Tag!

I'm having some doubts about blogspot as a platform. I like the simple layout and the ease of use, however I don't like that there do not seem to be comment threads or alerts. Is conversation possible?
Maybe its ironically egomanical to worry about creating a community when only three people are actively following. Still, I see potential in this idea and want the format to accommodate my ideals as well as my reality. With that in mind, I'll be looking for a possible website transference- I'll keep you posted.
Meanwhile, I've been thinking about another aspect of blogging culture: Tagging. What are the tenets of tagging? I've taken it under satirical consideration in today's sketch. I have a feeling that if I were to categorize my sketches by subject, I might find the same subjects over and over, suggesting a lack of imagination on my part: feet, hands, bikes, sardonic comics, coffee mugs and other still lifes from my stale existence. Tagging could be a way to monitor my increasing skill in drawing certain subjects (e.g. hands.) Otherwise I'm at a loss.

Walk on the Sun

This sketch frustrated me so much that it almost killed my interest in drawing feet. Almost.
When I stepped out into the heat today this was the image that came to my mind, and I wasn't willing to give up on drawing it, even when the bare feet were at their most unrecognizable. Ultimately, it has exactly the effect I wanted: Luminosity! I'm pleased with it, but I can't believe my compulsion to draw exactly this when all I really meant to say was OMG is it hot out there!

Unpacking My Day

You just never know who or what will be in your day.
It was so hot last night that didn't sleep for more than a half hour at a time, then I dragged myself up at 4:45am in order to make the 5:18 train and be in Salem before 7 to help my mother move. Yes, I'd heard it was a national holiday, but all the electronic schedules said the trains were running normally. Sure enough, when I got to the station at 10 past, the gates were open. So I waited.
And waited. And waited. I grew increasingly more awake and therefore more aware of how exhausted I was. Turns out the train was running on an unadvertised Sunday schedule. Surprise! The first train didn't arrive until 10 past 6. I got to North Station to take the choo-choo (as my grandmother would say: the subway is the "train" the commuter train is the "choo-choo") and discovered that I couldn't get a to Salem until 10:30. Tired and ticked off, I seemed to remember a long distance bus leaving out of Revere, so I took the subway to Revere Beach to find it. I found myself staring out over the ocean at quarter to 7 and, for the first time ever, was bored by its pale blue immensity. Gulls took a Sunday-type break from the work of elegant flight to idly skwack and waddle. The seaside was sedately devoid of romance.
I wandered from bus stop to bus stop, trying to figure out where the 450W would stop, since I heard it takes an "irregular" route on Sundays. I was going to wait on the northbound side, but that would be far too logical. Instead I chose a bus stop on a westbound side street labeled for every local but the 450W and, sure enough, the one and only 450W of the day pulled up right against my toes. (hells yeah, I still got it!)
I rode on towards Salem, hoping that this stressful adventure was just a once-a-year renewal of my certification as Maven of Public Transportation. I arrived in downtown Salem at 8:30 and made a beeline for the corner full of coffee shops. Walking in the opposite direction was a best friend from high school, dressed in barista green. She smiled as though she had expected me, then brightened even more when she actually realized who I was. We doubled back to her Corporate Coffeeshop, where she slipped me some much-needed caffeine. She made me promise to call her once I was done moving things to come and see her new place that she's renting along with another great high school friend.
After the unfortunate novelty of the Sunday schedule my day took an "irregular" route down memory lane as I moved my mother's things. Most of what matters to me fits in my apartment, but among Mom's many things there are still a few that are transportive to nice moments in time. I was pleased to find an antique sewing machine that I had bought a few years ago, loaned to my grandmother (who was going to get it fixed,) and given up for lost after she died.
After my first McDonald's lunch in years and a day of moving well done I went to see my friends' new place. We laughed at the glass ghosts of their fourth of July festivities and at the images of ourselves in old photographs (and tapes!) they had at hand.
By now I was starting to fade, but I bused myself to Boston for one more event- An excellent staged reading of a British play. I was invited to stay for champagne, but I was afraid of where the bubbles might take me and opted for the train instead. As though to make up for the morning's events, an 11:03 rumbled right up to meet me.
This sketch is too literal; this post is too much a chronology. Sometimes, though, it's good to be reminded of how much you were able to pack into a day: what joy you were able to fit in around your irregularly-shaped frustrations.

United We Stand

"...the greatest voice is the voice of the people - speaking out - in prose, or painting or poetry or music; speaking out..."
-Robert F. Kennedy

Perhaps no artist spoke with such clarity of message and in such detail about America as did Norman Rockwell, to whom this sketch is an homage.

American With a Mohawk emerged when my initial sketches of the veteran, before I detailed his cap, looked like a guy with a mohawk. It takes all kinds of Americans to make America, and, thanks to our dense popular culture and iconographs like Norman Rockwell, we have a great deal of common understanding. It takes only a few differences to fundamentally alter each citizen's American experience (else the military man might also sport a mohawk.) To be at the mercy of fate and unpredictable consequence doesn't feel like equality, and often we rage against it. Some are more at ease, but we are all free to pursue our happiness.

Speaking out in prose and sketches is how I chase my happiness. Thanks for listening.
God bless you, and God Bless America.

Nowhere Man

I curled up in the warm, dim park after work tonight and sketched the guitarist as he serenaded me with Beatles tunes. I was in such a cozy state of mind that I barely noticed I was having a conversation with a foreign student who had pulled up next to me. What am I drawing? Do I go to Harvard? Oh, I work at the theatre, that's cool. The sketch is good. He's Manny. He thinks I'm very cute.
Wait...what?
After making this assertion the young man in question actually ran away in his embarrassment. It was adorable and (once I took my eyes from the page) so was he. Worthy of Craigslist's Missed Connections but, if sketching in the park is indeed attractive, perhaps an indicator of connections to come. At any rate, sketching is easier than owning a dog.

Sweet Rides

Caught the bikes outside the house being cuddly.

This is an adorable image I really wanted to commit to paper, and it was difficult to choose which details to keep as opposed to which would complicate the idea. You'll notice most of the cabling didn't make it. Can you see the shadow of the leaves that encapsulates the scene? Sketching dappled sunlight posed a special challenge. Overall, I'm pleased with how it turned out.

Fair Trade

I got recognized at the coffee shop tonight, and not because this blog is famous (yet!) The barista was several years behind me in high school, had a brother in my grade, and was in a musical with me. He looks very different but I, apparently, look exactly the same.

Being served by people one knows is unnerving. I've experienced this dis-ease on both sides of the counter. Now that I'm the customer I'm thinking I'd love to catch up with this guy; I'd love to relax and get some coffee before I go back to work... but I can't do both at the same time.

If I were a little less socially awkward I'd

(unfinished)