Panting

Having trouble keeping up lately. An insufficient amount of my creative desires are being exploited, due to poor time management, exhaustion, and general frazzled-ness.

My frustration at this inability is driving me mad. I am trying to adjust my expectations accordingly, down from: "I can do every little thing that occurs to me," to: "if I make to work and back, I should be happy with that; all else is gravy." It's a grudging admission, but necessary.

Even my numbed self-awareness is telling me that something isn't working for me. I am not living that higher-purposed existence that spiritual and self-help gurus are always on about; the joyous synergy that comes from doing what you love in a way that fulfills and rewards.

I need a change, but I don't yet know what it is. Ah well, back to work. I'll figure it out someday. Unless of course I don't.

"No mere apple...!"

For decades I have tried to teach myself to draw. For the entire time, I have used a stupid and relatively unproductive technique that goes like this:

1. Buy book
2. Try to do what books says
3. Associate drawing with failure and frustration
4. Quit

I have some very good books, and I've had some that instruct you to simply draw things one step at a time, one, two, three, four, until you have drawn what the artist has drawn - easy! Except that you can't just skip the grinding and steady application of (even if enjoyable) discipline, effort and learning of technique that the acquisition of this skill requires (unless you're naturally gifted, in which case forget what I said because I hate you for it anyway).

Not so much admitting to the fact as succumbing to it, I surrendered to the suspicion that working with someone more skilled than myself might actually make sense, and I contacted local artist John Turnbeaugh who offers classes. We sat down recently at a local coffee shop and discussed what I liked, what my goals were, and what I had done so far.

We flipped through my sketch book, and he was mildly-yet-pleasantly surprised at the abilities I have cobbled together so far. I'm embarrassed to admit what thrills ran though me when he complimented the things I have done correctly. He has some encounters where aspiring artists are at a pretty remedial level, and he was relieved at some of the heavy lifting he wouldn't have to slog through with me. It's encouraging to find that after bashing my head against the Walls of That Which I Cannot Yet Do, I have absorbed some sensible ideas of space and perspective. Still, having someone acknowledge that and mean it - I could have hugged him for it.

It wasn't all a love-fest though, thankfully. We moved on to the areas that need improvement, and God knows that they are vast and numerous. Among the things I learned or otherwise gathered:

• Try to see objects as they are, rather than the generify (made up word "generify" Copyright 2011, Liberated Pachyderm Productions) them as they are in your mind's eye. For example, John produced an apple and instantly became the apple's Chief Advocate: "Don't see this as just any ordinary apple. See this apple for the unique apple that it is. This apple has its own character, its own dents and color patterns and shape. Draw the apple as it is, not as you imagine it to be." I'm paraphrasing, but that was the gist.
• All pencils are not made equal. While I tend to favor mechanical pencils, that's okay, but I should embrace the use of the "B" pencils for their softness and use in shading. I need more practice and understanding among the tools I would use.
  
• Shading - we discussed cross-hatching, and its alternative which we dubbed the "traditional" or "other" type of shading, where you apply pencil to an area and skillfully smear it in from there. This is my biggest area of improvement, and I knew it. Still, we went over the apple and my representation of it. I was reassured that my lines and shape were generally strong (although deserving of some correction), but my ability to shade and imply form was nearly void. I actually sat and stared at the page when it came time to shade my apple-of-singular-identity, waiting for my brain to find the right gear and propel my hands to do something intelligent. It never happened. But, with some instruction and prodding from my new instructor, I started timidly adding more graphite here and there and I ended up with a pretty fair apple when we were done.
• Other artists to investigate: Alex Ross; John Romita, Jr.; Vincent Van Gogh; Frank Frazetta.
  

I am really glad that I allowed myself to move in a positive direction with this. What a wonderful thing it would be to be able to draw with skill.

Let's get the obligatory, "I haven't blogged in a while" B.S. out of the way:

Holy shit, has it been more than two weeks since I blogged? Gee.

There, that's better. For a little more thought on that:

As I've mentioned before, I have a problem with focus. When I can arrange my thoughts and efforts toward a specific goal or topic, my ability to remain creative with that goal vanishes. It is a maddening blind spot on my mind's eye. The flip side of that is that when I am forced to labor for another's ends, as most of us are for much of our adult lives, the peripheral items that catch my eye seem to stir up much more useful grist.

In other words, when I'm stuck at work mining for cubicle lint, I am much more likely to dream up and obsess about things that strike my fancy. Things about which I might blog someday. Which brings me to my point:

Whilst I do still toil under the master's yoke, I have been engaging more and more in activities and experiments that, rather than insult and spurn my creativity and such-as-it-is intellect, they yank them in, grind and twist them in their ruthless clockwork and spit them out dirty, tattered and exhausted.

I have more to do and less to bitch about, which makes for a spindly blog entry, especially when you're accustomed to belly-aching about things outside your control.

This turn of events should make for an entirely different and no less interesting blog - one that describes the acquisition of hilltops and slaying of dragons. But it involves a switching of gears that I have hardly pondered until now, much less undertaken. I'm not used to acknowledging solutions and goals attained and describing successes; I find that it puts me back a bit!

In any event, I have been doing more 'doing,' and less postulating and navel-gazing. Therefore, the skimpier blog. This is a good thing. Once I can rework the machinery of my self-expression, it's entirely possible I have much to say.

We'll see!

One more gift

I am very fortunate to have received the triathelete of birthday gift lists this year: lean and muscular, no fat, no waste. I've truly and sincerely valued everything I've gotten, from the small to the grand, and goodies continue to trickle in. One last thing I'd like though, is something I will give to myself: the gift of organization.

When I was younger, leaner, handsomer (really, it is possible), I was more organized. And a millionaire, I was very rich. Hey, it's my nostalgic moment, get your own if you don't like it!

One thing that was true though, was that I was organized. I knew where things were, or at least where they ought to be, should I need them. Back then, for a brief time, I was single.

As much as I'd like to pretend that I was some alphabetizing dynamo, it was more to the point to say that a) I had less stuff to spread out and lose, and b) I was the only one to move things around. I might (might?) get drunk and hide things from myself, but I was the only one to worry about.

It is only coincidentally true that I am now married and sloppy. Now, I am a disorganized slob, my home a disheveled wreck at a crisis point that I'd be embarrassed to show to a crackhead. I have lots of stuff (note to self: material wealth not the key to happiness), but as often as not I can't find a lot of it. This is just not the me I want to be.

In my defense, I am not totally shiftless. It is a busy life. I get lots of things done, things that matter. I just don't have this one thing that is an important piece of my psyche. I have an innate need to be able to find things that I know I have, and to use them without an inordinate amount of difficulty. I must accommodate this need, at least somewhat, if I am to be happy.

I have the tools of organization, I just haven't employed them. So, this year I've decided to work towards a life containing bare tabletops, indexed files and possessions that are grouped and arranged to the point where one doesn't have to move two of them to access a third. I hope to walk through a bucolic nirvana where stumbling over items is something does in inebriation, not with claustrophobic regularity. I hope to climb a mountain of dear belongings and outright junk and discriminate between the two!

I hope to become: more organized.

Get it while you can

I spent my weekend (now over) being pretty busy. Now that I'm occupied well over 40 hours per week, my free time has much more value, and I treat it accordingly.

I was a fair blur of activity Friday and Saturday, mostly climbing a mountain of housework, and some other things I had been eyeing all week. After barbecuing some chicken, I finally collapsed with my head in my wife's lap last night around 6pm (and no, I didn't leave that particular chore for last!). It was very pleasant.