This is a character I have been working on off and on. I have not fully written his story yet.
You might notice that he has three legs.
I think I want him to look a bit younger and cuter.
winding sticks, ephemeral art
Patrick Dougherty is an artist that weaves sculptures out of sticks. I drew this picture of one of his works. What is really interesting to me about his work is that it does not last forever. Sticks rot and blow away, and the works are constructed outside and exposed to the elements. They are not meant to last.
I think it would be interesting to draw on handmade paper with natural pigments, and ultimately the piece would not last forever. Like nature, it would disintegrate and change.
God's Eye
I like God's eyes. In my high school Spanish class I gave a presentation about how to make Ojo de dios, God's eye. I realized as I was trying to give the presentation that most people had not chosen to present instructions for something that was interesting, but something easy to explain. One person presented how to draw Bart Simpson's head.
God's eyes are pretty straight forward to make, but I struggled horribly to remember the words for twine, to explain the process of basic weaving. For people who don't do anything with their hands, the over, under, over under repeated motion can be difficult. Hardly anyone in the class was able to make one, and my carefully prepared kits went to waste.
I still like God's eyes now, and would like to explain them again, maybe in drawings, to children. Hopefully it would work better than my first attempt.
One of the things that is interesting about them is that they actually have roots in Pueblo religion. They used to be placed on desolate trails in the Southwest to protect passers. The act of making a God's eye also has some significance as a meditation exercise. I am not sure of the whole context. But it is funny that they are made at summer camps throughout the U.S. without any context at all, as a simple arts and crafts project.
God's eyes always reminded me of my early interest in walnuts. As a young child I thought walnuts were eyes looking at me, and I worried that ghosts or demons might live inside.
I saw a walnut right after I drew the God's eye, so I picked it up and drew it too. I hope the demon is happy.
A letter from Longhorn to Chicken
I am the chicken that lives in Troll City. My friend the longhorn cow lives on a ranch in New Mexico. The longhorn used Disney paint samples to write her letter. It is cool to think of children with Disney colored walls.
A semi self portrait
I know I am a chicken, but sometimes I imagine myself as a half human half insect.
Here is one of my imaginings.
A stick
I found a stick outside while walking in my neighborhood. I became fascinated and looked at it all the way home. Then I had a strange feeling that if I didn't draw the stick, the stick might feel sad, so I drew it. Now it is in my compost.
Thinking about this stick in comparison to my camping trips is interesting. Many people who advocate nature champion extreme forms of nature appreciation, like backpacking in the wilderness or becoming a biologist. Sometimes it feels like nature is not for the every man, but for the expert.
But really the stick is just as important and interesting a part of nature as the mountains and ocean, and it takes a more subtle sense of beauty to appreciate. We often turn our backs on everyday nature as we bustle about our urban playgrounds. Only really noticing the natural while on vacation. That is sad.
Still outside, still camping
I left the mountains and went to the coast. I walked along the beaches in between Makah Tribal lands and National Forest, and saw Cape Flattery, the Northwestern most point in the continental U.S. The cape is filled with beautiful and mysterious caves. I think trolls live in the caves.
When I was young, I used to visit Yellowstone National Park every summer on my family's yearly pilgrimage to Oregon. In the gift shops, I liked to look at pictures of the park in winter, when the visitor rates drop down, and the park is blanketed in snow. I longed to see the snow and the forest full of wolves and elk, but I knew that I had to go to school, and that the roads in winter were treacherous.
I think too often, we fill children's books with wild creatures while forgetting that the wild is often inaccessible to children.
The importance of wild spaces and ideas for children has been written about in books like Sharing Nature with Children, and The Geography of Childhood: Why Children Need Wild Places.
As our modern society becomes increasingly urban and busy, I think it is not only children that suffer from a nature deficit.
Outside
Camping in the North Cascades, I sketched this picture looking into the forest from my campsite:
While sitting in my tent I could smell smoke from giant forest fires south of me. They never got close enough to threaten my area.
