I went home early from work gratefully because my jaw and empty tooth-socket were aching, and slept and slept, and upon awakening found that I just wanted to dial at random on the Internet various animals and humans. No room for poetry on this one, just a pageful of scattershot portraiture.
I have done more than a dozen portraits of my co-workers at Matt’s Big Breakfast. A couple of weeks ago I approached yet another. She declined, but offered to send me a photo of her beloved and now deceased dog instead. I would rather have done hers, but I do love dogs, so I told her to go ahead.
“Gie” is a genuine word. It is Scottish dialect for Give. The poet Robert Burns famously coupleted
“O wad the power the giftie gie us
Tae see oursels as others see us.”
Burns also famously coupled, fathering many children out of wedlock, but that is another story.
Dog gie. “O wad the power a guid dog gie us/Tae help us truly, truly BE us.” I was best friends with such a dog. His revered name was William Doglas Bowers, known colloquially as Bill. We lost him ten years ago. A thought of him draws an eagle’s feather over my heart now and then.
dog gie
dalmation shepherd boxer pug
domestic bliss requires no drug.
old english sheepdog shih tzu corgi
of grins and snuggles is an orgi.
great dane alsatian malamute
Got Ugly? even so, Got Cute.
Four friends, four poets, four engaging souls, four celebrations. Three are also event hosts and one is also participating in the Index Card A Day challenge, just as I am.
I acquired the photo I used for this drawing from a bittersweet event conducted by Four Chambers Press, which was closing its metaphorical doors. Called “From Our Heart To Yours,” the event was one last get-together that included a giveaway of everything Four Chambers had produced yet not sold. I took one of their anthologies, one of their poet’s chapbooks, a photo of Jake Friedman at a microphone–and the photo I based this drawing on. Among the liberties I took with the pic was moving the four poets around to achieve a more Mount-Rushmore-like arrangement.
4 Poets
Formed the phrases grab and pop
Forgotten time rebirthed just so
Foregone conclusion laid to waste
Formalities seem silliest
Foretaste of life’s peculiar truths
Here is a loose interpretation of a photo I took of myself earlier this morning. I drew this to distract myself from the injured knee that is keeping me home from work today. It worked so well I forgot to take my pain medication.
As with most of my drawings, I end up feeling that this drawing is not an end in itself but a stepping-stone to the next drawing. “The next one will be better” has been my mantra for many years.
Here are the final two pieces of the portraiture puzzle I set out to resolve.
First was a value study. This was not an end in itself, but a means of informing the final version of the portrait.
Lastly, full circle with pencil, not crayon. This is the best likeness and mood-capture of my friend that I am capable of doing right now.
I did my best, but (of course!) I am still dissatisfied. I will show my friend tomorrow. I hope she will like what I have done.
Here is what happened when I Tried Tried Again.
Still too harsh, and Kelly’s eyes have a dreamy quality that I have not gotten right yet. There will be two more tries up the road a bit, another in crayon and the final one in pencil, coming full circle.
Here is another try at capturing the inimitable Kelly Felicia. It is Conté Crayon on Canson Black Drawing paper. I went this route this time around because I thought it would reveal facial planes of light better. It does, but my relative inexperience with white Conté compared to regular pencil is making me wrestle and strain, and it shows. I would call this attempt neither failure nor success. I will try again.
Today I got a call from Niagara Falls, New York, honest to goodness, I can prove it. The lady on the line says if I drop whatever I’m doing and draw a portrait of Wyatt Earp, she’ll pay me at least a hundred bucks on the spot, even more if it’s good. I need the money, so I put her on speakerphone and find WE on Wikipedia. Fifteen minutes later I say “OK, done.”
“Young man, may I see it?”
“Sure.” I video-call her. She stays on audio. I hold Wyatt up to my smartphone.
“Well, that’s marvelous. I think you should get a five-dollar bonus.”
And I think my own dark thoughts, but say, “Glad you like it. May I ask WHY?”
“Because it’s HIS Day!!”
“What?!”
“It’s EARP DAY!”
“No, no, no! It’s EARTH Day. Not Earp Day–wait a minute. Is your name Emily Litella?”
“Why, yes. Thank you, young man, and…nevermind…”
RIP to the immortal and brilliant Gilda Radner, who as Emily Litella cracked me up no end.
Part of my morning routine is to work on unfinished poetry and drawings while having my first cup of coffee. Today I was picking at two Acrostics, ODD HIS SEA and TAPE PEST STRY, I’d started long ago. The lower third of the paper I had them on was blank, so I bookended it with PUSH BACK, which had been nagging at me for some weeks. (“Pushback” is a term used to describe a reaction of a political faction’s forces when their opposition has said, or accomplished, something that seems to have done some damage to their cause. Here and now, government shutdown, tweetstorms, and propaganda blizzards are Trump Administration’s pushback against opposition to the Trump Wall, the Mueller Russian investigation, and miscellaneous callings-to-account.)
My acrostic-composing reverie was interrupted when my gaze fell on a corner of paper. I recognized it as the printed material that was given to mourners at my Uncle Paul’s funeral last February 23rd. It was wildly improbable that it should be on my dining room table, buried under a pile of stuff, but there it was. And on it was a photo of Paul with humor, grumpiness, and a defiant gleam in his eye. “Draw me NOW, Nephew,” he seemed to be saying.
So I did, and I did a better Paul in ten minutes than I’d done in hours a few years ago.
“Sign it, but don’t date it.” I did.
“You’re done.”
I had a second cup of coffee this morning. Then I put on a pair of dirty jeans that need to be thrown away due to a rip near the inseam, gathered a load of laundry and got a wash cycle going, and found a public-domain photo of Chloë Grace Morentz, whom I had just seen in the DVD of THE EQUALIZER, starring Denzel Washington.
This is proving to be a good way to ease into a productive first-day-off. Washing takes about half an hour; drying, 45 minutes. The breaks are just right for stretching the legs, going out and coming back, and having a fresh look at the work in progress. I paid enough mind to this portrait to deem it “finished sketch” so I signed it and scanned it. The scan revealed a few flaws that I tweaked.
Time to go back out to the laundry room . . .
One with Clay, Image and Text 