Just Kidding?

Nah, not in this space.  These days I’m long on history, and short on auto-painting.

Here’s a summary since my last post: my sons each celebrated birthdays – 26 and 28, so we enjoyed two catch-up dinners and jokes about getting old.  My Cintiq arrived! (for the civilians, it’s a digital drawing device that uses a touch-sensitive flat monitor and stylus for rendering graphics – similar to a piece of paper and a pencil.)  I’m in gadget heaven.  Some of us idiots still believe that our tools substantially improve our basic skills.  We’ll see.

We went on a John Wilkes Booth Get-Away Tour that retraces his last twelve days.  SAM and I had a wonderful reunion weekend with two college-era friends (Connie and Neil) that included activities in nearby Baltimore, Washington and Annapolis.  I enrolled in my first online course – Introduction to Painter 11.  Read Ron Powers’ Biography of Mark Twain and a fascinating book on “Birdology” (yes, birds) by Sy Montgomery.   Met up with caricature pal Mike and won a heat at a local Dr. Sketchy drawing event.  One of my editorial cartoons was published by the Asheville Citizen-Times, and (tah dah!) SAM agreed to go see Iron Man 2.  Heart be still.  There was also the same old screw-ups, things I forgot, and inappropriate utterances too numerous to note here.

Traveling 145 years back in time from Ford’s Theater to the site of Garrett’s farm  near Port Royal, VA, we experienced the story of Lincoln’s assassin’s last 12 days.  Was Dr. Mudd part of the conspiracy, and did JWB break his leg at Ford’s or later?  How would a second term of Lincoln have changed reconstruction?  History and the future are all around us in the present.  I was always a “future” guy. Since beginning to learn some of our past, I am appreciating the present a lot more.  A little late to the game, but grateful to be playing.

Few animals have musical experiences – whales, birds, and humans. Music has a way of tapping emotional memories – the soundtrack of our lives.  Today, music is so accessible and portable, duh?.  My entire life CD collection, that now resides on a sizable jukebox device, could fit on a singe SD memory card that I could loose between the sofa cushions.  Still, it’s impossible to beat live performances at a outdoor summer concert or a smoky jazz club.

Samuel Clemens was a smart ass.  He lived in different times but survived into the 20th century and told stories that were appreciated and loved by both literary and ordinary folks.  I read his books as a youngster, but after visiting his Nook Farm home in Hartford, CT., became fascinated with his life story.    Mark Twain used humor to expose the American character and was a successful lecturer, but naive businessman.  He traveled extensively and collaborated with, and was a friend of, Thomas Nast and Bret Harte.  Who would he be today?  Will Rogers? Garrison Keillor? E.B. White, Steve Martin?

One of the present-future options of continuing education is online courses.  I attended a seminar on the topic back in the early 90′s and it was mostly powerpoints and academic blah blah blah about the concept.  Now that I have experience with one course, I’m an expert.  Highly positive for a four-week Painter 11 course at the Digital Art Academy (link) and Instructor, Skip Allen.  I did learn that many of Painter’s features seem geared for digital painters who enjoy clone or auto painting from photographs.  Still, there are many features for those who prefer to start from scratch.  You can achieve the same results from Photoshop, but with more effort IMO.  Skip uses Camtasia (link) to create his instructional videos – great tool.

Now comes Iron Man Deux.  Fun comic book adaptation – but too much action, not enough character development (probably on purpose…)  Scarlett Johansson as black widow was a bonus, as was Mike Rourke as one of the bad guys.  Nice cameos by Stan Lee and Captain America’s shield.  Iron Man is a great character for Mr. Downey, better than his Sherlock Holmes.  His house on the high cliff over the Pacific is now valued at about 60% of what Tony Stark paid for it.

Finally, Here’s the editorial piece that the Citizen-Times used (because they didn’t post it on their web site.)  It was inspired by a great new book, The Big Short by Michael Lewis (link.) And, I can’t forget pals Elsa and Adlai – very special friends who drove all the way from Fairfax, VA just to listen to me gush about my new gadget.

Rereading the stuff above, it sounds a little like those dreary old monthly progress reports.  Sorry.  I’ll try to be a little more creative in the future.