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self-portrait/mask down

November 19, 2020
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Not everyone knows that there is more than one version of Edvard Munch’s famous painting “The Scream.” In some near future, there may well end up being more than one version of this self-portrait of mine. I am not happy with the execution of this version, but there is something in the complexity of the expression on this face I’ve done that is not easy to capture. If I do recapture it, and do a better job with the presentation, this drawing will no longer be necessary and I may destroy it. Time will tell.

2020 1119 mask down

mask down

meandering along this aimful road
a man may get his To mixt with his Fro
some soldier on & eddy others flow
kept secrets guarantee so much unknown

There may be a word change or two in version next-if-any: “endless” for “aimful” and/or “ebb” for “eddy.” Rhyme will tell, though Reason may not.

n.e.s. #165 of 480

November 17, 2020
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Friends, it’s November 17, 2020, and Phoenix, Arizona has recorded a temperature of at least 90 degrees Fahrenheit. In all Arizona’s recorded history, there has never been a day this hot this late in the year.

The lady of indeterminate age and race in the image below advises us that some truth may be had for those who do a search on “radiative forcing equation.” It is scary. Many more of us need to be scared now, or we are headed for an Inferno.

DVD Drawing Exercise

November 12, 2020
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Pencil drawing sometimes reminds me of playing the guitar. You can learn a few tricks, and a few fundamentals, fairly quickly. But if you really want to grow and stretch in the use of your pencil, or your guitar, you have to dig in and do things not just for fun.

With this drawing exercise, to keep the images random, I froze the frame a little after I decided to freeze the frame. It was random, but with veto power: if the frozen image was totally uninteresting, I didn’t attempt a drawing.

I’ve done this exercise many times since DVDs became available to the video consumer. I rarely get an image that isn’t either too busy or unfinished-looking. But I almost always get something that makes the image a keeper. In this case, I have a believable wheelbarrow and a stitched baseball that feels like it is occupying three-dimensional space. I also like that the text on the page has both descriptions and a scrap of dialogue from the movie.

2020 1112 drawing exercise

whimsical tribute

November 7, 2020
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20201107_094447

My friend Niccolea M. Nance and I recently celebrated our eleventh-year “Friendaversary” on Facebook. Facebook generated a montage, mostly of photos Ms. Nance had taken, and wished us well. And this morning I had been working on an index-card drawing I started a couple of days ago, an out-of-scale “two-shot,” and it needed something…the two talking to each other would make word balloons that would be visual elements…but the balloons wouldn’t allow much to be said…hey wait! Niccolea back in the day called herself Miouo, and pronounced it “Me/You.” And that is how this odd tribute came to be.

Election Days 2020

November 4, 2020
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20201104 election days

I live in Phoenix, Arizona. I am a member of the Democratic Party. I think the Second Amendment was written long ago, when citizens could make a real difference in preventing hostile overthrow with the weaponry available at the time, and that time has passed; but I am not anti-gun–I am against guns getting into the wrong hands.

For all of those reasons, there is cause for me to celebrate today. It is all but certain that Arizona has “flipped” from a Republican (“Red”) state to a Democratic (“Blue”) state. In the Senate race, victory has been declared by Mark Kelly, whose wife, former Congresswoman Gabrielle “Gabby” Giffords, was shot in the head some years ago. (It is miraculous that she is alive, and inspiring to see what she has done since she was shot.) I not only voted for Kelly, I contributed a modest amount ($35 US) to his campaign. He will certainly be an advocate for keeping guns out of the wrong hands.

In the Presidential election, it is too close to call right now, but if both Nevada and Arizona go Blue for Biden, and the despicable Donald Trump’s attempt to steal this election is in vain, then the Trump gang will be ousted from the White House. (Trump “vows” to take an election challenge to the Supreme court if need be. Meanwhile his hand-picked Postmaster has a lot of explaining to do for the hundreds of thousands of ballots that never made it to their destinations.)

On the down side, the “Blue Tsunami” we Democrats hoped for did not materialize. The hope that we would gain control of the Senate looks forlorn at this point. And what makes many of us shake our heads is that Mitch McConnell, whose corrupt influence was directly responsible for a sham of an Impeachment trial AND the rushthrough of newly confirmed Supreme Court Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett, has been undeniably re-elected to the Senate.

Nothing is 100% certain in this election, Friends. But no matter the outcome, each American citizen has a responsibility to be ethical, decent, and honest. Our country needs to heal from its disunity.

BPBTC, First of November

November 1, 2020
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Friends, I had another Bad Pun Brain Teaser contest on Facebook.. I will not reveal the answer here, but it is on my Facebook timeline. What I will do is pose the question and then reveal the prize I’ve made for the winner.

Ed was on a special blind date, with special instructions. He had a young, talking rubber tree in a pot that was easy to carry. As he walked toward his Blind Date rendezvous the tree kept saying to passers-by “Nice hat, Sweetheart” or “Have a wonderful day in that great-looking suit, fella” or “Heaven just called. They want you back, Angel.”

Ed’s date was easy to spot. She was at a table at the Alfresco Bistro and the lovely bonsai she had brought had just told the server, “You look dapper indeed, Sir.”

“Marcia?”

The young lady stood and said, “Hello, Edward. Very nice to meet you.” She gestured to the tree. “This is for you.”

Her bonsai said, “Yippee! I know I’m going to like you, Ed. And you can call ME Ed if you want. Two Eds are better than one!”

Ed smiled and said, “Thanks, Other Ed, I will.” He then placed the rubber tree next to Marcia’s chair. “I hope you like him, Marcia.”

In a smooth, Morgan-Freeman-reassuring voice the rubber tree said, “I can tell we’ll get along famously, my dear Marcia.” And Marcia smiled.

Friends, this scene may seem bizarre, but with the help of a Bad Pun it becomes something that happens all the time on blind dates. What were Ed and Marcia doing?

First correct answer will get an original drawing of the blind date scene, including the talking plants.

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Congrats again to Scott, and here’s a heads-up, Friends: I intend before the end of the month to conduct a Bad Pun Brain Teaser Contest on this blog! 🙂