Completed a second device this month.  I had the idea for this piece back in 2019 while on a plane flying back into Denver from ATX.  It was late evening and we were over Oklahoma just starting to cross into the south-western corner of Kansas. There isn’t much to speak of passing by below, mainly farm houses and small towns. Humanity represented by little points of light, spaced out over miles and miles. Lonely and boring. It got me to thinking how it could be an interesting experiment to see if you could passively send messages to the airliners from…

Still working at honing my painting skills. That’s coming along reasonably  well, I’m probably too hard on myself, but I just know the quality isn’t there yet. Completed a few master studies in acrylic.  I think I’m probably going to stick with acrylic for now, or at least until I get my confidence up. That seems to be where my skillset is taking me. I’ve also started working on creating some devices again. They’re a sort of simple sculptural element that also serves a basic function.  It’s a way to include electronic circuitry into a piece and have it express…

Day work is a draining and untenable drag on my well-being. Daylight is dwindling…blink and it’s November. Pushing through and hope to keep all this interesting. Continuing to learn to paint with oils. I can see why most prefer them over acrylics, though there’s definitely a learning curve — and a fair bit of mess. It’s a one-step-forward, two-steps-back process at times, but for larger-scale pieces, it seems to be the way to go. Currently reading: The Notebook: A history of thinking on paper by Roland Allen (2023).

Recently had to replace my iPad. It was an iPad Air 2 from about 2014, so it was starting to really show its age. No longer supported by Apple for OS upgrades, a number of the apps I used regularly were starting to become irritatingly unusable. There is always a moment when you use older tech where you know it’s time to move on. In this case, I did, just not too far down the iPad progression. Enter the iPad Pro 12.9″, a first-generation model from 2015. It runs iOS 16, has 4GB of RAM, and 256GB of storage. I…

I’ve been painting skulls lately for practice. It’s a pretty straight forward thing — it’s also a bit dull. Not knowing what you are doing is less of a hindrance than not knowing what to do. The concept is the key. Figure out your concept and everything will starts happening pretty quickly — be it good or bad, it happens. There always seems to be a great deal of learning to be had during these sessions, especially since I’m so far behind where I should be. I’m not really too worried about technique; what I need to get a handle…

After many years of having this site, I’ve decided to actually use it. Originally, I set it up for an online portfolio to try to get graphic design gigs; it never really got to that point…and I really don’t do graphic design anymore. Thankfully. I’ve decided to use this as a catch-all outlet for all my creative learning and other things. I have to admit that I was inspired by the book Show Your Work!, by Austin Kleon. In it, he encourages using a blog as a way to share your creative process, not just finished products. It helps you…