It’s been some time since I’ve said anything about it, but I do still create graphics (art feels like a strong word for what I do) and put it out there in the world. This is the cover for this month’s Watch The Skies fanzine, without the text.
As this week winds down we’re closing in on the end of the nomination period for the Hugo awards. For the past 20 years Watch The Skies has been publishing a fanzine that is eligible for the award. For each of those fanzines, cover art is needed. I’ve done a bunch of them.
Lately I’ve started to move back toward creating art that is NOT strictly digital. The cover art for this month’s edition actually started as an acrylic painting. Yes, I needed to get a picture of it and add some digital things like a border and title, but the base is still a painting.
When I say in my bio that I’m a fan, author and artist… it’s not always in that order. I know I’ll never win any awards, but it’s still important to create. Here’s the painting with out the border or text (high res photos do my no favors – this actually looks better in person).
I have said for a long time that I don’t like the ‘wrap up’ posts or lists or resolutions whenever the calendar flips at the end of the year… and I have posted a similar sentiment for a number of years in a row. I guess this passes as my end of year wrap up that I hate to see everyone else do. Can’t escape it, might as well run with it.
Once again, I missed the date. This past Sunday was the 14th anniversary of my blog. It hasn’t always been hosted here, but it’s been going on all those years. It’s a challenge to think of it in those terms. I’ve been operating the Pretend Blog (and pretending I have followers / readers) for almost as long as I’ve had a daughter. I would like to think that my writing, style and commentary have advanced and gotten better over that time, but I’m not a great judge of that. I tend to believe most of the words I toss into salad are a struggle. Writing is work. Finding, selecting and using the exact right word(s) is a constant challenge to me. There are a lot of days when I really wish I were super prolific, I just can’t seem to figure that out. A few hundred words at a time seem to be my best level of output ~ just need to string some of those together and keep putting stories out into the world.
Also, artwork. I still do that too. I’ve put a couple of pieces out there this past year, including a contest entry or two. It was good to have some projects that pushed me to get better at particular parts of art that I enjoy. The contests pushed me to be willing to show off my art as well. I know that I was somewhere around 8th place in the one competition I entered. Maybe some day I’ll place higher. I’m going to keep doing various artistic projects. It’s part of who I am. Art is a thing I do.
Being a fan. Yes, I’m a fan. I have gotten back into watching various forms of science fiction and fantasy. My reading has picked back up too. I had been in a terrible slump for a long time. This year my Goodreads account popped up a little message that told me how many books I’d managed to finish during this calendar year. I was surprised at the number. It’s not 300+ (yes, I know people that read that much) but 39 is respectable. That’s just over three books a month on average. Hopefully I’ll keep finding good stuff to read over the next year and that number will stay up around there.
I expect that 2021 will bring big changes in the world. I stay away from the political and world news type things on here as much as I can. I tend to agree with the general opinion that 2020 has been a colossal dumpster fire, but that’s an opinion based on the difficulties of others. I have, very thankfully, avoided a lot of the effects that have made 2020 such a difficult year for so many. My day job field was deemed important enough to allow me to keep my job and keep getting paid this year. That wasn’t the case for everyone. My health (and the health of my family) has been shaky, but that’s nothing new. I admit it’s been a while since we’ve been impacted the way we were here at the end of this year, but we’re working on it. Not our first rodeo as the saying goes.
Will I make predictions about what’s going to happen in the coming year? No. If nothing else this year has taught everyone the folly of that. Will I make resolutions? Nope. Still keeping the resolution to never make a resolution again. Totally winning at that one. What I will say is this:
I hope you have a happy and healthy year (and more) to come. The changing of the calendar is a convenient marker for such things, but it shouldn’t be a limit. Start something on the 30th. Keep something rolling until February. Create. Do things. Be awesome, and help others to be awesome too.
Thanks for reading.
My wife often participates in a charity event called GISH. It’s a lot of fun for a good cause (or series of good causes). Here’s what they list on their site:
We challenge our players to connect, create, have fun, and make a difference in their communities through wild tasks and experiences — all from the brain of Misha Collins!
They’ve been conducting a series of one day stay at home scavenger hunts while the world is on lock down. One of the things the scavenger hunt teams needed to come up with was a map of your house as if it was an adventure map like the Hobbits would have had. I have to admit I did have a lot of fun with this one – here’s part of the result:
It would be easy to call entry into a contest and not winning a failure. Easy, but not true.
I created the picture below to enter into a fan art competition in celebration of the 20th anniversary of the Dresden Files. I really am a big fan. I have read more of this series than I have of any other book series or author out there. Admittedly, some authors I’ve read don’t have as great an amount of work available. There are some that have comparable amounts of work available, but they have not met the standard set by the Dresden Files for me.
