Funny Story - Watch Your Attachments

I recently e-mailed a woman to help me with a possible refinance of my mortgage.  I needed to send her a copy of my mortgage statement.  So I scanned three pages of the statement, saw scans 1, 2 and 3 in my scans folder, attached them to the e-mail and sent it off. Once the e-mail was sent it popped up on the screen and I could see the attachments.  Oops, instead of attaching my statements, I attached three drawings for the Fat Pig BBQ Sauce logo (on the left).  I quickly resent an email apologizing and saying I hoped she laughed instead of being offended. She wrote back that she was laughing

because she sent it off to her coworker to crunch the numbers without looking at the attachment.  Lesson learned, check my attachments before sending.

Illustration: Fat Pig BBQ Sauce logo

I recently created a pig image for the Fat Pig BBQ Sauce logo. Fat Pig BBQ Sauce is a very tasty sauce created by Brad and Michelle.  Honestly, I've had some and it is very good.  Well, they had a clip art pig on their label, but since they were a very small business, that worked fine.  But now they were making another batch of sauce and asked if I would tweak their pig for them.  Anyone who has read this blog knows I don't mind tweaking pigs. The image above is the first pig I created.  One of the requirements was that the pig be wearing a chef's hat.  The other was that the pig should be winking one eye.  I liked this one. 

I added the Fat Pig name so Brad and Michelle could see how the image might integrate with the text.  Although they liked this pig head, they did not choose it.  The fat pig below was the drawing they chose.  They liked the curly tale and the smile.  I okayed this sketch with them before adding color.  The only change they wanted was a little larger hat.

 I must digress here for a moment and share some more of the story.  When looking to create a fat pig, I decided to google the term "fat pig."  I did not have a real pig handy, so I wanted to look at a lot of images.  I have to confess I was not expecting what I found.  The first several images were of pig illustrations and some photos of large pigs.  These gave way to images of Brittany Spears!  The images were of her first comeback performance after her drug rehab.  She was obviously not in the best "Brittany" shape, but was still nowhere near fat.  Further down the page where images of obese women.  Okay, Brittany is a celebrity and I expect people to be judgmental and catty toward celebrities, but it was just plain rude to include these other women.  I guess I shouldn't be surprised -- but I was -- and insulted!  Why weren't there any images of obese men.  It is just incredibly unfair and insulting to these women.  I digressed and now I will unigress.

Below you can find the final colored image I created for the logo.  I am quite happy with it - he has some personality.  The little larger hat looks much better, too.  If Fat Pig BBQ Sauce ever takes off and you happen to come across it, try it.  You won't be disappointed.  Just don't call the pig Brittany! 

Watercolor: Forget Me Not

This is a watercolor of a Forget Me Not flower I finished this morning. I don't know if I have much to say about this painting.  It is 7" x 11" on Fabriano hot press paper - my favorite.  I enjoyed sitting at my table drawing and painting this.  I'm quite happy with it.

Tony Orrico - 1 circle proto

Something beautiful.  Sometimes we have to have endurance to experience beauty.

Watercolor: Coreopsis

This is the first sketch for a watercolor I created of a coreopsis flower. In this drawing I was working on composition. Since this plant has flowers generally in the upward direction, but occasionally has a horizontal bloom popping out, I decided to go horizontal, like I did with the spiderwort painting of the last entry.  The part that caused the most consternation was the petal length.  Visually, my brain wants to see the petals all being equal length, but that is not always the case in nature.  The flower is tipping sideways and gravity has its effects.  Bottom petals want to curve up while upper petals reach for the sky.

This second drawing is one I traced from the first drawing so I could transfer it to watercolor paper.  In this step I eliminate all unnecessary detail and sketch lines that I did not want.  I will also adjust the pivot or angle of some parts.  I will trace this lightly onto the paper, therefore any small details can be lost.  Also, a transfer is an approximation.  Once I start adding color to the painting, I follow my eyes and my instincts,  The transfer gives me a reference point so my image is not too distorted. 

Here is the finished watercolor.  I completed it in two sittings, a week apart.  I had to cut more flowers because the original had died.  I find this painting acceptable but a bit of a characterization instead of a good observational treatment.  Unfortunately, my mind wondered at a few crucial moments during the process - much of that having to do with acquiring a new puppy that likes to chew on everything and needed house-training.

