(Book #4) Ian Fleming - Live and Let Die

I have transferred this post to a new location on another blog dedicated to this project!

(Book #3) John Hodgman - More Information Than You Require

This post now has a new home on a blog dedicated to Project: 52 In 52.

There are more hobos and molemen there.

Samurai Swag

I recently found a few "Afro Samurai" posters while cleaning out the closet. They were picked up at Comicon a couple years back with the sole intention of making them into some kind of collage. Finally, I got around to doing it! I think the sliced strip pattern works well from the derived source material.

Seraphim Falls

Watched the movie Seraphim Falls last night. Its a great movie about the pursuit and revenge in the post-Civil War era, though I can only watch it when Jess is not around due to one particularly gruesome scene involving a horse. Regardless, there are some great compositions and beautiful landscapes throughout the film. I tried to draw some of the characters - a gruff Pierce Brosnan is the one on the left and the right is supposed to be Liam Neeson peering from the shadows. I learned that Liam Neeson is not an easy likeness to capture, especially while wearing a hat.

(Book #2) Jose Ortega y Gasset - What Is Philosophy

This post has moved. It now exists here. Or does it?

Vases or Lamp Bases?

Some ideas that came to me, conveniently at lunchtime, for some desktop containing devices, vases, lamps, or larger planters. It's less about a specific purpose and more about the shape, texture and color.

"Confined" - IF

First collage of the year! It's certainly felt like a while since I have posted one, but I have not been without ideas! This is also the first time I am trying a piece out of a new "medium", paint samples. I must say there was a few tricks in using this material and it will take more experimenting to really get a sharp look out of it, but I am satisfied by my first go at it and it is certainly something to continue working with. This also marks a triumphant return to "Illustration Friday", which feeds artists a topic once a week to be wrestled into art.

(Book #1) Stephen King - The Stand

I have taken my write-ups elsewhere. This post has gone to elsewhere too.

Downtowne Oldtowne

As the last post I made in 2009 was of a few photos on a recent trip to Chicago at Thanksgiving, it seemed symmetrically appropriate that the first[ish] post of 2010 be of photos of my recent trip to Sacramento for Christmas. Here are a few shots that I took while roaming around "Old Town" Sacramento with the wife:

Siding at the ol' train depot...


Texture of the boardwalk basking in the winter sun...

Strange ruins nestled in an empty lot between shops...

2010: The Odyssey Continues

Well, it's that time of year again... the first day of the year time! A time when we make outrageous resolutions that could dramatically affect our lives for the better (or worse). This year is no different! While I could resolve to live up to my blog's name, and get back into literally drawing every day, I was drawn more to the blog's motto : "A Haphazard Exploration of Life through Art, Architecture, Photography and Word". Now that last part, since the inception of this blog, has been almost entirely ignored or overseen, but this was never my intent. To stimulate that particular aspect of my productions, in addition to my usual endeavors, I have laid upon myself the task of reading and finishing 52 books in 52 weeks, or a book a week for the year.

This has been an idea that has been kicking around in my head for a little while now, and once New Years rolled around, I simply verbalized it, and it was so. I'm not saying that I am going to be reading a tome a week or even a great piece of literature a week. I expect this to be a cross section of a multitude of topics, genres and length. My bookshelves are filled with a multitude of books that have been sitting there unread for far too long (or are calling to me to be reread), and it is high time to start tackling them!

On top of what I expect to be an increasingly daunting task, I feel obligated to write a few words in response to each of them: essay, review, a one sentence cast-off... something. Its one thing to glance over a piece of writing, but another to understand, absorb, articulate and respond to it.

I hereby accept my own challenge.