Musings and Quips of an Artist

Usually on the weekends I have time to attend the weekly portrait group and paint. Normally I don't stay the whole session Most of these are never completed or were painted in under 2 hrs.
At times I feel like painting is self flagellation. More not so good mental beatings of bad drawings but I still continue to paint! My mentor used to say portraits is the most complex and difficult subject matter compared to a landscape and such.

The last month or so my focus is bridging and fine-tuning my knowledge of Adobe programs
such as InDesign and Illustrator. Any Photoshop user to Illustrator will tell you this a nightmare.
And any AI to PS user will tell you the same. A customer even gave me her old AI book to use and reference because we had a conversation about being the polar opposite and wished me luck
in my challenge.

Unlike other Adobe suite products where most of the time the base knowledge is transferable.
AI and PS are polar opposites. the shortcuts, terms, and menu placement is different from the other. I'm ready for this challenge and I am more open minded to learn AI. years ago I took a class on it and pretty much had the attitude and arrogance of why bother learning this skill...and I got a new game console too .

These paintings were done at different points this year. With the really bad ones I just paint over it and reuse the canvas for something better.

Just another average day in the city of Santa Destroy...Y'know trying to stay alive being the world's #1 assassin. No More Heroes was my surprise game that was announced during E3 this year.

I'm hyped because this series was up in the air for a continuation. The reveal is more surprising when you never expect it to be made! One of my favorite genres of games is stylized fighting. There aren't much of them made real well. A lot of games these days are super easy. This is a difficult game but not impossible when you want to throw controllers and such.

I've played this a handful of times
I gave my copy away to a friend.

No More Heroes is one of the few games I've played where it is not about saving the world. Travis Touchdown is an otaku trying to support his habit by becoming an assassin, working part time jobs while trying to impress and bang the hot french chick. NMH has a bunch of innuendo, cliche but not so cliche plot twists, modern day references and 4th wall jokes. That yeah this is the game in order to recharge Travis' beam katana you have to shake the controller and he looks like he is jacking off. You'd be in the middle of a huge boss and have to take care of that.

I think NMH:Paradise was the first game I got a Platinum trophy on my psn. The last un-lockable mode in the game is Very Sweet mode. One of my friends questioned why play a game on super easy mode after beating it on Very Hard...well it never gets old doing one hit kills. If that mode is available then why not? I don't care much for the more scantily clad women in that particular game mode.

Henshin!

That magical girl sequence was awesome!

The first time I saw the trailer I saw the censored version.

When you watch the censored version it really cuts a lot out.

~SPOILERS~

The plot twists and 4th wall are real yo.

This is one of the reasons I love this game.

Well time to consider getting a Nintendo Switch. Nintendo must've heard me talking smack years ago that there isn't any good games on or in development for the switch.
Boy am I wrong. There have been a lot of good announcements.

While I'm at it just throwing it out there with all the remakes going on Mario Kart Double Dash needs one...! I'm pretty right about these things, this is the one I'm surprised hasn't been remade yet. My game Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles is getting a hd upgrade and online multiplayer later this year. Yay! Online! I don't have real life gamer friends because I don't know how to play nice with others. I like to win!

On last week

Unfortunately last week I wasn't able to see Jupiter close up with my telescope.

Long story short I got this telescope for free...I am able to look and be content with

looking at moon craters but that is about it. This telescope is not really good

I wouldn't give it to someone as a gift, that would be such a cruel joke.

Oh well. I'll save for a better telescope in the future. I'll see Jupiter again in opposition, it

is not like Halley's comet, a once in a lifetime kind of event.

For now I'll use my imagination to draw something cool. 👍

I've been waiting all week....Today's Tonight is the perfect night.

I'm totally excited for tonight June 10th. Jupiter and it's 4 large moons they will be visible and it will be so close that you can see it with good binoculars or small telescope. I haven't been this excited for something in awhile...I'm losing sleep over this. :>

I've said this a million times but Jupiter and its four large moons Callisto, Europa, Ganymede and Io through a telescope is probably the most beautiful thing I've seen that took my breath away. Man I'm more excited about this than E3 this year. Nasa says depending on your equipment you might be able to see cloud banding and or the red spot!! I was blown away without seeing the bands!