Stop Making Sense

I am sitting at my drawing table this morning and pondering the end of the world. It is an odd hobby.

I am also wondering about what to paint this week. As I sit and ruminate by my window I feel the chill breeze of the morning on my skin. I hear the sounds of my neighbor emptying her dishwasher -- the unmistakable clatter of stacking plates and the chiming of glasses as they casually bump into each other. Yesterday, the cottonwood seeds were floating through my backyard like lazy snowflakes. Their numbers were so immense that it actually did seem like snow and a layer was accumulating on the lawn. Yesterday I also ate a wild strawberry from my yard. Unfortunately, it was more about texture than about taste. My mind has wondered... I am supposed to be thinking of something to paint, something that will trigger thoughts of the end of the world. But there's the rub, thoughts aren't part of the end of the world. Thoughts and associations and dreams and experience are part of this side of the Great Divide. Instead of painting and thinking about the senselessness of the end, I was busy making sense of the moment.

A glance out my window provides the subject for painting - a spiderwort plant in full bloom. I throw on some shorts and head out to cut a segment off and put it in a vase. Again, I feel the chill breeze on my naked upper torso and neck. My hair goes on end.  I feel the wet dewy grass underneath my feet and the smell of rain is in the air. I select, I clip, I place and I draw.

My friend mentioned to me that nothing ends, it simply becomes something else.  That may be true in terms of that which can be physically explained.  But what happens to our experience?  What happens to the simple act of sensing, if one does not have senses?  I do not know what happens on the other side.  But I am pretty sure I will not be sitting at a table, observing a spiderwort, enjoying the smell of eraser shavings (have you ever noticed the smell of eraser shavings?), feeling the texture of the paper with my fingertips and a morning breeze on my skin.  What is beauty without the senses?

Like my thoughts, a spiderwort is an angular thing that zigs and zags back and forth from one plant segment, or node, to another.  Creating a composition out of these scattering energies is a challenge.  I feel what is vertical in essence, seems horizontal in representation. Cropping and editing diminishes the overall effect of this plant.  A part cannot represent the whole because the plant is about the perpendicular relationship of its parts.  How does one work with so much information and condense it into a representation of the whole?  How can one possibly make sense of it?

On the second day of painting, my spiderwort has already diminished to the point that I need to cut another. Again, I feel the breeze on my body.  It is another day threatening to rain.  I select, I clip, I place and I paint.

I went for a run yesterday.  I alternate mornings of painting and running but think about the end of the world while doing both.  My body hit a rhythm for the first time since I have started this ritual.  Although it was work, it was easy. I felt the air fill my lungs and my feet pounding on the sidewalk.  I ran under a tree and its wet leaves touched the top of my head.  A cold wetness sits on top of my head for another half a block.  I think, once the world ends this will no longer happen, there will no longer be someone interpreting sensory experience. We are the one's on the planet that accelerate learning and evolution by giving meaning to experience.  Soon, no one will be placing experience in an order that makes sense, that supports all of this to become more. This decay has already begun.

One day, we will stop using our eyes, our noses, our fingers, our skin, our tongues and our ears.  What will a world be like without the foundation on which all decisions, learnings and associations have been made?  I hope there will be a benefit when we stop making sense.

I look out my window, it has begun to rain.

Warning Mask Collaboration

While up at Mallard Island earlier this summer, I worked with Mike Peterson of Madison, WI.  There is a corner of the eave of the Library where tall people can hit their head if they are not careful.  Don, the Big Cheese, asked that a ribbon or something be placed there.  I decided to do something more.  I sketched a face on some tin and cut it out with tin snips.  I then handed the mask and some paint to Mike, who was doing painting jobs during the week.  He painted the blue and yellow/orange and white on the mask.  Once it was dry, which took quite a long time, I drew the details of the face with a permanent marker.  Mike then added the jingle bells while I created a tongue.  Once complete, I mounted it in place.

This was a fun project working with Mike Peterson and doing something that might at least help some people not hit their head on this overhanging eave.  Thanks, Mike.