I stopped. It was coincidence as the weather was warming up and the kitchen getting too warm.
Fall weather will see a return to baking for me, but having the oven warming at close to its max for enough time to really preheat sufficiently for bread baking meant cranking the condo AC to max cool. I couldn’t rationalize that as a logical expense and frankly my AC (one of those PTAC through-the-wall glorified windowshakers found in apartment buildings all over, just like the ones in most hotel rooms) is a bit long in the tooth and I am babying it as it will not too long from now need replacement.
So what did I do instead?
I started drawing (again).
I used to be employed (for many years) as a graphic designer in the publishing industry, for a few small magazines and for a university’s money-raising office. I studied fine arts and painted in traditional ways on canvas and board.
With a small living space, less than half what I used to own in another part of the country, I had a few choices and none of them involved traditional canvases and easels and dedicated studio space… so I went digital.
I’ve done this before, working in digital media and painting with a tablet and pen straight into my Mac… but it had been a while so there was plenty of rust to shake off those digital drawing skills!
A small collection of the better efforts (starting with the scary first attempt at riding that shaky bike again) in chronological order from July to present are included in the mini-portfolio/gallery with this post.) The last image is my version of Bobby Chiu and Masae Seki’s 90-minute art challenge from October 13th. You can view the challenge at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvxQVaM_vbE
Tools used include:
iPad Pro and Apple Pencil, using Procreate App. (very intuitive, most easily grasped for me)
Wacom Intuos Pro 660 Tablet and Wacom Pro Pen 2 with Photoshop and Clip Studio Paint (not quite as easy as the Wacom pen and tablet are a bit less insta-feedbacky (on the iPad you are watching as your hand draws, with the Wacom Intuos you’re drawing on the tablet while looking at your monitor. Doable but it’s taking some getting used to again, already spoiled to the screen drawing but not willing to fork out the funds to get a screen tablet for hobby drawing!)
Most of the efforts below are either photo studies from reference shots (NO TRACING! which explains some proportion issues, heh) or from video stills from YouTube of individuals I found interesting… with a few images straight from my imagination. (The feature painting for this post is of Youtube violinmaker Olaf)… this has all been Immensely enjoyable!
Rust (truly) Never Sleeps 