Under Lavender Skies

Happy Monday and happy Halloween everybody!  This story doesn't really have to do with Halloween... but it's been awhile since I've posted a short story and I think this one is fun.  :)  I hope you like it.   The End of the World My clock stopped working. It was such a mundane, frustrating start to the day – a day that ended up being one of the strangest yet. I hit the clock a couple of times over the head but no rattling could snap it out of its stupor. It was a couple years old anyways, buying a new one wasn't the issue. What made me stop and late for work, was why? There seemed to be no logical reason for the clock to stop. It was plugged in, the extra emergency batteries were perfectly in place, and I knew the power hadn’t gone out because the time on the stove was ticking as normal. The clock was tired of ticking, I suppose that's the only answer though I can't be sure how logical, it's a lifeless object after all.  Being tired of ticking is a relata...

  As many of you might know, this semester I started taking classes at TCC (Tulsa community college), as an art major. So far it hasn't been too eventful, I am only in the basic drawing foundations class. Even yet I think I've learned bunches, a lot about proportions, shading, art elements, composition, and what generally makes a piece well done. Today I am going to be sharing something that sounds small but makes a large difference. And that is value (as you've probably gathered from the title) but also the contrast of and using a wide range of values. It's the final step of a "simple sketch" that can make it more than that. Even when drawing a still life...you can lie (essentially), though it's not called that, it's called taking artistic liberties. Here is an example using a drawing of my cat, sweet Mr. Edison. It's simple but I am using it because the idea of this post came from this drawing. I drew it in one sitting (I was really jus...

Recently I have been *attempting* to delve more into self portrait drawings of the quick sketch kind and I think I've figured something out.  That is that drawing myself makes me feel more beautiful.   For a bit it takes my mindset out of critical thoughts, to an artists mindset, relating to myself.   I have this idea that every human on this earth is really quite beautiful.  It's an idea that has often excluded myself.  Everyone is beautiful because everyone is art.  It sounds the tiniest bit silly and impossible writing it here but I guess you're just going to have to trust me.  Often times when I see a person or a place I think of it as a painting or art piece.  Most people - to societal's crap standards - are very imperfect but very beautiful I say.  Someone's bowlegged stance is a rough sketch, barely there, a scar from nose to lip indicating a past cleft lip is a thick brushed ink portrait, and a crooked smile so big the eyes ...