LobsterOctupus:OTI::pic,notes:::2/28/21

Open To Interpretation

Lobster And Octupus

House of the Dancing Faun...Pompeii

wikicommons

Notes: welp, they're supposed to be facing off on a staircase...missed that...misses make mystery!...I hadn't thought, do Lobsters and Octupi fight?...brb...certainly they do!...lol...Lobsters hop backwards with a tail flip like Grasshoppers!...lots of youtube clips...and a popular motif in Old Roman mosaics/frescos...Greek?...brb...Octupi on the Minoan vases, but no lobster, save for a neat Lobster Claw lamp...the Japanese jumped to it with Lobsters, for designs and such, as they have 'armor'...

quote

Lobsters were the subject of black-glazed figural askos vases, such as a terracotta vessel in the form of a lobster claw, Greece circa 400 - 460 BCE (e.g., http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/ancient-art-antiquities/an-attic-blackglazed-figural-askos-class-of-5321793-details.aspx). These were complex structures made via molds and free modeling. Lobsters occasionally decorated Roman table utensils and also appeared on wall drawings and reliefs. However the bulk of the information on lobsters from the Ancient Era in the Mediterranean Basin comes from written text and mosaics (for a detailed list see Table I in Charmantier 2014). 

https://www.athensjournals.gr/mediterranean/2015-1-3-1-Spanier.pdf

unquote

well, my nighttime reading for tonight!...one roll out to Jack in the Box for cheeseburger combo, coffee, cheesecake...

:)

DavidDavid

Cambiaso:OTI::pics,notes:::2/27/21

Open To Interpretation

Babe Ruth

Cambiaso Volumetric Mannequins

Notes:  out this morning to Micky D's...deluxe breakfast, cinnamon roll, large coffee...thought to sketch a mannequin after Cambiaso...I'd happened on the tutorial, and looked Cambiaso up...I remember him from the Time/Life Art series books...he came up with these boxy preliminary sketches, which makes him leap ahead like centuries...doing these kind  of sketches, it's easier to see where to shade...started with that in mind, the shading, and, and the drawing got away...got it back by making it Babe Ruth pitching!...it's messed up...Babe was left handed...I had no reference, and it wasn't Babe until I put "3" on the shirt, where in truth a 3 would never have been...old time uniforms had numbers on back...and I got to messing with the face...remembered Babe's big wide nose, and not much else...so, soh, afterwards, checked images, and found one from a Sport's Illustrated take-One Hundred Years after Bab's First Major League Game...I was in the ballpark!...I gotta say, with all the old stuff on youtube, I just wallow in nostalgia-captivated I am by all these films of celebrities of the past...not just celebrities...lots of clips too of just everyday folk...and too there are all the documentaries about old artists, who provide windows into their times...from Cambiaso, to Raphael, to Botticelli, and totally taken with Botticilli's illustrations to Dante's Inferno, a book I've never been able to read-too much!...don't need to now, Botticelli's drawings tell the tale!...anyway, out this evening to Wendy's-southwest salad, baked potato, chocolate chip cookie, coffee...and drew the Cambiaso mannequin, with shadowing...the demo artist uses a drafting triangle to draw the boxes...kinda neat...I have some of those, small ones...try to include them in sketching sometimes...a lot of finessing things I've been dismissing--like straight horizon lines...often I see the demo plein air artists use a ruler to make the horizon...

:)

DavidDavid

HorsetailFall:OTI::pic,notes:::2/26/21

Open To Interpretation

Firefall

Notes:  Horsetail Fall, Firefall...the name gets conflated...Horsetail with the artificial Firefall once over Curry Village from Glacier Point...there were other artificial ones...tossing burning embers off Half Dome and such...kind of a thing...now a thing for the photogs to migrate and foregather in late February for the seasonal natural Horsetail Fall on the shoulder of El Cap...today in the browse, happened on photo (Rob Hirsch) taken from vantage of the South Rim, somewhere...I tried to get to that vantage once, going up Four Mile Trail...not sure if same...that attempt blog reported back in 2008, I think (2/2009)...it wasn't the big deal then it is now...the photo has the sun ray, all orange crossing El Cap to the waterfall...thought about it snacking on Blueberry Skoans and Mocha...out for a drive around to re-charge the White Truck's battery, and, and that was it today...

