AEDM Journal, week 4

AEDM Journal, week 4
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

Still struggling, but just one more day. Hopefully I'll be able to continue drawing or pursue some other creative activities once the challenge is officially over.

AEDM Journal, week 3

AEDM Journal, week 3
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

Barely hanging on -- almost completely forgot about AEDM last night until after getting home from a pre-Thanksgiving party.

So far, the best inspiration came during a long run on Friday -- lots of mental connections on ... making mental connections and its role/relationship with mindfulness and serendipity. I thought I might be able to spin it into an illustrated essay but I managed to get a few notes down in my journal before it flittered away in the noise of the day to day. Only the image of a winding stone wall that I saw on my run managed to get translated to paper, and even then, I wasn't all that happy with how it came out -- but I remind myself this is about process and not outcomes. (other than what comes of putting pen to paper every day)

AEDM Journal, week 2

AEDM Journal, week 2
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

This week has still been a struggle, but things would occasionally come a little easier than last week -- I'm finding small moments of inspiration here and there, so that's good. Hopefully, it will continue to improve. Hopefully, it won't go completely overboard and I find myself, I dunno -- videoblogging music or dance performances -- because frankly, while I think getting outside the box is beneficial, a complete loss of self might be a little more than I can handle right now. Unless that happens to be my optimum trajectory, I guess.

AEDM week 1

AEDM journal, week 1
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

So I started Art Every Day Month a day late, but it does make for nice weekly updates that start on Mondays. Not that I drew in the day planner every day this time around. But I think that's good -- I'm trying to be more flexible and adapt to my needs. While I liked having all the contributions to the project in one place, and I liked the way a full week looked, I'm realizing that it's not what's important.

So it looks like there won't be a post for every little bit of art that I do every day, but I'll try to post a summary at the end of the week and highlight anything that I liked in particular.

It was particularly good to remember that while I was doing yardwork this afternoon. Trying to rake leaves out to the street for leaf vacuuming this coming week, I wanted to gather the acorns separately, which led to an attempt at sorting:

and then...play:

yard work, yard play
a little art, every day.

Of course, because I was playing, I didn't actually finish raking the yard before it got dark, but I'll hopefully finish up tomorrow afternoon (and hopefully before the street vacuum comes.)

312/365 Leaf Spiral

312/365 Leaf Spiral
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

and also part of my art every day month exercise.

306/365 In Search of Inspiration

306/365 In Search of Inspiration
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

It's the second day of the month, but the first day for me to participate in Art Every Day Month which was started by my friend Leah. The last time I was successful with this was in 2005.

I gave myself a break and started on the second day because we were completely sleep-deprived over the weekend (dance event in North Carolina). I think technically, I could think of my photography as art and fulfill the requirements for the challenge, but the point isn't to check something off a list but to get me to stretch my limits. For me, I'm hoping it will get me to draw more, and if that works, to maybe push myself beyond sketches and drawings in pen and ink; but we'll see. It's good to stretch, but it's also good to keep goals achievable.

25 Random Things #2

25 Random Things #2
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

25 Random Things #1

25 Random Things #1

25 Random Things #1
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

I wasn't willing to play this on Facebook, yet here I am sending it out to the vast interwebs. I assume it's mainly because of the illusion of anonymity.

Late night sketch journal

Couldn't sleep, so had a snack and did a little drawing. Obviously I'm still up, and apparently now I'm also feeling nauseous. Awesome.

25/365 sketchy

25/365 sketchy
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

Played with some caricatures of myself and the SOOTTAD today. Actually some improvement over past efforts, but still not quite where I want them to be.

Not the most interesting photos today, mostly because the others that I took either were redundant or didn't frame or focus the way I wanted them to. Oh well. I guess that's part of the process.

Weekend went fast -- not even remotely ready to get back to work tomorrow. Blargh.

Oh, and gong xi fa cai!

CED2009, Week 3

Journal, Week 3
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

Still squeezing in time to do some sketching; more portraits... speaking of which, I find that as soon as I've picked a subject in the wild, they move or switch positions. And I'm just not fast/good enough yet to deal. Not sure if part of my problem is that I'm doing these journal drawings in pen. (that just happens to be a constraint I've put on myself, at least for now -- trying to manage shading, contours and textures with this unforgiving medium to see if I can learn how to work with and/or around it. I did do some sketching in another sketchbook with a drafting pencil.) Anyway, I'd welcome suggestions and/or perspectives on dealing with this.

CED2009, Week 2

Journal, Week 2
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

Still trying to capture some element from the day, although starting to doodle a little bit on the side as well. Did some sketching elsewhere, and will probably integrate some of Leah's cool suggestions for adding other stuff into the journal.

CED2009: the day planner

CED2009: the day planner
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

So this is part of my plan to keep up with my drawing for this challenge -- a small dayplanner calendar. It addresses a bunch of things that I found to be difficult the first time I tried to do one of these art every day things.

Because I can carry it around with me, I always have something that I can draw in. I also like having a record of things all in one place. I understand that some of the fun of this challenge (and of exploring creativity) can be to find new and unusual places to create art -- business cards, notebooks, napkins... you name it. (And other ways of thinking about what is art and what it is to be creative.) And I need to stop worrying about how things will turn out, and one of the easiest ways to do that is to draw on stuff that I know will be thrown away. But when I drew in different sketchbooks and journals, it felt less like a consolidated project, which somehow didn't feel as satisfying to me. I should probably just get over it. I think I will. But I think I'll do that in addition to the calendar.