I didn’t share this entry before the contest winners were announced. It was not at all about a “jinx” or any other kind of superstition. It was that mean, nasty thing called ‘hope’. IF you’ve got even a little it makes you think things like, “Gee, I don’t want to put this up on my web site where it will be considered ‘published’ before the winners are announced… what if I win and then they want to do a business deal and can’t…”
Intellectually it was very easy to see that I didn’t have much of a chance. I am an amateur artist on a good day. This contest was open to all comers – and there were a lot of them I suspect.
So – I didn’t win – BUT
What I did get was a chance to make art. I like what I made. I am going to make more art. This was a fun little project and I’m very happy with the results. What do you think?
I’ve had a couple of posts recently about being a fan and artwork. Turns out those things can come together. Fan Art.
I don’t usually work in other people’s worlds when it comes to writing or art. I’d rather not deal with all the mess that comes along with trying to get permission or paying for rights for use or any of that mess. If I’m making it up, it’s mine.
This time it’s different. There was a call put forward for a fan art contest for the Dresden Files. I’ve always created pictures in my mind when reading so this one was something that struck me as particularly “doable”. I had a concept that popped into my head, but no sketch book or anything else really handy (clearly an error in judgement on my part). I reached for whatever I could find and just made myself a note so I could recall what I had thought later.
It’s not amazing art – it’s note taking. It’s getting the essence of what I was trying to remember so I could go back and get after it again later. It did what it needed to do.
I’ll share the entries I created after the contest is done. I don’t want to mess up whatever chance I might have by publishing something before it has had a chance to get into the judging.
I’d say ‘fingers crossed’ but it’s really hard to type that way!
When I put out my mini biography for different publications part of that bio says, “author, artist, fan, usually in that order”. There’s something about knocking together words and attempting to tell a story that really works for me. I love a good story. Thing is, my first love has always been creating art.
Art is by no means easy. Over the course of my life I’ve heard a lot of people talk art down saying things like, “my kid can splash paint around…” or “he just crapped on canvas”. Art is subjective in the purest sense. Things that I love, other people hate. Things I revile have been held up as master works. It’s all still art. Some of it sells, some of it languishes, some of it is created purely for the sake of making art – never meant to be sold or reviewed but simply enjoyed by the creator and those the creator chooses to share with.
I have attempted to create art for many years with varying levels of success. Some digital pieces live here on my web site (and should be updated). Some digital pieces go to the cover art for Watch The Skies (and many should be forgotten). Some pieces live in my sketch books and in my storage area only for me to reference. I am, on a good day, an amateur artist. On a good day. Most days I’m a savagely poor hack, an imitation of what an artist should be. I keep doing it because it was my first love, but for a very long time I have known the frustration of not being able to take the vision in my head and put it forward in a medium that conveys the right look or feel to others. It is frustrating, but I still take a swing at it regularly. You can’t get better if you don’t work at something.
In my professional life I mix the very technical with the artistic on a daily basis. I interpret the designs of napkin sketches and transform them into the reality of the built environment. I use various computer programs to create what does not exist and show it to others. It has taken more than two decades, but I am finally reaching a point where I think the computer programs and the knowledge I have of the built environment have reached a point where I can actually create something truly artistic. I hope, after much more practice to create something memorable.
As it turns out I am not the only person to be interested in this combining of art and technology. I have been meaning to get around to viewing a film called ‘Tim’s Vermeer’ for quite a while. Now that I have had the opportunity to see the film I would highly recommend digging up a copy of this someplace and taking a look if you’re interested in art or technology at all. The subject of the film became obsessed (there is no other word for what he did) with the look and make up of Vermeer‘s paintings. He contended there was some kind of technological aid this most famous of painters used. In order to gather as much proof as he possibly could, he attempted to reconstruct the method for creating a painting he thought was how Vermeer worked. It’s fascinating because when we think of technology we tend to tie the concept specifically with the ultra modern. This experiment is all conducted using methods that would have been available when Vermeer was working – around the year 1650. I was amazed to see the result and the rediscovery of technological innovation after more than 350 years.
If you’re at all interested in seeing what I’m talking about, the trailer for the film is here. As is frequently the case I found inspiration in this study of art. I’m off to attempt to create more art.
“Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!”
Love that bit.
Yes, I’ve been off here doing lots of things. One of those things is (hopefully) getting my web posts to automatically cross post to Facebook again. It broke for a while, but hopefully it is better now.
The other thing I’ve been working on is getting ready to go to Balticon. A few weeks ago I met the requirements, paid the dues and joined the Baltimore Science Fiction Society and have gotten to go to the meetings and hear some of the behind the scenes stuff. You know what? Still excited to go. I’m so happy that they’ve made me an invited guest again this year.
The other thing I’ve been working on is something I’ve only run past a few folks as an idea… Well, I’m in. I’m going to display some of my art at the art show at Balticon this year. Forms submitted and received, prep work in full swing.
I’m really nervous about it, but I’m doing it. I’ll post the results as the weekend progresses. Until then, much more work to do!