:)

DavidDavid

Here:OTI::pics,notes:::2/25/21

Open To Interpretation

HERE

Harbor Bay Motel

Container Ships

Moon over Catalina Flyer

Balboa Souvenir Shop

Notes:  rolled out towards sunset to photograph the container ships, and the table and chairs of the previous drawing-couple with hound dog snacking...needed a reference photo!...and, and editing, I note "HERE"...lol...go figure...hot dog combo and root beer at Balboa Treats, the Blue Picnic Table...souvenir hoody from the souvenir shop...Moon is above everything...motel sign glimpsed on way back...messed up its leaping dolphin...

:)

DavidDavid

Moon Fishing:OTI::pics,notes:::2/24/21

Open To Interpretation

Bicycle Training Wheels

Moon Fisherman

Notes: welp, I was thinking about going fishing, and on youtube happened on vlog showing the phases of the Moon, one photo each over 28 days, and, and I was stuck, as usual, for a cartoon idea...came to mind a boy sitting on a crescent moon fishing...checked to see if it had been done-a no brainer, it has...by moviemaker Dreamworks, no less...seen it myself many times in the beginning of their movies!...so, soh, set it aside...out for Jack in the Box #21, breakfast sandwich and large coffee, and chocolate cake...on return, saw a Dad with Kid leaning to ride a bicycle with training wheels...a glimpse...and I couldn't figure out the sketch...things overtop one another...an 'in progress"...these all are!...anyway, I returned to Moon fishing, and had the boy hook up with a Black Dragon...my Black Dragon's evolve into outer space faring creatures...a product of the age of Dinosaurs...and on occasion, like sea turtles returning to land to lay their eggs, they return to the Earth...too much...I have happened on one other author with outer space faring dragons...but it's a strange notion...maybe since, others have postulated space dragons!...brb...too much to browse and skip read through...the story instance I noted was like a 19th century author...hmmph...now, I wanted to revisit Ahab and the White Lobster cartoon...posted...used search: Ahab White Whale cartoon...lots and lots...and funny!...I noted our visual "focus" is about the size of a printed word in a book...the most comfortable letter size like 10-12 point...a self similar  "focus" makes all the difference in a joke, a cartoon...it one knows the story of Moby Dick, the reference to "white" makes sense!...a meaning that brings focus...generally, we're surrounded with unfocused meanings, meanings we dont understand...like going down a street with billboards and signs all in a foreign language...balanced/unbalanced...

:)

DavidDavid

Climber:OTI::pics,notes:::2/23/21

Open To Interpretation 

Climber

Bee Whale Lobster Goldfishbowl

Notes:...huh?...that's what I thought with Bee Whale Lobster Goldfish Bowl...the idea for a cartoon for last few days, was a whale sitting on top of a fish bowl...Idontknowwhy...my favorite emoji is a goldfish atop a fish bowl...an emoji youtube comment editor offers...thought to make something of it, and was stuck...snacking on enchilada combo take out...earlier, watched some youtube movieMobyDick clips...Gregory Peck's soliloquies are unearthly...and found a whale cartoon: a tank full of red lobsters, save one...and Ahab is pointing to one in particular, and tells the waiters, "I'll have that one."...the lobster is white of course...then sketched the climber, so, soh, something to show...think I broke his neck... 

:)

DavidDavid

Warrior:OTI::pics,notes:::2/22/21

Open To Interpretation

How Light Falls on Drawings/Paintings

Greek Warrior

 

from pinterest from?

