saturn return to sender

part of a series. maybe.

So I splurged recently and got myself a Wacom tablet. It will take a lot of practice to make it and Photoshop do what I want, but it is pretty damn fun. I picked this photo as a subject and have started playing with it. Not sure if it will turn into anything interesting or not, but working with the tools is what it’s about at this point. Pictured here is a rough “pencil” drawing and here are the beginnings of some “paint.”

Pretending the tablet and Photoshop are a pencil, pen, or marker and paper mostly works for me. I am not at all convinced, though, when they’re supposed to be painting media. Mostly, I miss the color mixing of real watercolors or acrylics. So far opacity is the best simulation I’ve found for watercolor mixing in Photoshop, but it’s not the same at all. And of course there’s no water area bleeding, no dry-brushing, no finger-rubbing across soft lead or kneaded erasers. I miss all those, and I’m surprised to admit, actually, that aside from their usefulness as techniques, I miss the physicality of the real thing. I would not think I’d have romantic notions about the immediacy of touching paper, its texture on your fingertips, the little accidental color stains on your shirt, and all that, but I do.

I also really want the image on the screen to rotate with the tablet. I guess there’s always the Cintiq. Next time I have a spare two grand to toss on something, I’ll have to check it out.

But, as with many now-computer-mediated crafts, you as creator are relieved of a lot of the hard work and risk-taking. You can shortcut the time, patience, and skill that have historically been required to get a basic drawing going. And then you can re-use that framework for different experiments without having to start over. I don’t have a perfect eye for proportions, but that’s not a problem because I can trace. I don’t have to worry about committing something to paper I’m not sure about because I can use a layer or just undo it. It’s really liberating—especially for the sake of experimentation—and I don’t think I should feel like I’m cheating, but … I kinda do.

Then there’s the wonder of downsampling. If you work in a high resolution, you can slop stuff around and it will look masterfully crafted when you zoom out. Now that is cheating! =)

Anyway. If I’m feeling motivated I’ll post more pics as that painting comes along.

NO smelling the roses

As far as I know, this collection of caps-locked injunction isn’t on a residence for some group of people that would be especially vulnerable to harm or apt to cause harm. It’s next to the parking lot of an apartment building in Louisville, CO, and it bothered me.

All persons entering this property should proceed directly to resident’s unit. No loitering, trespassing, gambling, or illegal activity is permitted in the common areas. Violators will be subject to arrest. NO bicycle riding, roller blading, skateboarding, scooter riding. NO soliciting, loitering, trespassing.

The sign below the crop says, “NO laughing, discussion, or happiness. Visitors with ideas or thoughts must keep them leashed at all times.”

I can understand wanting to warn off the random genuinely destructive person, but this is just so spectacularly un-friendly and paranoid. To me, it reflected an ugly side of our culture.

This Guardian piece hit a similar emotional note for me. Scotland Yard has suggested that children as young as five should be added to the criminal DNA database if they exhibit behavior that criminological theory says is an indicator of future criminal tendencies. The Yard’s spokesman’s suggestion not to regard as criminal everyone indexed in the database is a nice one, but until everyone is indexed, I don’t see how that perception could change.

At least the American FCC has finally arrived at what I think we can all agree is a reasonable compromise with our no-so-latent fascist-puritan urges. Obscenity on television will henceforth be defined against a standard of Alyson Hannigan. I applaud their vision and integrity.

This morning I saw a little sticker on a lamp post that said “Generalized Other,” and I assumed it was a band name and I thought was pretty great if it was.

Later, while helplessly binge Wikipedia-ing on articles on sleep, I realized that this is a treasure trove of bad shoegazer, post-emo, or muffin core* band names. Consider:

• Hypnic Jerk
• Segmented Sleep
• Tetris Effect
• Somniloquy

And my favorite, and what I’m going to name my nascent Rock Band-inspired doom metal group,

• Exploding Head Syndrome

What I really need now is a good name for binge Wikipedia-ing. I checked Wikipedia but couldn’t find an article on it.

But this time I mean the movie. Which I really liked. Yes, it’s true: I am a big &#*@ing sap.*

But seriously, who thought it was a good idea to use some crappy pop song to frame the closing credits of an otherwise perfectly good flick? It’s especially tacky for period or fantasy pieces. It totally blows the mood. Blech.