One frustrating thing about the procedural drawing tool I’m using is that it doesn’t let you store an image as multiple independent layers. As a reaction to this, I’m trying to work with some of the transformation tools in GIMP to give a sense of three dimensional perspective.
Original sketch below. You can see I made a mistake of not projecting out the purple shading with with bottom node of the black central prong structure.
Oh Father, please forgive me for my sins
I’m shooting arrows into heaps and ditches
I’m throwing without pulling out the pins
and gratifying whims of sons of bitches
Oh Mother, please relieve my foolish pride
I’m choking in the river that’s my mirror
remind me that true virtues lie inside
simplicity the thing to make them clearer
Oh Sister, teach me to always be kind
and call me out for selfishness and envy
this fog of jealousy will make me blind
if bitterness of lonely heart don’t end me
And Brother, hold me to my every vow
(a man’s commands are naught if he’s a liar)
and when I’m fucking up please tell me how
while fending off my cowardice with fire
For if I’m very lucky then one day you’ll be my child
and I want so very badly to deserve you
if maniacs and bureaucrats are undoing the world
through dedicated acts we may preserve you
for Rolando Peñate
The full-size image is quite large, so this is a thumbnail. Click to enlarge.
Steve Morrell playing the harmonica for his son.
Steve is an old friend of mine, and a great harmonica teacher and player. Taught by Paul Butterfield, Steve was a successful musician in his day before disability got the upper hand. He is now living in his home town of Stamford, CT, where he is producing music that he hopes to release soon.
One of the many tragedies of Steve’s life is his estrangement from his only son. Steve doesn’t have a computer and doesn’t know how to use the Internet. But when I last visited Steve, I asked him to play a bit for his son, on the off chance that it would one day reach him. It was the least I could do, after all Steve has given me over the years. I wonder if it will work.
Sketch N Draw procedural drawing, imported into GIMP for gradient background and a drawn intermediate layer with Wacom tablet. Not thrilled about the muddiness in the bottom half, but its hard to do controlled application of brushes in Sketch N Draw since it doesn’t have layering.
Incidentally, I notice that most of these pictures look quite different depending on the monitor that views them. My laptop monitor has a much worse color display than the external LG monitor that I have hooked up to it, for example. I suppose this is one of the hazards of digital art, generally.
There is a lot of sophisticated art that uses highly muted colors. I suppose this is meant to convey a kind of subtlety or contemplation or maturity. Screw that. Juvenile saturation for the win. Sensitivity to “clashing” is just a phase.
This work by Sebastian Benthall is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
