Mine is a beta site of Stanford University to make 3-D renderings of photos.� I was playing with it for a few days, and I totally suck at it.� Picking photos that will work and "fixing" the planes.� Far too spatial for me. But I had fun.� Here is the least bad of my attempts.
