Playing with colors, lights, and loositudinality

Posted on January 24, 2025 by portfoliolongo.com

I had 15 minutes to kill before Spanish Conversation Hour at the Athens Public Library yesterday, and I wanted to play around with one of my favorite painting styles, Impressionism. (See my Sorolla study.) So I Googled Impressionism and portraits, and I found the AI-generated image below my freehand rendering, which I decided to use as a reference on a digital iPad painting…just for fun. I tried to work faster and more playfully to embrace the style by being less Ralph Kramden and more Robin Williams about it. I was over half way finished when it was time for me to close my iPad and go into the reserved conference room. Once home and after dinner I finished it off in the Sketch Club app along with final adjustments in Procreate and then iColorama. By 8:00 pm on Thursday, January 23, 2025 I officially became the image’s offspring in the “transformational reversal” that Cervantes described when he wrote that, “Cada uno es hijo de sus obras.” (Each of us is the child of our works.)

Here’s that AI-generated image. You’ll notice that I don’t mind rounding things up or down to the nearest 1,000.

Screenshot

O’Betty’s in Athens, OH

Posted on January 6, 2025 by portfoliolongo.com

According to O’Betty’s website, the eatery is located in the Cameron building, the smallest building in Uptown Athens. Originally built as a barber shop, the venue has been the home of other restaurants, such as Seven Sauces, The Strawberry Patch, The Korean Restaurant, DV8, The Redbud Cafe, and finally and lastly, O’Betty’s. I fondly remember Redbud Cafe; but, whenever I bite into one of O’Betty’s delicious hot dogs, I’m overcome with amnesia, euphoria, and dejavú.

O’Betty’s in Uptown Athens, OH

Technical: I used my own reference photo to make this quirky iPad painting in Sketch Club with an Apple Pencil. The composition took me about 3 hours over the span of several days and consists of 6,486 brush strokes on 3 layers. I then tweaked the image in iColorama.

New Years Eve 2024 with Davina and the Vagabonds

Posted on January 4, 2025 by portfoliolongo.com

Annyth and I joined our dear friends Darcy and Chris to ring in the new year at the Dakota Jazz Club in Minneapolis, MN with Davina and the Vagabonds, a jazz blues band founded in 2004 by front-woman Davina Sowers. We fell in love with the group, especially Davina. By the way the Dakota handed out little bells, so we actually did ring in the new year!
A free-hand iPad painting of Davina done in the Sketch Club app with tweaks in Procreate and iColorama:

Davina herself. See reference photo below. Click on image to enlarge.

My own reference photo.

The bow before the encore.

PATSCH AUTO BUS CO. INC.

Posted on December 11, 2024 by portfoliolongo.com

Several years ago I saw an awesome photo on Flickr taken by David Wilson, I believe in 1969, of one of the old buses that I would see almost every day of my childhood growing up in Canonsburg, PA. Click here to see that photo. I’d been so taken by that photo that I decided to use it as a reference for a freehand, digital painting on my iPad Pro in the Sketch Club app. The image brings back fond memories, and I can almost hear and smell that bus going through this intersection in Houston, PA, a neighboring town.

Click HERE to see a Patsch Auto Bus Co. token.

(click on image to enlarge)

Holiday Selfie

Posted on November 29, 2024 by portfoliolongo.com

Lean in.
Sketch Club stats:

Screenshot

Pardon me, my mind was wandering

Posted on November 24, 2024 by portfoliolongo.com

“Impermanent record,” occurred to me as a vague notion. When I mentioned it to Annyth, she suggested that I do a cartoon, and the notion remained a velleity until now.

The title of this post can be attributed to the late Dr. Owen Dukelow, Professor of Philosophy at Washington and Jefferson College. As an undergrad in the mid to late 1970s I took a couple of his classes. I also worked in the college library all four years, and Professor Dukelow would show up now and then and place a stack of his newsletters/bulletins on the front desk for people to take away and read for free. The informal series was entitled, Pardon Me, My Mind Was Wandering. I remember finding his short essays amusing, but I wasn’t mature enough to recognize the themes of equanimity and impermanence. I do now, at least to some extent.

Steve Zarate, lyricist, vocalist, and instrumentalist (Athens, OH)

Posted on November 21, 2024 by portfoliolongo.com

Back on September 7, 2024 I took a photo of Steve Zarate performing live at the Athens Farmers Market. Over the last few days I’ve been rendering a freehand, digital image of that reference photo on my iPad Pro using an Apple Pencil and the Sketch Club app with a tweak or two in iColorama. Steve’s music complements the fresh and funky feel of the Market.

Emaline at the Cannabis Museum

Posted on November 10, 2024 by portfoliolongo.com

Emaline

That’s Emaline Duquette, and what a pleasure it was to hear her soulful voice at a Tiny Museum Concert at the Cannabis Museum the other night.

Sketch Club Stats

Graham Nash in Athens, OH

Posted on October 21, 2024 by portfoliolongo.com

“We’re going to take a 20 minute break so I can take a pee. You try doing this at 82.”
An Intimate Evening of Songs and Stories with Graham Nash at the Templeton-Blackburn Alumni Memorial Auditorium on the campus of Ohio University.

What an absolutely wonderful and energetic performance! See tour dates right here. Band members include: Todd Caldwell: Plays keyboards and sings; Shane Fontayne: Plays guitar and sings; Zak Djanikian: Plays guitar, sax, mandolin, and drums; and Adam Minkoff: Plays bass, guitar, and sometimes drums.