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I have so much tv backed up it is ridiculous. In various states of needing to be caught up on, I have Doctor Who, Orphan Black, Person of Interest, Elementary, and Hannibal. I'm not even sure what happened. For awhile there I was marathoning entire series of things (mostly older, complete shows), and now I can't sit down and watch one episode full through of nearly anything. I think I am shifting from input to output mode. The vid idea I have is just percolating like a mad thing in my head, itching for the new computer to be built so I can work on it. But, alas, new computer is not built.
And so, in desperate need for a creative outlet...I started learning to draw awhile back. It is going far better than I ever expected considering I have spent the first 40 years of my life convinced that I had no business ever being at the end of a pencil. When I started this I was literally drawing stick figures that would embarrass a kindergartner. I'm honestly not even sure what wild hair I got up my ass to even try again. Only, no lie, a monthish later I am drawing things that look like honest to god things. I'm even drawing faces that look like real life faces. Okay, at the moment they mostly end up looking like the second cousin twice removed of the actual person I was attempting...but they aren't wonky in proportion or form and you would think they were at least related (as a bonus, I now know what my son's brother might have looked like if I had ever had a second child). I do not actually suck (entirely) at this. My stuff is still obviously that of a beginner with a long way to go, but very clearly on the way there.
And I think I know what happened, now. To wee Eunice who desperately wanted to draw and ended up bitterly throwing away all her pencils and crayons in a fit when nothing but weirdly shaped stick figures would come out. The thing is, I come from a family chock full of artists (mostly hobbyists, but with a few professionals dotting the family tree). And at least the ones I spent the most time around growing up (my mother and both brothers), are those annoying people who have an instinctive grasp of proportion and ability to translate it to paper without ever having to learn how (I hate every one of you like this). They had to learn how to refine what they did to look prettier, but not where to start. So I'd watch them just grab a pencil and make swishy movements with their hand, and magically, a cat would appear under it. Then I'd grab a pencil and make swishy movements and...a deformed lima bean with too many limbs and a 'tail' that would poke your eye out would appear. But because they just sorta did it, asking how would just end in frustrated tears for everyone, and more deformed lima beans for me. And so it was clear to me. I had zero talent and should just steer clear of even attempting.
Except, it turns out? If you start me at the very, very, very beginning. If you explain the theory behind perspective and show me how to find proportions without having to purely eyeball it (I love my ruler, I love my ruler so much). If you spell out in little tiny words how a light source affects shadows, and how to find the various planes in objects? Do that and it takes me less than a month to go swish swish with my pencil and have an accurately rendered coffee mug appear beneath it like MAGIC. Sure, I need a loooot of work with details and refining things and I haven't even attempted figures or composed scenes at all yet, though I have managed to get surfaces under things now (fruit floating in space was kind of awesome, though...I felt like I should surround them with stars and pitch it as a new sci-fi show...you know you'd totally watch Apples From Jupiter). The point is that, although I'm never going to be some amazeballs artist with talent dripping out of my every pore, I can actually draw shit if I want to. This is not a hobby that is off limits for me. And considering I don't think I'll ever get tired of that moment when you look down and the lines and shapes and shadows have transformed in to an actual thing that looks like a thing (MAGIC), I have no intention of giving it up now.
So that's a lot of what I'm doing with my time right now.
And so, in desperate need for a creative outlet...I started learning to draw awhile back. It is going far better than I ever expected considering I have spent the first 40 years of my life convinced that I had no business ever being at the end of a pencil. When I started this I was literally drawing stick figures that would embarrass a kindergartner. I'm honestly not even sure what wild hair I got up my ass to even try again. Only, no lie, a monthish later I am drawing things that look like honest to god things. I'm even drawing faces that look like real life faces. Okay, at the moment they mostly end up looking like the second cousin twice removed of the actual person I was attempting...but they aren't wonky in proportion or form and you would think they were at least related (as a bonus, I now know what my son's brother might have looked like if I had ever had a second child). I do not actually suck (entirely) at this. My stuff is still obviously that of a beginner with a long way to go, but very clearly on the way there.
