Rhapsodies

Stretching My Range… Continued

by wpmorse on March 28, 2013 at 12:11 am

Posted In: Test

Well the experience with the new bike is coming along nicely. It’s not that much faster than my old clunker but it handles hills like a dream and half the time feels like my usual long distance jaunts are no effort at all (almost feels unfair as I’m also doing this for exercise) Which almost makes me continue to work on doing more of it.

Which brings us to my day

As I’ve said numerous times my comfort in riding about Seattle for reasons of safty and endurance has been a gradual. For the longest time I wouldn’t go frarther south then the canal then I gradually went as far as Mercer Island until I finally got over my fear of downtown traffic enough to start going all the way. Well today I took a next step, Georgetown.

The Seattle Chapter of the Graphic Artists Guild has been having it’s monthly workshops down at the Washington Design Center and since it takes twice as long as it should on the bus due to a very long wait for a transfer downtown I’ve long to at least try to find out if it would be feasible to bike down. And for nearly as long I’ve been wimping out over any excuse like rain or any other straw I could grab. With the new Bike I decided I’d give it a try figuring if I wimped out I had my new ORCA card to rescue me.

Turns out it worked out fairly well once you get past down town it’s mostly flat flood plain so I was able to kick it into high gear so I did the 13 miles in about an hour and a half. Later I took my own sweet time going back north taking care of several downtown errands. I think I can start to make a habit of this…

Of course at the moment I feel like a wet noodle with radiation poisoning but “what does not kill us” right?

└ Tags: Biking, Seattle

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Hugging

by wpmorse on March 27, 2013 at 9:16 am

Posted In: Test

There are several poses that I always struggle with. As I reminded myself to my great annoyance the one I keep having trouble with is hugging. I don’t know whether its the two or more figures interacting, getting the foreshortening right as the arm wraps around an object, or if it’s the four limbs going in as many directions, it’s a hard image to visualize and execute properly and I’ve wasted a whole lot of paper by only getting it right on the fourth try. Fortunately it’s the more exotic variations that give me the most trouble. Passive romantic “cuddling” is relatively doable. But it’s poses like the one I’m struggling with now. A scene that involves an enthusiastic but completely platonic best friends hug that caught one of the huggees completely by surprise (a variation of what anime fans like to call a “glomp”) Frequently I spend more time trying to find the visual reference than drawing the actual picture.

└ Tags: Drawing

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Tuesday Rhapsodies

by wpmorse on March 26, 2013 at 10:56 am

Posted In: Test

This Week’s Rhapsody is “Rhapsody” by Tres Chicas.

I really like this one. Not getting into the argument of whether it technically fits the definition of a Rhapsody or not it is definitely going into my “potential theme music if the comic strip ever becomes a television show” list.

└ Tags: Country Music, Music, Rhapsody, Tres Chicas

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Seattle Art Museum Mirror

by wpmorse on March 24, 2013 at 11:27 pm

Posted In: Test

Serendipity is an interesting thing.

I had gone downtown to the Seattle Art Museum to continue with my viewing and recording of the Rembrandt, Van Dyck, Gainsborough: The Treasures of Kenwood House, London exhibit. When I got there a good chunk of first avenue was cordoned off and people were in the process of setting up a stage. All of this made finding a place to park my bike. When I got into the Museum it turned out that admission was free today so the exhibit was packed which meant I only got one sketch done which I botched completely. As I’ve mentioned before I really have trouble getting into my zone if there are more than five people in a gallery and this was considerably more. I found out that the hubbub on first ave was for the new Mirror exhibit by Doug Aitken that was going to be a new permanent fixture on the outside of the exhibit. I was encouraged to hang out to see it get unveiled at 6:30. So I dragged my feet to do just that.

It turned out that they were running late and didn’t start the show until 7:00 then after speeches by Mayor Michael McGinn, Museum Curator Catharina Manchanda and Charles Wright they got the ball rolling. The whole thing is a set of large LED screens that show several hundred hours worth of Seattle footage in an abstract “kalidosope”stye. This was accompanied by what sounded like a tone poem performed by members of the Seattle Symphony. I watched for about a half hour before heading home glad to have been part of the experience no matter what I thought of it..

└ Tags: Doug Aitken, Seattle, Seattle Art Museum

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Friday Museum Sketches

by wpmorse on March 22, 2013 at 6:15 am

Posted In: Art

As I mentioned on Monday I finally got around to seeing the Seattle Art Museum’s Rembrandt Show last Sunday. Regretably I got their just under an hour before closing so all I had time for was a rushed circuit and this sketch.

So anyway this is “Figures with Fruit and Game” CA 1635 by Franz Snyders 1579-1657 A friend of Rubens they often collaborated. Snyders specialty was backgrounds and still lives and according to the caption on the painting often provided these details for Rubens’ paintings.