Currently Browsing: Backstory 978 articles
In Context: Quotations
Reading is a way to have conversations when you’re alone in a room. You and the author, trying to decipher what the characters are …
In Context: The Trouble with Double Vision
Page spread in an 8 inch square, hand-bound journal made with the OLD Gutenberg paper (which is not the same as the currently available Gutenberg paper which I do not recommend for visual journaling). The text on the page explains everything, oh, with one “writo” as I like to call them. In the second paragraph […]
Tricks of Memory and Make-up
Sometimes we don’t remember things, and sometimes we remember them correctly. Drawing always makes me think about things like this. I was not misremembering, there were actually two actors who played “Dale the Whale” in the TV show “Monk.”
Thoughts on Nose Rings
Dick claims that we talk more than most married couples. I don’t know about that, but I do know that our conversations are far-ranging. This past fall my lung situation was pretty bad. I didn’t have a lot of energy for multiple bouts of the downsizing packing, unpacking, sorting—as well as work and cooking. So […]
In Context: Thoughts on Downsizing
Today you can click on the image and read what I was reading and someone else’s thoughts on downsizing. My downsizing is ongoing. Often when we are involved in something we find other people who are involved in the same pursuit. It doesn’t matter if it is eldercare, or downsizing, or painting a good watercolor […]
Reading Notes–from Delano Ames
What strikes you as important? Memorable? When you hear or read something do you jot it down? I’m always making reading notes. They have absolutely (usually, as now) nothing to do with my sketches on the page. They were just part of the same day. I jot them down, and move on. I do find […]
In Context: Found Photos of the Girls
This is a page from a small Hahnemühle Toned paper journal. The photo “stickers” are about an inch wide. I found a stack of these stickers from 1990-91 while clearing out some stuff in the downsizing. I put them in a couple journals I have going right now, and tossed the extras. I figure […]
Sketching Fair Goers without a Fair
I spent the year sketching Fair Goers who Earth’s World had captured at Fairs and Festivals. (See #earthsworld, @earthsworld on Instagram and Flicker; Earth permits artists to use the photos as sketching reference with attribution!) Even in May I kept thinking I’d better practice just in case. No Fair for me this year, but I […]
Another Look at Hahnemühle’s Travel Journal
I go on and on about how much I love Hahnemühle’s Travel Journal. It’s about 8 x 6 inches and looks like a very thick Moleskine—i.e., black cover, elastic closure, back envelope, ribbon book mark. (Let’s just point out that the first thing I do when I open a new one is pull that ribbon […]
Why Character Actors Make the Best Models
This sketch of a character actor in an historical drama (set in the 1930s) is not exaggerated. This is how he looked (essentially, OK there is always some exaggeration when you draw directly with ink, because if a line goes a little wonky I simply keep going…) It’s no secret, especially when I work with […]