Paintshop Pro, from iPad to iMac

I saw great reviews for the new Sketchbook Pro (version 6) drawing program for the computer. Introductory price of $29. Since I've been using the pared down version on my iPad, I knew I liked it. So, yes, I got the full version for a full computer. Sketchbook Pro is so much cheaper than the industry leader Corel Painter 12. I know Sketchbook has fewer features, but hey, at 1/15th the price... deal! I can bring the files into Photoshop for the things it can't do.

There is more you can do of course on a program designed for a full operating system and plenty of memory, and I also used my Wacom tablet and took advantage of pressure sensitivity. Two hours later I had done a self-portrait, graphic novel style, a tough as nails version of me (yes, a bit younger looking), influenced by watching the movie The Hunger Games the night before. The middle aged Catniss Carlson? Except for a bow and arrow, I'd have to cut contestants down with my number 11 blade X-Acto knife.

Jim suggested a great article at Lifehacker about practice, the kind that only helps a little (mindless or overly repetitive; such as how I did piano lessons: start at beginning, make a mistake, stop, start over and repeat--so only able to play beginning well!) and mindful (working out problems and trying multiple solutions).  With this study, I thought about how to balance line with color so that it didn't get too finished, I wanted to keep a sketchy loose feel. I have plans to illustrate a picture book and want to develop the level of skills to do it. I was also dealing with a light source that had no strong direction and wanted to see how much of the purple shirt I should reflect back into the face.

What should I do next? I am frightfully bad at doing whole scenes, if I take it piece by piece, try this, try that, I may finally get the level of abstraction I need to do a landscape with a narrative event, i.e., an illustration.

Self portrait Sept 3, 2012, 1st Sketchbook pro attempt.

Leaving the Underground

I've had too much work, as the day job and the night job spread thought all my waking time. Writing has happened in snippets on subways, lunch walks, just before falling asleep--interstitial moments. I still walk to my nearby urban park where trees die and are replaced, the reflecting pool is covered in wood--becoming seats and platform for ping pong tables or roller bladers, balloons as large as VWs rise in the evening and by day tiny lights are strung along the crowns of trees. One day the park is an open air market for tiny cupcakes, the next NASA has brought tables of ideas and equipment... Time moves so visibly and change is constant...and my years as a writer and creator of crafted things is no longer feeling infinite. It is time to leave the underground, write and draw, and rekindle my own love of languages, visual and verbal.

Am rereading my Norton anthology of poetry, the oldies are great. And also downloading books of poetry from the eNYPL. Paper and screens, heart's meme.

Here is a drawing I'm doing for a book cover for Benu Press... I'm amazed they asked me to do the art, not the usual way I do covers. The arm needed to go...and I reworked it.

Photoshop: the awe and awful

I love photoshop. It was like the gift of fire to mankind and artists. One could start with a photo and recreate at will. Layering and collages without glue! Color changes and editing out Uncle Mort's head, easy! No more zits, a result so perfect Dr. Zizmor—dermatologist to subway riders—would weep in envy.

The laws of physics bent to the needs of imagination with a few la-di-da filters and warp effects. (And maybe hundreds of hours of effort.) Like manna from on high it gave us drop shadows and a new reality where all light sources are bright, colors ever ultra saturated, and no random objects daring to interfere. In fact, looking away from the computer screen to the ordinary January day happening outside my window, I see a pallid disorienting mishmash. Where is the focus of the world? Diffuse dim lightsource, really? Why is that power line making an annoying squiggle against the corner of sky? And who put the smudge of smog on the window--very distracting!

But, even as such gifts became part of an everyday workflow, so too did the products. This morning as I walked to the office I passed a poster and flinched. In my brief shuddering eye assault it presented twisty balls of fire, a hero with sweat slicked spandexed muscles, and a robotic lizard doing an aerial ballet of badass. "Ah," I thought, "another example of too many photoshop-like special effects." Actually I thought SPX but this would reveal a disquieting amount of geekyness.

I note that designers are pulling away from using every single photoshop effect on one crummy title...fewer typefaces tortured by drop shadows and beveling and texture and glow effects. A little moderation folks, please. As for me? I plan to go out on my lunch hour and look at the world as it is...until I whip out my camera and think about what I can do to the view, cropped and cornered.

Unexpected visitors

Last weekend was slated for staying at home and doing freelance. I wasn't expecting much beyond my work and concomitant work avoidance maneuvers: reading, iPadding, and watching old movies...

Then I got a phone call. A friend I hadn't seen in two decades was interested in talking to me about getting a website. Along with moving out of NYC she had also pretty much left the digital revolution behind too. I will call her Kay.

"Do you have dial-up" I asked. "Do you have a computer you are comfortable using?"
"I am in bear country. There are no hot spots here. And I don't really like computers." I started explaining how browsers and websites work. I could hear, over the phone, the sound of Kay's brain going off-line. Clearly I had to show her this stuff, it was just gibberish otherwise.

"Actually I am in the city this weekend, would it be terribly inconvenient if I dropped by?"

She came for a visit. Yes, we both looked older but were essentially the same. I had remembered that Kay was smart and had one of those spoken vocabularies that would help anyone ace the verbal section of the SATs. Her vocabulary was richer in everything but the internet and software. It was odd to talk to someone my age who had avoided all that.

I sometimes get frustrated with software and hardware and the constant Keeping Up with social media. But would I give it up? No, never. They will pry my iPad45 from my stiff cold fingers. I know I am just beginning to figure out how to use all these new tools. This blog is a celebration of what I do and how I do. I write, I draw, I design, I photo. Some of it is on paper with pencil, some on tablets with fingers...more tools, more possibilities. And learning to think digital media is like pushing into another dimension with the art and words. I may never master it--think hypertext poetry--but it informs my imagination.

Kay was fascinated by my husband's expertise as a lyricist...something she was doing now too... I loved her creative vision. She has been working on these projects for several years, in the woods. They are seriously great ideas. We agreed to talk more the next day. Kay came back after my first beginners tap class. (Where I was the least able to follow directions of anyone there and totally loved it anyway.) When I walked in the door, on noodle legs and rather bedewed tee shirt and floppy jeans, Kay was sitting on the couch listening to one of Jim's musicals.

"Er, we have more company..." Jim said.  "I see that," I noted, breezily heading to the bedroom to change. Then I saw what Jim really meant, sitting on our bed was an unknown cat. She was fairly small, orange and white in patches, and quite friendly.

I emerged from the shower and heard another of Jim's musicals playing. The unknown cat was cheerfully sniffing our dog's nose and the dog's tail was a rotary blade of joy. Kay was sipping some of Jim's bounty from China, fragrant lichee tea.

The cat had entered the door with Kay but did not in any way belong to Kay. I snapped a photo of the cat and put it by the elevator downstairs with our apartment number. Kay and I looked at various sites she liked and discussed what she might like done.

Then the cat's owner came by clutching her missing cat flyer she had just gone to hang by the elevator. It turned out the cat likes to wander and tends to prefer the J-K line. Kay departed, and I was amazed to find that everyone had had an unexpected visitor.