I saw many cool trees, ferns and moss and imagined interesting humanoid trolls living in enchanted nurse logs. They watched me as I hiked through the forest.
I thought the mountain landscape would be cooler than Seattle, but the heat followed me.
After I got back, I re-read the short story collection Outside, by Barry Lopez, which I found randomly at the library. In the forward he writes,
In the early 1950s, when people living in the Los Angeles Basin spoke of going away for the weekend, often east over the mountains to the Mojave Desert, they would say that they were going "to go outside."
I wonder if people would say that about the forest as they said it about the desert. The forest does not feel "outside" in the same way the desert does. The forest canopy is like a ceiling, I think we sense the presence of trees as kin, never quite getting the desolate "outside" expanses of the prairie and desert.
Grass and cacti are more alien as life forms than trees. At least for me. But familiar does not mean safe. I think all of nature holds a power that humans can never master. Nature continues to creep into our lives, even in big cities where we try to expunge rats, weeds and MRSA, to no avail.
Dog days of summer, still
The phrase dog days of summer goes back to Roman times, and originally referred to weather patterns in the Mediterranean region. It references the rise of Sirius, the dog star. Dog days span roughly from July 23 to August 24, though no official dates exist. This 30 day period corresponds to the time when the Western Hemisphere sees the least rainfall.
It is easy to forget that we all live on a molten ball boiling and burning as it rotates around our little sun. But watch out, one 19th century commentator said that the dog days are the time where "the Sea boils, wine turns sour, dogs grow mad." I seem to remember Peter Mayle mentioning this quote in his book, A Year in Provence, but I can't be sure if my memory is correct..
This dog looks pretty cute though, she is behaving badly, putting her hands on the clean table cloth.
Dog days of summer
The brambly north end of Seattle where I live is sweaty and hot now. While shopping at Costco, I heard two old men talking about how this is the hottest year in Seattle they can remember.
The heat slows the mind and body and makes it hard to get things done.
I have been camping and exploring the wild parts of the Northwest recently.
I visited a small town in the mountains called Concrete, Washington. It started as a company town for Portland Cement.
Hwajeong, glamorous politics
Hwajeong trained her cat to sit on the leash. I was inspired to draw this when I climbed up into a western red cedar. I wanted to draw her looking down on her pet cat, but it seemed sad that she would leave her cat. Also cats can climb so why wouldn't he climb up with her?
The meaning of Hwajeong in Korean is roughly, glamorous politics. There is also a contemporary TV show called Hwajeong which is a courtly drama. I want to see it, but have not yet.
The idea and the joke of politics being glamorous is interesting. At first it does seem like a joke, but since primates need some kind of political order to organize themselves, I think there is true glamour in it too.
Contractor and Bestseller
I continue to work as a contractor in offices. I enjoy this work, but sometimes the short term nature of the work is frustrating. I would like to think that the work I do will prevent the company from needing to hire contractors in the future, or that it saved them money. I think I am a rare type of person that struggles to think short term and excels at thinking long term.
One thing that I sometimes think about is how everyone, in a way is a contractor, and that life is the one contract that we signed, without knowing the terms. We still try our hardest to live up to the terms. Only what the terms are is quite vague and difficult to understand...
I found this "short introduction" book when I went to the SCBWI conference in Portland, Oregon a few weeks ago. Someone had left it at the hotel I stayed in and I picked it up. I used to love this series in high school and college, but I have not read one in a long time.
One interesting thing that the book said is that best seller may be a poor choice of words, since "best" is an ill-defined term. He says "better" seller may be a better term, and also that better and best are all relative, since there are some best sellers that go out of print fast, while other books that are not bestsellers may stay in print longer and ultimately sell more copies.
Also interesting was his comparison of British best sellers and American best sellers. One thing that I did not know was that the U.S. has been keeping track of best selling books much longer than Britain.
