Post square 020713 ~ The Snow in Sochi

One year from today the Winter Olympics are scheduled to open in Sochi, Russia. Good thing it's not happening now. The palm-fringed city, on the subtropical coast of the Black Sea, is warm and rainy.

This little piece, abstracted from the photo, is part of the mountain range in the distant landscape.

I like this one. The random colors came out in a fun combination.

Post square 020613 ~ The Spoils

According to Wikipedia, the phrase "to the victory go the spoils" was first said by New York Senator William L. Marcy, and referred to the victory of the Jackson Democrats in the election of 1828; the term spoils meaning goods or benefits taken from the loser in a competition, election or military victory.

The photo on the front page of the Post today, from which this small portion was taken, is of the retiring Ravens linebacker, Ray Lewis, holding up the Super Bowl trophy. I think he must be on a parade float. There is a strange sort of flame-throwing device directly behind him, shooting columns of yellow flame straight up into the air. These two flaming columns caught my eye. They seemed to resemble human profiles facing each other.

I drew the piece up-side-down, though, because I didn't want the image to look too face-like. But when I turned it right-side-up it did anyway.

Drawn quickly and loosely at first, then using smaller and more careful pencil strokes to finish.

Post square 020513 ~ It's Not Working

The photo on the front page of the Post is of a group of Malian women and children walking past a wall. On the wall are paintings of flags of African countries that have joined France in an anti-Islamist military effort.

But the article is not about France's efforts, it's about those of the U.S., which have done little to prevent the Islamist extremists from establishing themselves in North and West Africa.

It all started when the U.S. failed to take advantage of an opportunity to capture the Algerian jihadist, Mokhtar Belmokhtar (the one-eyed bandit), in 2003. It's been downhill from there. One possible reason for this is the U.S. government's split over just how aggressive to be. The Defense Department being for military action and the State Department being, perhaps, according to some, too tolerant of al-Qaeda's presence.

I did this drawing quickly. It's small. I just found out I will be doing the American Craft Council show in two weeks. I've been creeping up the waiting list, and have been planning to do it, but now I really have to get serious. I want to keep doing these daily drawings, but they will have to be spontaneous and not time-consuming. It will be interesting to see how that effects them!

One thing that I did differently with this one was that I didn't draw it out in pencil first. I just went at it with color. Scratched into the surface with an X-acto blade.

Post square 020413 ~ Quoth the Ravens

The Baltimore Ravens won the Super Bowl yesterday. That's all I can tell ya.

Except that I know I like Edgar Allan Poe's poem The Raven. Here's the delicious penultimate verse:

'Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!' I shrieked upstarting -
'Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore!
Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!
Leave my loneliness unbroken! - quit the bust above my door!
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!'
Quoth the raven, `Nevermore.'

Must be kinda how the 49er fans feel, huh?

So, I know this looks more like a puffin. I was searching the front cover photo for the one inch square that looked anything like any bird. And this is what I got. I guess I could have made the beak black to make it more raven-like, but these are the colors in the photo and I liked them for the composition. I found the image in the blurry background above wide receiver Anquan Boldin as he "hauls in a 13-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Joe Flacco in the first quarter to open the scoring against the San Francisco 49ers during Sunday's Super Bowl game, which ended too late for this edition." The Post then directs the reader to their website for "complete coverage of the contest." 

Post square 020313 ~ "It's a Zen thing."

"It's a Zen thing." Robert K. Farago's way of decribing the visceral pleasure he experiences when he fires a gun.

Zen \ 'zen \ n : a Japanese sect of Mahayana Buddhism that aims at enlightenment by direct intuition through meditation. (Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary) I just wanted to clarify what the word Zen refers to, a word that is misused almost as much as the word love.
 
The following points are those that I was most struck by as I read Joel Achenbach's article on the front page of today's Washington Post. The story is about a man who is "ready to protect himself and his right to bear arms".


Robert K. Farago is relatively new to guns, but the blog he started soon after he discovered his passion for them, got close to 7 million page views last month.

His mother, a major art benefactor, and donator of a huge collection to a Boston museum, doesn't like her son's new interest very much. 

His 9-year-old daughter, whom he has custody of, thinks that the teachers at the Quaker school she attends
should have guns. "So they can defend us," she says.

Robert K. Farago likes to wear his Glock 30SF, in a holster under his jacket, to Starbucks. He says it makes him feel "grown up".
 
After I read this article, I felt as though my stomach was full of rocks, which is how I react when I'm horrified. I chose the detail of the photo for my drawing, this time, based on the proximity of the business end of Mr. Farago's rifle. I wanted to be as far away from it as possible. So for my composition I used the blinds on the window from which he is staring...rifle held diagonally across his torso, protecting his daughter, his miniature schnauzers, his Persian rugs, his art collection and his Mercedes.

The drawing was done with charcoal and one off-white colored pencil. I did it quickly. Didn't feel much like hanging out with this subject too long.

Post square 020213 ~ Goodbye For Now

This drawing is an abstraction from a detail of a photograph of Hillary Rodham Clinton on her last day as secretary of state. She is pictured surrounded by staff members, most of them recording the event on their smart phones. The Washington Post has given the image the title "A photo finish". I'd like to think she's just getting started.

The composition is made up of some of the arms lifting phones and from folds and stripes of clothing, a button. I embellished the plain shapes with some patterns just for fun.

Post square 020113 ~ "It's Wise to Try to Talk to People..."

President Obama has nominated Chuck Hagel, a Republican, to fill the position of the US defense secretary.

You would think the other Republicans would be happy about this, but they're not. They grilled Mr. Hagel, in an eight-hour confirmation hearing yesterday, about many of his past policy decisions, which weren't exactly the same as the general views of the majority of the GOP.

Rumor has it that Chuck can be pretty funny. He wasn't funny yesterday. In fact, he was not his charismatic self at all. But this, nor any of the answers he gave, even though they weren't the answers the questioners wanted, seems to have hurt his chances at being the future boss of the Pentagon. 

The detail of the Washington Post cover photo that I chose was that of Chuck Hagel's shoulder. I thought of all the weight that is going to be on it when he is defense secretary. The dark areas are taken from the folds in the upper sleeve of his suit. I was thinking, when I drew it, that it would look like a landscape. But then I randomly chose the pink and the brown to color in that area, so that now it makes me think of some kind of weird Easter dessert.