And I think I know what happened, now. To wee Eunice who desperately wanted to draw and ended up bitterly throwing away all her pencils and crayons in a fit when nothing but weirdly shaped stick figures would come out. The thing is, I come from a family chock full of artists (mostly hobbyists, but with a few professionals dotting the family tree). And at least the ones I spent the most time around growing up (my mother and both brothers), are those annoying people who have an instinctive grasp of proportion and ability to translate it to paper without ever having to learn how (I hate every one of you like this). They had to learn how to refine what they did to look prettier, but not where to start. So I'd watch them just grab a pencil and make swishy movements with their hand, and magically, a cat would appear under it. Then I'd grab a pencil and make swishy movements and...a deformed lima bean with too many limbs and a 'tail' that would poke your eye out would appear. But because they just sorta did it, asking how would just end in frustrated tears for everyone, and more deformed lima beans for me. And so it was clear to me. I had zero talent and should just steer clear of even attempting.
Except, it turns out? If you start me at the very, very, very beginning. If you explain the theory behind perspective and show me how to find proportions without having to purely eyeball it (I love my ruler, I love my ruler so much). If you spell out in little tiny words how a light source affects shadows, and how to find the various planes in objects? Do that and it takes me less than a month to go swish swish with my pencil and have an accurately rendered coffee mug appear beneath it like MAGIC. Sure, I need a loooot of work with details and refining things and I haven't even attempted figures or composed scenes at all yet, though I have managed to get surfaces under things now (fruit floating in space was kind of awesome, though...I felt like I should surround them with stars and pitch it as a new sci-fi show...you know you'd totally watch Apples From Jupiter). The point is that, although I'm never going to be some amazeballs artist with talent dripping out of my every pore, I can actually draw shit if I want to. This is not a hobby that is off limits for me. And considering I don't think I'll ever get tired of that moment when you look down and the lines and shapes and shadows have transformed in to an actual thing that looks like a thing (MAGIC), I have no intention of giving it up now.
So that's a lot of what I'm doing with my time right now.
From:
no subject
I've been thinking about you all week, fellow Storm Chasers fan. Did you hear what happened to Twistex on Friday? I can't get over it, it's consumed my thoughts all week. *sob*
From:
no subject
Your post also reminded me of something that is equally true when teaching writing, which is that things that may seem obvious to a teacher (who is probably in the field because of talent and inclination) are not necessarily obvious to a student (who may have neither, but who is still capable of learning when coached and supported). I mean, I knew that -- I try to keep it in mind always -- but having someone articulate it from that beginner's perspective is extra-valuable.
From:
no subject
Yeah. This season's tornadoes have been freaking me out (wtf is going on out there, holy shit), so I haven't been following any of the boys real time, but since Tim is a local Colorado boy it hit the news here pretty quickly and was covered really extensively. Just. I started bracing myself for the possibility that one of them would get hurt from the time I fell in love, but I never expected it to be Tim and his boys with his bent for caution and restraint, ya know? Not that it would be better if it was anyone else, it just caught me seriously off balance.
And I really wish they'd stop showing the wrecked truck in news reports, because all I can think when I see it is how much he loved that fucking truck, showing it and all it's gadgets off like a proud papa (and how protective he was of it) and it causes me to break down crying every time, the juxtaposition of those two images.
From:
no subject
*nodnodnodnod* Like, everything anyone will ever learn to do is made up of a bunch of tinier steps, but when you have an instinctive grasp of how those pieces fit together they kind of all blur together into one vague step. Like, if I were teaching someone how to vid (not just how to use the tech, but how to vid), the first thing I'd think is 'you put the clips that go together down on the timeline'...it wouldn't even occur to me to try and explain the process of how to identify clips that contrast or compliment each other in the first place. Which, to me, is 'scan the source and grab the ones that might work'...but is in reality a process that involves comparing a combination of context/motion/emotion (and sometimes color, but I'm bad at that, heh) against the needs of the specific sound of the music there or the lyric here placed within the larger framework of the 'vid as a whole'. Those aren't magical skills, but I would imagine that to some people 'put the clips that go together together' sounds exactly to them like 'start by drawing the basic shape' does to me. YES, BUT HOW. Hee.
From:
no subject
Oh, I sucked it up and had a mammogram yesterday. Been planning to for while, and read your post on them again yesterday morning in preparation. So glad I went. Brief moment of panic when they called me back from the waiting room to take extra images and pointed out some calcifications, but a quick ultrasound confirmed they were nothing to worry about. Next step, mole mapping. I have a lot of freckles!