Day #190 of the Fiasco

Posted on July 30, 2017 by portfoliolongo.com

Nothing to say; except that I wish education had a greater impact than propaganda.

Click on image to enlarge, why bother?

Two Digital Selfies

Posted on July 25, 2017 by portfoliolongo.com

I did this photo-referenced self portrait a day before my left-eye cataract surgery in Art Set Pro, an iPad painting app that I hardly ever use. Here’s how it came out:

I was curious how it would look after a little tweaking in iColorama, in particular, by adding a pixelating effect. Here’s how that turned out:

Click on image to enlarge

Then the day of the procedure, when I was barely able to see or stay awake, I did a similar self portrait, this time in Paper 53; and this is how that turned out:

Since I like the pixelating effect so much, I subjected the image to the same tweaking as the image above.

Click on image to enlarge

What do you think?

Rushin’ and Rounding Things Up

Posted on July 22, 2017 by portfoliolongo.com

Here’s yet another Trumpy cartoon inspired by my own depression and outrage. What bothers me the most is when Trump or anyone for that matter refers to “the American people” without any regard for the quantitative, demographic accuracy of that useless label. I’ve read and heard that Trump’s base amounts to about 20% of the total population; that’s hardly “the American people,” that’s one fifth of the American people. His Royal Highness is not the only one to round things up to the nearest gabillion. Too many others do it, and each time it’s done, each time we find ourselves up to our ears in propaganda, it gets harder and harder to realize that we’re really up to our ears in real diversity, the kind that makes some people really nervous…and authoritarian. See also Schmatistics.

The sleeves are fine. How soon can you let out the pants?

Ofie…and Yoga

Posted on July 21, 2017 by portfoliolongo.com

Back in March of 2014 I illustroblogged about Ofelia or Ofie, click here for that; but, I thought I’d take another, rough stab at sketching her – from a grainy photo I snapped with my iPhone after practice one day – since she’s played such a pivotal role in my breathing, movement, and core in the last 3 1/2 years.

I’ve posted more than 30 digital drawings, paintings, and cartoons about being a beginner yogi, going back to the first months of portfoliolongo. If you’re so inclined, and willing to click on “older posts” several times at the bottom of the webpages, please click here to see all posts tagged “yoga.” Some are more serious than others, but I take my practice very seriously.

Please feel free to leave a comment if you have something to say about yoga or anything related to breathing in the living moment.

Click on image to enlarge

Merced Art Hop Flyer Artwork – July 15, 2017

Posted on July 16, 2017 by portfoliolongo.com

It’s a few days after the fact, but I thought I’d post a story about how one of my digital paintings became the poster/flyer for the Merced Art Hop, July 15, 2017. It all started back in May of this year (2107), when Kevin Hammon, one of the two founders of Art Hop, click here for details, contacted me and asked if I’d put together a drawing for the flyer for the upcoming July Art Hop. Kevin and Kimberly Zamora hadn’t ever asked an Art Hop artist to do the artwork for the Art Hop flyers; they wondered if I’d be interested in the opportunity to do something to convey “…the July Art Hop theme:’Environment & Renewable Energy’….” Indeed, I was interested and excited; but, it took me a few days to get back to Kevin. In a subsequent phone conversation Kevin elaborated on the renewable-energy theme and listed a few of the energy sponsors, and right away an image came to mind. Within minutes I cranked out the following in Tayasui Sketches (the actual Art Hop Flyer flyer can be found below the original,artwork):

Click on image to enlarge.

What a treat, especially since I was a Merced Art Hop artist, stationed at Cue Spot Billiards, at this quarterly event on July 15, 2017.

Back to the Digital Drawing Board

Image

I started this Paper 53 piece last evening while stationed – along with 5 other Art Hop artists – at Cue Spot Billiards in downtown Merced, CA. The emotion that I wanted to convey was linked to my finding out that none of my digital painting entrees was selected by jurors for inclusion into this year’s top one hundred at the Mobile and Digital Arts and Creativity Summit (mDAC) 2017. You may recall that I had a piece selected in mDAC 2016 and one in mDAC 2015. This year’s winners are really awesome, click here to take a peek. So, I’m a little disappointed; but, I’m using the development as an opportunity to re-evaluate my artistic vision as part of the coaching and rebranding process that I’m currently engaged in. In that process I’m trying to articulate not so much what I do, or even how I do what I do, but rather why I do it. I’m having some insights, thanks to Adam James Butcher’s coaching process. So let me go back to piecing together some things and dismantling others.

Thinking about Hannah Arendt

Posted on July 2, 2017 by portfoliolongo.com

…and what happens in the absence of genuine education, when propaganda and marketing hollow out one’s voice… [prompted by this article shared by a friend]