Kemmer Tiara Day at the Maine State Museum
Friday, January 13, 2012
Sunday, January 8, 2012
Kreation Stories
A recent post on his blog from Dale Martin about enjoying reading fellow creators' creative process along with something similar in some emails we've exchanged has prompted me to write a little bit about mine.
You can break down what I do into two parts. The art and the writing. Sometimes one begets the other and sometimes they have nothing to do with each other.
I was making some envelopes with Tarzan wrestling a tiger in anticipation of the upcoming Edgar Rice Burroughs postage stamp release. This led to my thinking about if I were wrestling with a big cat, it would be for play. I then wrote some thoughts about it.
Car
rie and I are constantly doing various wordplay with each other: punning, rhyming, alliteration, etc. Doing something like this in the middle of the night does happen. I wrote about it. The art had to go along with the text to really work. I was reading a collection of Secret Agent X-9 comic strips and admiring Al Williamson's skill in doing more than just talking heads (panel 3) in the small panels allowed in newspapers. He often will focus on active hands (I did feet) and he can have more than one plane in the panel (Qwill in foreground, bedroom in back.)
Most of the ti
me what I want to write and what I want to draw have nothing to do with each other. In my first kard of last year I felt like drawing a cavern, but had other things to say. Still, I try to do some tie in anyway, even if it's only symbolic. In this case I had me carrying a lantern as if in search of something. the text ended with "if I can find the time..."
If you have some of my other postkards handy, take a look at them and try to guess which category they fall under.
You can break down what I do into two parts. The art and the writing. Sometimes one begets the other and sometimes they have nothing to do with each other.
I was making some envelopes with Tarzan wrestling a tiger in anticipation of the upcoming Edgar Rice Burroughs postage stamp release. This led to my thinking about if I were wrestling with a big cat, it would be for play. I then wrote some thoughts about it.
Car
rie and I are constantly doing various wordplay with each other: punning, rhyming, alliteration, etc. Doing something like this in the middle of the night does happen. I wrote about it. The art had to go along with the text to really work. I was reading a collection of Secret Agent X-9 comic strips and admiring Al Williamson's skill in doing more than just talking heads (panel 3) in the small panels allowed in newspapers. He often will focus on active hands (I did feet) and he can have more than one plane in the panel (Qwill in foreground, bedroom in back.)
Most of the ti
me what I want to write and what I want to draw have nothing to do with each other. In my first kard of last year I felt like drawing a cavern, but had other things to say. Still, I try to do some tie in anyway, even if it's only symbolic. In this case I had me carrying a lantern as if in search of something. the text ended with "if I can find the time..."
If you have some of my other postkards handy, take a look at them and try to guess which category they fall under.
click between the panel borders to enlarge a kard
Monday, January 2, 2012
Trucked Again
In the early 90's Keith needed to replace the Toyota Tercel he'd driven from Massachusetts to Arizona. Knowing how useful it would be to have a truck, I urged him to get one. He wasn't keen on the idea. "Why don't you get a truck?" he responded. I couldn't think of a good reason not to, so I did. I found a 1987 Nissan pick up, beige, with a campershell. It had super low mileage because its first owners used it only for weekend camping. Anticipating adventure, I named it Yachimata Hiko for the Japanese god of innumerable roads.
Yachi doing what Yachi did best: roadtrip!!!
Yachi earned its name. I drove it for daily commutes to work; memorable roadtrips: San Francisco, Sedona, Monument Valley, Canyon de Chelly, Montezuma's Castle, the Painted Desert, the Petrified Forest, the Grand Canyon, Albuquerque, and the more obscure corners of Arizona like the Bouse Intaglio and the Congress Frog; and to get to a new home in Maine. Much less pleasantly I also experienced a freeway-speed blow-out, sliding into a guardrail on the ice, mechanics who didn't know their asses from their elbows, and the trip to Maine was made with a dog and four truculent cats!
Almost 20 years and over 300,000 miles passed, taking their toll. A recurring oil problem became multiple leaks requiring either an engine replacement or a whole truck replacement. Sadly, I faced facts and began looking around both locally and on Craigslist. Yachi must have wanted to make the split easier for me: leaving a friends' house one night the battery light went on and we lost our brakes! We were able to pull over to the shoulder and coast to a stop without difficulty, but had to be towed home as there was no trusting Yachi's drivability after that. Rotaries and hilly roads at night?! No. Just no.
The next day Keith drove me to Portland for a second look at a truck I was considering. It's a 2001 Chevy S-10, white, with a campershell plus a remote starter and a full additional set of wheels and tires. It had high mileage, but seemed in good shape. I wanted to be sure so I made an appointment to take it to the one garage that was open on a Sunday: Sears. They looked it over and pronounced it a good deal with only rusty brake lines to whittle down the asked for price. Legal tender crossed palms, and I was again mobile!
With winter fast approaching I wanted everything to be tight and ready for bad road conditions, so I took the new truck in to my local mechanic, Leo. Keith & I like him because he's proven himself to be assute, skillful, accomodating, affordable, and personable. He was also very thorough in busting Sears inspection: the rear brakes were shot with the emergency brake fused in place. He fixed it, but that was money I could have saved by negociating down the price. DON'T TAKE YOUR VEHICLE TO SEARS!!!
Keith suggested the name Blitzen because of its rack and the fact that I bought it close to Xmas. I took it hoping that after the brake fiasco lightning wouldn't strike twice!
Yachi doing what Yachi did best: roadtrip!!!Yachi earned its name. I drove it for daily commutes to work; memorable roadtrips: San Francisco, Sedona, Monument Valley, Canyon de Chelly, Montezuma's Castle, the Painted Desert, the Petrified Forest, the Grand Canyon, Albuquerque, and the more obscure corners of Arizona like the Bouse Intaglio and the Congress Frog; and to get to a new home in Maine. Much less pleasantly I also experienced a freeway-speed blow-out, sliding into a guardrail on the ice, mechanics who didn't know their asses from their elbows, and the trip to Maine was made with a dog and four truculent cats!
Almost 20 years and over 300,000 miles passed, taking their toll. A recurring oil problem became multiple leaks requiring either an engine replacement or a whole truck replacement. Sadly, I faced facts and began looking around both locally and on Craigslist. Yachi must have wanted to make the split easier for me: leaving a friends' house one night the battery light went on and we lost our brakes! We were able to pull over to the shoulder and coast to a stop without difficulty, but had to be towed home as there was no trusting Yachi's drivability after that. Rotaries and hilly roads at night?! No. Just no.
The next day Keith drove me to Portland for a second look at a truck I was considering. It's a 2001 Chevy S-10, white, with a campershell plus a remote starter and a full additional set of wheels and tires. It had high mileage, but seemed in good shape. I wanted to be sure so I made an appointment to take it to the one garage that was open on a Sunday: Sears. They looked it over and pronounced it a good deal with only rusty brake lines to whittle down the asked for price. Legal tender crossed palms, and I was again mobile!
With winter fast approaching I wanted everything to be tight and ready for bad road conditions, so I took the new truck in to my local mechanic, Leo. Keith & I like him because he's proven himself to be assute, skillful, accomodating, affordable, and personable. He was also very thorough in busting Sears inspection: the rear brakes were shot with the emergency brake fused in place. He fixed it, but that was money I could have saved by negociating down the price. DON'T TAKE YOUR VEHICLE TO SEARS!!!
Keith suggested the name Blitzen because of its rack and the fact that I bought it close to Xmas. I took it hoping that after the brake fiasco lightning wouldn't strike twice!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)