Notes: The seascape is Edgar Payne's Laguna Coast, I've chosen to copy, and, and so a thought study everyday...right off I noticed how the light on the waves goes from the right corner to top left...Payne was a student of composition tricks...trick is to grab hold of our small focus field...I mean, one can just gaze, and one can focus, and the size of focus is like the size of printed word in a book!...what happens is our vision bounces around from the general to the specific, and artists trap viewers in their pictures to look here, then here, then there....it's kinda mercenary!...but a lot of it is done subconsciously, both by the artist and viewer...viewing paintings can be as much an art, and struggle, as painting them!...notice too how the highest point of the waves aligns with one outcrop of rocks, then another, into the far distant looking clouds...there's like six little receding focal points...it's an X composition...big line from bottom right corner to top left...another from up 2/3 left to top right corner...note he uses the same value of white on all the waves-the brightest white...that's a mistake...artists have a color on their brush, and willy nilly, use it for both foreground and background-the same value...the color changes with distance...without taking this into account, and using the self same value fore and aft, a painting is flat...I have my rule of three...one color, three values...trees, rocks, waves, every color-three values...the distant ones a bit darker, or lighter, subdued...or just three to give it the sense of it...apparently, a lot of the Impressionist miss this...the paint color on their brush they used for a foreground note, they just lift up and drop it on a background note...a quibble!...anyway, anyway, I was watching the demo drawing, Thor with Hammer and Boar, and the artist explains how he works the fall of light...it casts on Thor's head, his right arm, his hammer, and the Boar...this leads the viewers eye on that path...find the clip on youtube...artist explains all he is about...artists are never short on explanations!...so, soh, after snacking this morning, Micky D's deluxe breakfast and coffee, I thought to sketch in the manner of comic artists...myself, I begin with pencil and circles and cones and mannikin shapes, and, and what happens is after drawing one thing, one's sense of how things fit together kicks in, and it's like a path to follow...the demo artist started with Thor's right eyebrow...just such a small cue is enough...see caricature artist demos!...as I drew my warrior, the legs were messed up...that still visible...the front looks like the back leg, and visa versa...the trailing leg I had to bring forward somehow to make it the right leg...fussed and fussed...and remembered my fall of light lessons, and used the kneadable eraser to make a highlight trail from the helm, to the shoulder, to the hip, to the left leg grieve...or some such!...

:)

DavidDavid

TexasSteer:OTI::pic,notes:::2/21/21

Open To Interpretation

TexasSteer

 

Notes:  from last night, a dream, I was trying to draw an alien looking creature...that for sometime...thought was to have it looking back, and, I messed up the head...then when I added the tail, thinking by now I had drawn a horse, I, well, inadvertently joined the ranks of scatalogical fart cartoonists, which are legion...what to do what to do...added cattle steer horns...oti...lol...actually, poor cows are getting as much blame for their methane as autos for their exhausts!...and Texas is Texas...outs for snacks: breakfast sandwich, coffee (Starbucks), cheeseburger combo, coca cola (Jack in the Box)... 

:)

DavidDavid

Tukut:OTI::pic,notes:::2/20/21

Open Too Interpretation

Tukut's Meadow

Notes: didn't roll out today...still could I guess...breakfast burrito, then BLT sandwich, enough  for the day...bowl of cheerios and a banana midnight snack...when at a loss what to do for a sketch, I do one from memory of a Valley icon...Tukut Indian name for Bobcat...

:)

DavidDavid

Dragon:OTIO::pics,notes:::2/19/21

Open To Interpretation

Princess And Dragon

Notes:  The blog  is modeled after the Mars Explorers...a new one has just landed on Mars...back in April, 2007, I got the Canon12x camera, and, and that was my Rover...I explored very close to the Cabin (Tree In The Door) at first, the "backyard", which I compared to my home's backyard, where Maya my Dog rules now...early this morning, I revisited the old posts...it wasn't until Thanksgiving about that I posted an "icon" pic-Sentinel from Creek's End with charcoal sketch, and then until mid-January before Half Dome showed up in a pic...this in a blog about Yosemite!.,,hard to explain...lol...anyway, my "observation equipment" improved, and my mobility, and eventually I picked up and came back to Town-August, 2013, where the blog's exploring continued....from the first, that was the whole idea of going to Yosemite, of taking the art classes-to be a topographer!...topographers went about with the new water color paints in tubes, and recorded landscapes and old castles and such...the tubes gave them mobility, like the  Canon12x camera did...cell phones now are the 12x...pics, and clips, with the added feature of phone...I was showing off my pics and clips on the little lcd screen back then...back then, blogger too was started up, and not long after youtube....facebook and the rest tag along later when the phones were in everyone's hands!...this morning, I left off reminiscing in January, 2008...sometime not long after I made a didgiscope, and tried it out sitting at the Deer House (Superintendent's Cabin) and focusing on  Acorn Woodpeckers on the Woodpecker Tree across Bobcat Meadow (Cook's Meadow)...I nicknamed things in the fashion that they were nicknaming things on Mars!...then would have been my first blog posted pic of the Woodpecker Tree...the Woodpecker Tree fell over in Summer, 2013...that was that!...anyway, my "exploring equipment" is becoming sophisticated in a wild direction-making sketches and such from imagination!...some of that all along, but of late it's been the "camera' of choice...now, I was viewing a French old time fantasy illustrator, and impressed...for imaginative prompts illustrators use stories...where storytellers get their ideas something else again!...so, soh, I thought long on this, and imagined the long window, light coming into a room, and a queen or princes standing in the light reading a letter, or a book by the  window's light...the room like in a cavernous stone castle...well. the light is Vermeer's, and the girl reading letter...some Fragonard's Girl Reading Book too....that I had, and a blank for a far  wall...thought to make a large arched doorway opening onto a patio garden...oh, that's from the Black Deck Tales!...Medea with her dragons...so, Dragon in the doorway....I'm sitting in Silver. my Jeep, on the driveway with breakfast burritos from Micky D's, doing the sharpies sketch, first in pencil...and took the sketch far as it could go, without starting over...time to photograph it...one piece of gear requires another!...I was taught to photograph stuff under shade...and learned dappled shade can add to the work...so I went over under the Jacaranda, leaned the drawing board against the picnic bench, and, oh, the new yellow flowers!...lol...I cant make this up!...this pic, to me, a new favorite...