Anyway, the calendar also a physical object that reminds me that I want to be drawing. I'm hoping that it will help get me into the right headspace to draw. And the smaller space and lines makes me worry less about drawing something "worthwhile." I'm hoping it'll let me play a bit.

I've noticed I've already turned it into something of a journal, recounting something that happened or something I did during the day. Hopefully I won't fall into a pattern and feel obligated to keep it up, although it's kind of fun to treat it that way right now.

So... so far, so good. Although I realize that the first few days have been easy -- a holiday, only one work day, and a weekend. I haven't had to balance this with my usual juggernaut of other activities. When everything else kicks in, that's where the real challenge will start. Hopefully it will be the break from the chaos rather than a burden or chore that's taking away from other things that I want to be doing.

3/365 Sketchy Wiring, and what the deal is

3/365 Sketchy Wiring
3.1/365 New light fixture
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

Hey.

So you may have noticed all the posts recently with the weird titles. It's probably obvious, but I kinda decided to try this whole "Project 365" thing that's been bouncing around the interwebs -- basically, take a photo a day for a whole year. Anyway, I'm going to try to take pictures every day and plan on posting a daily photo. As some of you may have already noticed, there will be some fudging of posting dates, mainly because I've got some latent OCD and want the posting date to match the photo date. But really, it'll be just the posting date. We'll see how THAT goes.

But wait, there's more!

Just to relive my overachieving college days, I'm also going to try to do some drawing every day. (which will maybe evolve into some bigger creative projects) A few years ago, I participated in a thing called Art Every Day Month that was started by my friend Leah. She's gone on to inspire a great many people to express their creativity and now has started a creative every day challenge. Basically, do something creative every day, and recognize the creativity in the things you are doing.

I suppose I'd already have my bases covered taking daily photos, so I'd get credit or something without having to do the extra work... but the whole point is that I want to work on my drawing, so... I guess there you go.

It feels like I'm making New Year's Resolutions, and I guess I sort of am, even though me and Resolutions parted ways a long time ago... and I was happier for it. But 2008 really went sour towards the end there, and it's still left a bad taste in my mouth. (To start with, I'm still broken, and the lack of activity isn't helping.) Anyway, it seemed like a good thing to give myself some goals, keep myself occupied, focus my energy... and maybe some good will come of it.

We'll see how it goes.

And maybe I'll try running another marathon in the fall.

[still to come... 2008 year in review.]

Ketchup?

Hide
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

I had every intention of doing Art Everyday Month this year, what will all the craziness of the year theoretically behind us -- moving into the new house, finishing school, setting up the new business, selling the old house, getting married. Y'know, stuff. But I guess it wasn't really *every* intention, seeing as I got as far as starting the above drawing on the first and only just got around to "finishing" it this afternoon. (and by that I mean that I've done enough for it to be presentable, even though it doesn't really feel done.)

Life often seems like a never-ending sequence (an infinite series?) of "almost there" moments where things are largely sucking and it seems like you just need to turn a corner and everything will fall into place and it'll just be smooth sailing from then on. (you mean like in Iraq? No, not like that. Well, yes, kinda... in the never-quite-turning-the-corner way as opposed to the unfailingly-optimistic-in-a-delusional-if-not-cynical-way way)

Anyway, things keep feeling like they're going to settle down and get back to "normal." Except that they're not. There's always something coming up on the horizon. Things are good, but invariably there's always something that's a little crazy going on in the background, some crisis we're managing or some crazybomb that's about to go off.

Shit happens.

But, you know, things are good. Always with the step back and the happy sigh. And it still feels like we're making progress. Maybe it *is* fair to think of it like a mathematical infinite series. As in, mathematical convergence.

Anyway, I'm feeling a bit out of it these days, but I haven't been able to put my finger on what the dealio is. The head feels like it's in a funny place. I've felt a bit disconnected. Things seems strangely unfamiliar. Maybe it's just that my routines are gone and I have to develop new systems.

So I went to the well. Although it's really more like I found myself in my well, and I've been trying to find a pause between all the stuff that's been going on to take some time to process things a bit.

The well isn't really a bad place. It's a concept I took from Haruki Murakami's "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle" where it's something of a reoccurring theme. It's a place for introspection. A quiet place, hidden away, separated from the systems, the chaos, the crazy of everyday living. Maybe it's its own little crazy, but it's at least in a more manageable form-factor.

So it's the start of the Turkey day long weekend. I figured I'd have some free time while we're at the SOOTTAD's parental homestead, although we've been put to work for a good chunk of the time we've been here already. But I may still have a chance to find that pause. Hopefully I'll at least get a few of the catch-up posts out to let you know what I've been doing and thinking about recently.

And, of course, if not, hopefully this'll do for some of the explaining.

When life gives you lemons...

Ice sculpture
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

...make lemonade.

'Course, seeing as lemons aren't really in season 'round these here parts, it's more like:

when life gives you three hours' worth of shoveling of hard packed snow and layers of ice... make art.

In other news, my lower back is now wicked sore, and I can barely hold a pen in my hand to write from all the shoveling. Oh, and we met some more of the new neighbors helping them get their car unstuck from the snow(ice)bank at the front of their driveway. (Which, incidentally, probably would have been unnecessary if the son had accepted my offer to help dig out the driveway. But, whatever.)