Back at it

Yesterday slipped away before I had a chance to draw - and I thought today would end up the same way, but I managed to get some drawing in just in time. I had nothing specific in mind when I picked up the pen, I just went with whatever came out. Here it is

Today's Art

(More spoilers, don't read if you want my xmas card to be a surprise) I ran out of time to draw (who knew it would be this hard?) yesterday (and today). But, again, I did do something creative - both days. Yesterday, Jim and I finished printing the second color on the xmas cards. And today, I actually did some major development work AT work.

With the prints, registration of the colors worked amazingly well this year and now we only have to pray that printing the lighter colors over the darker color works. Well, that and also that I can pull off a good lino carving so it actually looks like something.

The second color was supposed to be a plum-color, but I really liked the color I mixed first - it was closer to purple - so I went with it. Jim wasn't sure at first, but I hope he sees my point when the next two colors are printed - I think they will work better over a bluer background. Here are some photos - the rolling and printing of color number 2:

Bad Day Cartoon

Today was a very frustrating and downer day. I found out that to fix what's wrong with my jaw will require about a year or more of braces, then surgery, then another year or more of braces. And the cost is beyond what I think it's worth. I broke down in tears in the orthodontist's office. I told the doctor's assistant that I'm not worth it and it seems like I would be vain if I spent that kind of money on myself. After all, I'll still be ugly even if my bite worked right. Jim wants me to go through with it but I'm still on the fence.

Then came the shoulder diagnosis. My MRI showed a labral tear, but I couldn't get an appointment with my doctor for a follow-up until December 20th. So much for help and treatment.

And finally, work was a complete disaster -- our website contractors have all but stopped work on development and left me out in the cold over money issues. I don't control the money or the contract but I have to support the work and at this point I have limited training (specifically on what they've built) and no documentation. And the site launch date is less then two weeks away. Basically, I feel like I'm up the creek without a paddle - but I'm trying to maintain hope that things will get handled at a higher level. Or that I won't be completely gray by the time it's over.

So, i drowned my sorrows in a Stone Ruination IPA, and I can barely see (or draw). So I decided to draw a cartoon of my large, polydactyl, almost-toothless cat, Hopper, and call it a night. (I can't even believe I wrote this much but I'm not proofreading it so I apologize for errors.) Hopper is much cuter than I give him credit for - but his tongue hangs out and his feet look like they're on backwards.

Talking in Circles

Something happened today that reminded me of why I get upset when people spend all their time tied to their phones (and I admit, I can be guilty of this). Today, I barely used my phone because I was too busy ripping out my hair trying to navigate new software with less than no support from the developers. In fact, help in any way, shape, or form has been very hard to come by of late. I'm discouraged, frustrated, and trying hard not to give up. I just wish phones weren't also getting in the way. I decided to call this drawing "The endless loop phone":

Artist. Slacker (sort of).

(SPOILER ALERT - if you want my xmas card to be a surprise, don't look)

I ran out of time and energy yesterday and the result was that I had no drawing to post. I did do something creative however. I printed the first color for this year's 4-color lino-cut xmas cards. This year, I've gotten more ambitious than in years past in several ways:

• At my husband Jim's insistence, I've come up with a registration mechanism that uses an old set of registration tabs and Post-It paper flags. We've put two hole-punched tabs on every card and now all we have to do is pray it works - because registration has always been the most difficult (read: next-to-impossible) part of the printing process because I kept thinking we could do it by just lining up the edges of the cards on the printing plate.
• I'll be attempting to represent many more than four colors in this year's four-color print. The most colors I've ever printed on my cards is four, but usually, I break the image down into four distinct colors and it consequently ends up all a bit cartoony. This year, I'm going to attempt to make realistic gradations of color using my linoleum carving skills. Yeah, I'm not expecting this to go perfectly.
• And, obviously, from the previous bullet, I'm going to attempt much more realism in this year's card.
• I'm planning on printing two colors in a not-recommended order: light over dark

Three and a half hours of last night were spent printing color number one. The first color always takes longest because the inking area of the plate is the largest, and rolling them takes much longer. It took even more time than it should have when I started fretting that I totally screwed up the initial registration. The pleasant surprise was that the first color - a slightly red-shifted light blue - turned out very good with the [mindlessly-chosen-yellow-shifted-off-white] paper color.

I'm not expecting miracles with the rest of the card, because of what I'm attempting in bullet number four above: printing two lighter colors over the darkest color. Using samples of printed color from old cards, I tried mixing the two lighter colors and layering them over a darker one, and it looks like it will work. But, execution is always the hardest part of printing. 

In theory, everything works, right?

Anyway, here's a teaser of the print process (yes, that's light blue, not gray, stupid phone cam):

Not as Planned

This started out as a drawing of my feet while I sit in front of the TV watching college football. It then morphed into something completely different (which was always the plan). I struggled with my left foot on the bike trainer today, so maybe that's why I focused on my feet tonight.

More Hand

I spent most of tonight working on carving the linoleum plate for the first color on this year's Xmas card. I thought about using the carving as today's "drawing," but after careful consideration, I've decided to save writing a blog about the card process until after they're sent because I want to keep them a surprise. So after carving, it's NO surprise that the hand imagery is back in tonight's drawing.

Grafting

This drawing had two inspirations. The first was a dead tree that I saw while I was out running today. The second is a book that I'm currently reading called The Rook: A Novel, by Daniel O'Malley. (Spoiler alert!) One of the main villains in the novel is an organization called The Grafters who do some very interesting things with body parts and implants. Anyway, this drawing disappointed me and I worked on it way too long to no avail, but I don't have time to draw something else because I feel the need to start working on my Xmas cards ASAP - Thanksgiving just ended. I hope everyone out there had a great one!

Disjointed

Today I had a shoulder arthrogram - it's an MRI with contrast done by injecting dye into the joint. Before the MRI part, I got to watch the injection process on an x-ray. It took longer that normal because my shoulder joint was causing trouble for the needle and the doctor had to come in and wrench things around to get the dye flowing. The whole time I just prayed that it didn't all of a sudden get ultra painful (it didn't) and watched my shoulder joint on the x-ray. It got me thinking about joints and - I suppose, ultimately led to this drawing.

More Gnarly Pain

I think this is a drawing of what's wrong with my shoulder. Tomorrow I have an appointment to get an MRI to find out what's actually wrong. I wonder what it will look like. I hope I'll be able to swim again soon - well, I hope what's wrong can be fixed so I can swim without worrying about it. Anyway, here's the drawing.