:)

DavidDavid 

Cheerios:OTI::pics,notes:::2/18/21

Open To Interpretation

Bowl of Cheerios

Sleeping Cat (Autumn)

Notes: out to Mickey D's  for deluxe breakfast...earlier I'd had a bowl of cheerios with a cut up banana...

:)

DavidDavid

Octupus:OTI::pic,notes:::2/17/21

Open To Interpretation

Sitting on Tentacles

Notes: didn't get out today!..could still after I post...is time for a snack...

:)

DavidDavid

Cart:OTI::pic,notes:::2/16/21

Open To Interpretation

Cart and Horse

 

Notes: rolled out to Train Station, Orange, Ruby's, for fish and chips and coffee...sat outside to watch the trains...a train...mid afternoon...I was only one there...trains are like a moving home that brings on homesickness!...or some such...lol...Ruby's a treat as expensive...evening taken up with doing the softball umpire study test...this time a zoom meeting rather than normal...one hundred questions, each of us takes on four...it's an open book test, even the final one...but without help, I'm helpless...out again to El Super for groceries...corner market has slim pickins...and, and did the sketch...in the dream it was a white horse going up a hill...added the cart...

:)

DavidDavid

UnpluggedInTexas:OTI::pic, notes:::2/15/21

Open To Interpretation

Camping Stove

Notes:  just two outs today...morning to Micky D's...#7 burritos, coffee, cinnamon role...evening to Micky D's...lol...chicken nuggets and coca cola...too, groceries from the corner market...I drew the stove in pencil on the watercolor paper, thinking to ink brush it, but then noted I'd drawn on the side I painted...that notion being if one side is stiffened by the paint, it will keep the paper from wrinkling on the other side when doing wet in wet watercolor, or ink brush...there is an idea of substance in this paper stretching notion, but I have to fiddle with it...as it is, the white acrylic painted side really scanned nice in the scanner!...scanner is shot...scratches in the glass that I'm always touching up in Photoshop Elements...as may be noted, I'm all over the map with things, as per usual...hopefully things will come together, as they do in the progress of making a painting, and make sense, someday...there's absolutely no sense in fussing about the rules of the social media platforms, anymore than it is arguing with an AAT tech, if you can get past the robot voice queries...apparently, justice has a different sets of rules for different strata of society...finished Chapter 2 of Bleak House, and in Chapter 3 the narration comes from one of the characters...Dicken's narration had words, uncommon words...now it's like fourth grade reader...hmmph...relatives freezing in Texas...

