Tag Archives: yellow

Stigma and Anthers

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Macrophotography of flowers on days equal parts scorching and windy in the high desert. Click here to embiggen.

One of the top shots from Sunday’s drive over Mount Graham. Been wanting to photograph this plant for a while: it’s the desert poppy, a showy white blossom that stands on a tall stalk and develops a thistle-like pod when the petals fall off. As I mentioned yesterday, they’re ubiquitous in the high desert, but I live in the low desert and only see them on road trips.

All day long I was thinking of various comics a person could draw about life, stuff about kids and summertime and introversion. Normal comic fodder. But my brain was on a short fuse all day, and just before dinner, when I went to get the mail and found we had received a single letter, from a medical facility threatening to send us to collections despite the fact that we made 3 separate attempts to pay the bill in the last 3 weeks and their billing department was apparently not competent enough to do something as complex as run a credit card or return a phone call, and my head basically exploded. I didn’t even make an effort after that; feeding the children took all my remaining willpower and I knew there was no chance of accomplishing anything else.

On the plus side, The Man fixed the problems I was having with the Wacom tablet/Photoshop for the last 3 months. I spend weeks with tech support working on the issue and never got anywhere close to figuring out the problem. The Man fixed it in 5 minutes. “Oh, CAD has that feature,” he said, once he understood the problem and considered possible solutions. He also fixed the scanner, which stopped working thanks to my implementing the aforementioned tech support’s unhelpful suggestions. So we’re back in business. If only the artist were competent to write and draw today.

The Fox invited me to a writing party tomorrow (yes, I know that’s a drawing party, but it’s a metaphor and the same basic concept). Maybe I can write and draw in the same day.

Weird Wide Web Mandala

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Gonna be honest. It’s not my most coherent work.

Originally, we were planning to go camping over Memorial Day weekend, but then we realized we were invited to a wedding, and also that I was supposed to be the photographer for that wedding, so we did the wedding instead. I’ve heard some horror stories from the Vampire Bat about the trials and tribulations of being a wedding photographer, but the brides were pretty laid back about it, and the only one coming remotely close to freaking out about details was Mrs. Kitty, who was the wedding planner. It’s a little nerve-wracking, because wedding picture are a big deal to the people whose wedding it is and it would feel terrible to mess them up. And of course, my camera did jam a few times, probably due to the intense heat, so I was only able to get a single shot of their first kiss even though they were kissing for about 30 seconds. Plus, when I got home, the computer starting seizing up and I was terrified it was going to begin deleting photos (this has happened before) but after an hour of messing with it, things were set to rights. There were some pretty good shots. And I got paid. So all is well. Now I am eating leftover plantains (the wedding was potluck) and trying to think of a comic for tomorrow.

That was my third paying photography gig and people are starting to ask me if I am going to start a sideline business. On the one hand, money. On the other hand, every time you take a hobby you love and start exploiting your talent for money, you have one less hobby you love.

Cool New Products from My RedBubble Store

Instant hipster cred for your legs!

Instant hipster cred for your legs!

Here is the part where I try to sell things even though I’ve never been interested in selling things and throughout my career have put the most lackluster effort into any aspect of selling things required by any job I ever held. Only creating things interests me. For example, I drew this picture of a truck that The Man admires greatly, and then I used the Internet to make available to you this item: The ’52 Ford Bus Leggings. Designing for leggings is complicated, due to the fact that the image or pattern has to wrap around a person’s legs and so on. Personally, I think these pants are hilariously weird. However, I’m sure that someone, somewhere in this world, wants these leggings. There is at least one human being who would be amused to go around wearing a pair of orange leggings festooned with the image of an old rusty bus. It is the power of the Internet that makes it possible for me to offer such obscure bottoms, as well as the power to allow that mythical person to access the ’52 Ford Bus Leggings, so, even though I’ve probably not done a successful job of selling them here, I can leave it up to the universe to connect these fabulous pants with their rightful owners.

Keep an eye on your caffeine consumption

Keep an eye on your caffeine consumption

Here’s another relatively new product at RedBubble, for people who need to drink coffee everywhere and also either admire the abstract concept of beauty for the sake of beauty or else appreciate reminders regarding their own concept of themselves: The Vanity Has a Thousand Eyes Travel Mug is basically a painting of a peacock, emblazoned on a travel mug. What you see is what you get. It’s also available on a ceramic coffee mug, a canvas clutch, and a variety of other products, but it looks especially good on this mug, and if you like it, it will probably look especially good in your hand, in the cup holder of your automobile, and on the corner of your desk at work. See, that’s what advertising sounds like to me. It’s a coffee cup with a picture on it. Either you like it or you don’t. The point is to convince enough people to look at it so that there’s a statistically good chance that it appeals to one of them.

Sleep softly, sleep in beauty

Sleep softly, sleep in beauty

This Golden Barrel Cactus Flower Duvet Cover is available in three sizes–twin, queen, and king– and is a lovely accent to the natural environment of your bedroom. What else can be said about it? I assume it’s soft and comfortable and I’m pretty sure it’s machine washable and color fast. What I do know for absolute certain is that it’s the first digital painting I ever did where I was 100% happy with the result. These flowers look really, really good. I know I’m proud of what I painted and that this design is a good one. I know that if you like it here, you’ll love it on your bed.

Perfect in any weather

Perfect in any weather

This is one of the newest products: big scarves, great for wrapping around your neck or head. You could probably use it as a beach cover up or fold it in half and wear it as a skirt. Cheer up with the Rainbird Scarf.

Zip your stuff up in beauty

Zip your stuff up in beauty

Finally, the last new product is this canvas clutch. It’s just right for holding pencils, pens, and other art or school supplies, and with this Blue Morpho Butterfly Studio Pouch, you can contain all your small details in a pretty package. /endpitch

Funny comic tomorrow!

Starburst: the Mandala

This mandala warms your spirit with the heat of a thousand very tiny suns.

This mandala warms your spirit with the heat of a thousand very tiny suns.

A lot of skew on this one. It’s unfortunate that I didn’t take any sort of notes during the mandala project. There are a few for which I can remember my exact inspiration, mindset, and/or intention, but for the most part, I have these charming designs whose origins have grown mysterious. Triangles and starbursts are a pretty common theme in this series, while dots are less common.

One thing I am realizing, looking at this image, is that there is something gross stuck to my scanner. It’s on every image I’ve scanned for weeks. It would probably behoove me to clean the scanner, and to Photoshop the gross thing out of previously scanned but not yet posted images.

There’s been so much new art going on around here that it’s been weeks since an old mandala has made it into this blog. Just now, someone posted that Kurt Vonnegut quotation about going into the arts onto my Facebook page with the message that my drawings were getting better. So Dragon was right, and, as we’re rapidly learning, the snake was wrong. You can, in fact, get better with practice.

The Desert Explodes in Glorious Technicolor

For ten years, I’ve lived in the Sonoran Desert, where we enjoy 330 days of sunshine every year. It may be hot, but it is also beautiful, full of sharp contrasts and luscious details.

This agave had reached the end of its life cycle. After sending up the shoot and flowering, the plant will die, but for a brief, breathtaking moment, it resembles a flaming torch.

If all else fails, you can always make tequila.

If all else fails, you can always make tequila.

This drawing is based on a photograph I took over the summer; I had a 2-day window in which this plant exhibited these gorgeous colors. In fact, I wanted to paint a hibiscus today, but I couldn’t lay my hands on the right reference image.

This lovely design is available for purchased on a variety of fine products in my shop.