There is a lot going on with planet sightings this month!

Stay tuned!

Screenshot of Sky & Telescope Website

I hope everyone is enjoying their 3 day weekend. I know I am!
Napping, video games, pizza, binge watching Game of Thrones, drawing and restarting my exercise regimen with friends.

The other week I discovered washi tape. Before I didn't really know what it was. I looked into it more and it is a decorative light paper tape, primarily used for arts and crafts. It is not as durable as other tapes.

I'm not really into crafts. But am a sucker for marbled items and cute stuff. Yet recently I found a washi tape design pack that I liked and started using it for helping identify electronics. The washi tape has been primarily useful for my wacom pen.

I have this bad habit when I take a break from my computer that I will walk around with it in my house. The wacom pen is black and when a lot of electronics are black and somehow how a lot of your furniture is dark it tends to get misplaced constantly. Unfortunately my vision is not that good. Depending on where I misplaced it can time to find it again.

This is my only pen that goes with this tablet. I broke the other backup pen I had. But wrapping the pen end with washi tape, spruces it up and makes it brighter so I can see where I misplace it when I take breaks!

Hope this tip helps!

Everyone has a weakness, handicap, or something you are not good at, no matter how much you try. Whatever you want to call it... my arch-nemesis is hardware and cord setup.
Even with my disadvantages, it is a true miracle I was able to fix my french easel by
myself the other day.
Yes! Hallelujah!
(In my defense I'm good with electronics, some repair, and quickly figuring out how to use programs I have never used before to make up the gap in lack of hardware sense.)

One of my longest running jokes is that if left to my own devices I'll mess up the basics of building a table...

Somehow things would get messed up and the end result would probably be one of the table legs sticking up. In the name of art I'll call it an abstract art installation. Just don't question its function or purpose.

I have a portable french easel, and it somehow always falls apart. The current one I use is less than 2 years old. Unfortunately these have a reputation of not being well made. The other week my easel leg gave out and if I didn't catch it and have assistance in studying the leg everything would of fallen: The paints, painting, palette, coffee, glass jars of turp and everything else.

This whole easel situation has been an ongoing few month process. Sometime last month or two ago I was missing screws and washers from my easel. I was offered assistance from Alex to look for missing parts. we went out to my car to do some CSI investigating: missing screws and washers edition. In the past I have found missing parts, but the investigation and search was inconclusive. The car was clean, there was no solid leads, no spare parts were not found in the empty trunk.

Well the good folks and my artist friends at the drawing group gave me pointers and helped me with how to fix my french easel. This may sound dumb but Alex had this genius idea to finally get my easel fixed once in for all. She mentioned, "You just said you have 3 of these messed up easels. Why don't you take the parts from the other two to make one good one." This was mind blowing life changing advice. This also saved me a trip to the hardware store...which is like a huge art store to an artist.

I finally got to work this week to fix my one of the easels. The back leg reinforcement, middle bar to hold paintings, and other misc. missing screws and washers.

I'm pretty proud of myself for doing this. When I lived at home I would shamelessly get my dad or sister to build my hardware equipment for me. I'd bribe my sister with free lunch or with my dad lay out the pieces separately the way he would like it and a snack. My dad has ADHD...and he can't sit still and focus for long periods of time, so he would build one part, walk away and then build more and then walk away. Even if he wanted to ignore it, he couldn't. Sometimes it would take all day or more but it was worth the wait to get my stuff built. The only thing I've built in my studio by myself and has nothing wrong with it is my computer chair. I got it with art scholarship money. I was excited and impatient to wait for anyone else to come home and build it for me that I actually built it myself!

While I was at it I finally added the wheels that came with the easel.

This time I have wheely done it!
My easel didn't fall apart at the drawing group today!