:)

DavidDavid

DickensMegasaurus:OTI::notes,pics:::2/14/21

Open To Interpretation

Bleak House

wikicommons

Notes:  hmmph...the facebook curator bot has turned back my blog links to facebook...as I have for long time, I go to the "more" menu at the top of blogger, find facebook, and link my blog post (message above comes back now...)...sometimes part of the post is redundant...like I posted the Megasaur and the Elephant direct to facebook, and here I have them again, with context and background of how/why they were made...I dont think many of my facebook friends browsing facebook, follow the link to the blog's post...the blog posts are often very long, in keeping with blogs, while facebook posts, by a kind of default community agreement, are very short, akin to twitter...ah, well, the halycon days of the web are ending...I can't complain...anyway, anyway. I was considering my last two charcoal sketches, the two street people, posted to facebook and here...and wondered if Goya was getting under my skin, that my drawings were taking on the manner of Goya's...my drawing are hit and miss, my skill level being such...in one place something will be right, in another wrong, and sometimes I'm just lucky...Goya's sketches are like that, they're not spot on, but then, they're not spot off either....so, soh, anyway, I thought to browse illustrations to Dickens...read somewhere Goya admired a British Dicken's illustrator...and I landed in google images on the odd street scene from Dicken's Bleak House...it's "arresting"...literally...the beams across the road are holding up the buildings!...curious, I found Bleak House at Gutenberg free e-book site, and began reading it...got through the preface, which is a chore, and the first chapter-another chore!...and came away with Dicken's Megalasaur...and lots of fog...somewhere in the image search, I saw the Police Officer alone with a billy club confronting a dinosaur...thought long on all this, and this morning with Micky D's Deluxe breakfast and coffee on the drive, did the Megalopolissaurius sketch...maybe facebook objects to my mentioning the meals I have, the fast food joints I go to...apparently, I'm guilty of fraud, spam, and redundancy...the platfroms are at the beginning of a JarndyceJarndyce for sure for sure..JJ cases were inheritance cases, are, that last for decades, centuries...the theme of BH...term could apply to any long running legal wrangle that bankrupts everyone with fees and such, and never reaches a resolution...I left off after reading as far as Chapter One...these old novels were originally presented in magazines as serials...and that may be the way to read them...did that watching the Mandalorian, and fell into a routine...one night I'd watch an episode, and afterwards go to youtube and read the vlogs about that episode...my store of Starwars lore has big gaps...certainly the same with Dickens...after reading BH Ch. 1, I went to the vlogs, and web blogs, and such, and read the commentaries...people make livings commenting on Dickens...maybe Starwars too...Season 3 of The Mandalorian is imperiled, its actors questionable social media posts costing them their jobs...welp, who is to say?...for now, it seems, the curator bots have sway...I dunno...tonight, I'll read Chapter 2 or so of BH, in the old timey fashion...there are, I find, web sites that provide platforms for storytellers with episodes...oh, the watercolor paper stretched with acrylic paint-glue with the paint the paper down to a canvas or board...it works, of course...I have two ready to go...and, and I've taken it a step further!...I've dispensed with the ground, the canvas or board, and just painted the back of the paper!...thought is the paint will dry stiff enough to keep the water on the other side from making the paper wrinkle...brb...the experiment should be dry by now...oh, the paint side is dry, but the other side still wet...curious...report to come!!!

:)

DavidDavid

Cerveza:OTI::pics,notes:::2/14/21

Open To Interpretation

Charcoals

Notes:  Teriaki Bowl, egg roll, large coffee at Jack in the Box...glimpsed the Mexican cowboy at West and GG Blvd, neat as a pin, carrying a 12 pack....vagabond girl at Harbor at Jack in the Box...she was seated behind a low wall, her fellow nearby by, all scruffy...and then she stood up, and had old timey long skirt on...dressed up, like the cowboy with his cell phone...

:)

