James fixed my printer this morning, thereby establishing himself yet again as a fantastic husband. I’d been in midpanic, since I needed a print Right Now, and he dropped everything, took it apart, cleaned the bits with Q-tips, and put it back together. Now it works better than it did out of the box.

Yesterday was pretty good. Bid on a coupla interesting masks on E-bay, since Money Frog has been doing a good job and I felt like treating myself to something weird.

And my copy of “The Art of James Christensen” arrived yesterday, and I am delirious with joy. It’s gorgeous. The guy does all these wonderfully distorted figures, but every now and then, he’ll toss in this magnificant Pre-Raphaelite scene with every figure painfully realistically rendered. It’s always nice to get proof that your most cherished belief re: anatomy–you gotta do it right, before you get to do it wrong–is actually true.

Better than the paintings, however, are all these wonderful margin doodles. They made me realize that I don’t sketch nearly enough. I used to fill sketchbooks all the time, but these days, I hardly ever sketch any more–only when I have something in mind, or need to scrawl down a thumbnail. I rarely sit down and just doodle with no purpose, and I think that’s kinda limiting me. So, terribly inspired by it all, I spent yesterday evening drawing these weird little figures. I’m going to try filling at least a page with Painter sketches each evening for a week, on the principle that if I get in the habit, that’s a good thing. They don’t have to be high art, I just want to get drawing more, and playing with distortion, since strict realism is beginning to pale.

Some of yesterday’s weirdness behind the tag.


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My favorite part of this one is hard to see at this size, but the chicken just laid an egg wearing a little hat and carrying a cane…

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The large breasted woman in the Barong mask at the top just robbed a bank, but knows that between the breasts and the mask, nobody’s gonna remember her face.

The sketches have already borne a certain amount of fruit, since this morning’s doodling led to an idea which is currently a physical piece in progress. It’s a bunch of cardinals on snowy branches.

No, like Catholic cardinals. With the hats and the big crosses and the bright red capes. I may not be a Christian, but I can appreciate a snappy dresser when I see one…

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