On one of our online Friday afternoon timed-drawing exercises, the organizer showed a photo of a quetzal in flight and gave us 3 minutes to draw it. I used my iPad, an Apple Pencil, and the Sketch Club app and produced this:
A week later I tried messing with that image.
Then their lawyers sweep up after almost every elephant parade by saying that no reasonable person would ever buy the sh*t that was so emphatically extruded.
Raise my rent and shift my paradigms!
And who? Ty Seidule, that’s who! His book: ROBERT E. LEE AND ME: A Southerner’s Reckoning with the Myth of the Lost Cause.
This book has helped me snap out of the stupefying effects of one of America’s biggest lies, the lost cause, which I’ll let you look up on your own so that you can examine the toxic linkage to another more recent but just as stupefying big lie.
I’ve indirectly illustroblogged about Robert E. Lee elsewhere, check it out here. In that 2014 post, I’m ashamed to admit that I knew nothing per se about the “lost cause,” which again I’ll let you look up on your own. My fascination with Lee had always centered on what I saw as an association with Don Quijote.
Ty Seidule’s courageous book is a lot to process; however, it’s worth every perturbing wave of irreversible discomfort because of the permanent illumination it offers. Here’s how I’ve begun to process it in my own cartoonish way:
Some of these are done; some are works in progress; some were done before they were done; but, they’re all done in Sketch Club on my iPad Pro with my Apple Pencil.
Elsewhere on this illustroblog, HERE IN PARTICULAR, I’ve referred to my work at the Enrichment Center (EC), where I’ve taught iPad art to adult artists with developmental disabilities since 2015. The pandemic put an end to our in-person classes and studios, but we’ve continued to meet online a few times a week. On Fridays we meet for timed drawing exercises. Some use traditional tools, e.g., pens, pencils, markers, paper, etc., and others use iPads. We’re shown an object or a photo, we’re given 3 minutes to draw it, and then we take turns showing what we managed to crank out. I have over 60 digital images, and here are a few of them (all done in the Sketch Club app):
See other related butt-on-mat posts H-E-R-E, scroll on and on, there’re quite a few!
Regarding racism, I read THIS PAVLOVITZ PIECE, and this image came to mind:
Can’t hide behind this
Update: Summer 2025
I’ll keep the 04/14/21 post below for historical purposes, but I do need to update the information since my situation has changed. If you’re interested in learning English through conversation, please contact me via iTalki or in the comment form below. Thank you.
Oh, one more thing! In the original post I made reference to being the “luckiest person on my cul-de-sac.” Well that changed too! We no longer live on a cul-de-sac.” We moved from Merced, a small city in California’s Central Valley to the countryside in Southeast Ohio, less than 10 miles from Athens, OH. So, let’s just say that nowadays I’m the luckiest guy in my neck of the woods!
Update: 07/28/25
Click on video to experience the digital transformation.
Since late February 2021 I’ve been a Community Teacher on an online platform called iTalki, a Chinese company headquartered in Shanghai. You can visit my profile page by clicking on the following link: [CLICK HERE TO VIEW MY iTALKI PROFILE PAGE]
To date (4/14/21) I’ve completed around 75 online lessons with approximately 35 students. It’s conversation-based learning, so I target students who can already speak English at intermediate and advanced levels of proficiency. Each “lesson” is about an hour. I currently charge $10 per lesson, although I may increase that once I reach 100 completed lessons. Some students purchase packages of 5 lessons at a slight discount.
The conversation topics are completely open ended. Occasionally, I pause the dialogue to provide feedback on pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, and expressive, interactive style. So far I’ve had students from Russia, Estonia, Korea, Japan, Brazil, Peru, China, and the list is growing. It’s a remarkably eye-opening and rewarding experience.
If you know anyone who might benefit from such a learning experience, please help them book their first iTalki lesson with me or any number of other qualified teachers. Thank you.
By the way, did I mention that I’m often blown away by folks who use our conversations as an opportunity teach this old dog new tricks? Yes, it happens; and that makes me the luckiest person on my cul-de-sac!
We said goodbye to one of the best on March 20, 2021.
portfoliolongo 