DavidDavid

Note:OTI::pics,notes:::2/13/21

Open To Interpretation

Note Books

Notes:  note: to "stretch" watercolor paper (so it wont wrinkle when doing very wet into very wet), paint the surface of a canvas board, or any old canvas, and such, with acrylic white, white primer, gesso, and, and lay the soaked water color paper, like 140lb, on the canvas/board...both will dry stuck together-the paper stretched and ready to paint wet into wet...I did this with wall paper paste on insulation board a long time ago, and it works fine...tonight, I wanted to prep some watercolor papers, do the stretching, have them good and dry by tomorrow morning, and thought to go to the hardware store for the paste...nearing Starbucks, I thought, just use acrylic paint...hmmph...that never occurred to me before!...I've thought of stapling/sewing wet paper to stretched canvas...that works too, been there...but I never thought to just use paint as a binder/glue...of course, with paint the paper and ground become one, but there are advantages to that...the canvas/board is a protective shield, and itself can be mounted in a frame under glass...I dunno!...I haven't tried this paint trick yet!...Samuel Taylor Coleridge kept a notebook for decades, all to himself pretty much, then when he was about to toss it, a friend persuaded him not to...this is common thing to happen...so, soh, diverted from the hardware store, two blue berry skones and hot grande mocha...actually a 'lente"? coffee...a size bigger...will wish I hadn't discovered that!...deluxe McDonald's breakfast, coffee, in the morning-my only two outings...anyway, the grid paper 'notes' from this morning's snack time, the heart rain clouds this evening's!...tomorrowmorrow report on the watercolor effort...

:)

DavidDavid  

Leash:OTI::pic,notes:::2/11/21

Open To Interpretation

Dog on Leash 

Notes: out for Jumbo Jack combo, cheese cake, coffee...glimpsed the dog walker while waiting in line...and, and that's it for today...lol...now to watch The Mandolorian..like episode 6, season 2...

:)

DavidDavid

Abstracat:OTI::pics,notes:::2/10/21

Open To Interpretation

Abstrcat Cat

Draw like Picasso

Notes: out for chocolate croissant and blueberry skone, hot grande coffee, and sat in the drive-Little, the Cat, on the hood of Silver, my Jeep, for company...cat pic above is Chubby Cheeks Cat eating on the Porch...and, and the contemplation: abstraction...much taken by the youtube Sketch vlog going on about Picasso's "ugly" paintings...they're not that hard to do, to make them work, so to speak...this because our perceptive focus is very narrow, and we can fill in surroundings with our imagination...when I see a cat, I don't see the whole cat, but rather some small feature, and my imagination fills in the rest...what the abstractionist do is jumble together features, and coax ones imagination into all kinds of 'guesses'...in a way, abstract paintings are descended from the 'problem pictures'-paintings that invited viewers to guess what they were about...sorta like the cartoon caption contests in the New Yorker magazine!...there are problems with Ingris paintings!...said he was using an optical tool to view his subject, and the tool distorted...brb...see pic from vlog above...it has a collection of the mistakes artists make...one of note, is one will use a mixed color on a brush, paint an area...and move on...and then notice the whole area of that mixed color wasn't painted, and since, the color remixed, and so now lost...what to do what to do...well, one smugefuges...see clip!....

:)

DavidDavid 

There:OTI::pic:2/9/21

 

Cosmic:OTI::pics,notes:::2/8/21

Open To Interpretation

Cosmic Detectives

Dragon Gauge

Notes:  The Homeridae under the Dodona Oak!!!...I found them in an unexpected place, and from that place likely implanted in my childhood subconscious!...That's one I have, Poe, and two I could have had, approved of, Dickens and Dostoevsky...how strange...I thought I was way out on a limb inserting them into the Black Deck Tales, where they are a major feature/conceit...and here the same conceit in "The Strange Case of the Cosmic Rays...notion here, is they are about to award the "Edgar", prize for best detective story, and interrupted by the entry of the "Strange Case"...much fun...rolled out for pet food, and thought to visit the critters for sale for a cartoon idea...lizard on its terrarium temperature gauge...oh, that's not just a gauge, my thought, but too the atomic clock...curious the atoms in cloud chambers have the look of fish in an aquarium schooling!...it's an off day...wanted to roll out, but save for McDonald breakfast burritos coffee in the morning, Starbucks chocolate croissant and hot grande mocha in the evening, spent the day browsing art youtube vlogs...discovered the place where Payne painted Laguna Coast is behind a private community wall...smithcliffs...flummoxed my roll out...brb...there's some public access close, but I dunno...when I got Silver my Jeep, and rolled about Northern California, the fences all along the roads were a frustration...at least in the countryside, the roads had dirt shoulders to pull off on to...here in Town, everything is "fenced" along the roadways, often "no parking"...I dunno...oh...wandered into Ross, and for $32 got a pair of denims marked down from $116!...my bargain weakness...hmmph...that, and a stainless steel Starbucks coffee mug...$16...these mugs expensive everywhere...12 cans of dogfood?...$23...there's no escape... 

:)

DavidDavid