I wish the book had discussed peripheral markets like Canada. Because the population is so small in comparison to UK and American, it is difficult to build up a stable market of local best sellers. That is why Canada has Canadian Content laws, which prevent TV and radio from airing all British and (more likely) American content.
In theory I support government intervention into content if it is done to edify the population. Of course that is very complicated in practice...
Rotten apple
I bought a yellow gala apple at a Trader Joes in Redlands, California in February. I planned to eat it while hiking in the Mojave Desert. In April, I found the apple in a pocket of the backpack I took on that hike.
Rotten apple proved to be a challenging subject, it continued to rot as I painted it. I like some aspects of it though, and I like the idea of painting rot.
Rot is all around us, in many different forms. We try to sanitize our lives of it by composting and throwing away, but often mold rots boards under clean white paint in apartments, or rust creeps into cars.
Fads and flower
Since hedgehogs invaded, I am thinking about the nature of popularity. The idea of fads is quite an old one and originated with the book, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, published in 1841. This is where information about the South Seas Bubble and tulip mania first came to public attention.
I wanted to draw tulips, but it isn't the right season. I was even willing to buy the expensive cut flowers that are shipped from Colombia and filled with pesticides, human suffering and excessive green house gas emissions. But no tulips to be found at Fred Meyer. Instead I bought a zinnia, another popular flower for yards.
I may color the background yet. This variety of zinnia is called scarlet. Like tulips, they are bred into strange colors and sizes, all for what humans enjoy seeing in their yards. But the tricky flowers use this to their advantage, because the fact that we like them, means we spread their seeds.
Monarch butterflies like to eat zinnias. This is a monarch caterpillar on a zinnia leaf.
To read more about the flower industry, the way it works and the sad facts about child labor, look at http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/02/theres-a-1-in-12-chance-your-v-day-flowers-were-cut-by-child-laborers/253084/
Tulip Mania, Beatles Mania...Hedgehog Mania
One of the first recorded and well studied fads of the market were tulips in Holland, circa 1637.
Most adults today better know about a distant relative of Tulip Mania which occurred in the 1960s, Beatles Mania.
Little and big manias are continuing today. Recently, owl prints became quite popular. A few years ago, the real estate bubble exploded, ending a housing mania.
It appears my blog has been affected by hedgehog mania.
Hedgehog mania just burst though, it looks this this viscous hedgehog popped the bubble with his sharp, pointy teeth.
Albino hedgehog
Hedgehogs can be affected by albinism.
Here is a sketch of one. When I first saw them I thought they looked like rats. Now I like them.
Hedgehog ii and iii
Hedgehogs may have invaded the blog....
Another one. Actually hedgehogs don't breed as easily as rabbits. They are born with spikes.
Hedgehogs, ежик, hérisson, ముళ్ళ పంది, mulla pandi
Hedgehogs. European Hedgehogs are large, Algerian hedgehogs are smaller. In North America, Algerian hedgehogs and other smaller, African hedgehogs are bred as pets. European Hedgehogs are prohibited by agriculture laws because they could survive and become an invasive species.
Shilpa
Originally I created Shilpa as a different character I am working on, Saana. But it turns out Shilpa is too old to be Saana. Looking up the name Saana, internet websites say it is Finnish, which is surprising, because I know I have met Middle Eastern people who use it as a variant of Sana. Maybe I should flip the names around, since after all, this girl is playing hockey- Finland would be a good place to play hockey.
One of my friends is from Missoula, Montana and apparently they don't ice skate on lakes there. I always thought that Montana would be much colder than the East Coast.
Shilpa and Saana both remind me of Smilla's Sense of Snow.
Bye Middle Grade Novel Writing!
An axolotl in aquarium with elodea, rocks and guppies.
I can't believe I have written 80 pages of a book. I used to think that novelists wrote long journal entries and then their work hatched into novels magically in the night. Now I know M. Gorky was right, "The master is he that labors."
