GRIZZLY PEAR

written snapshots

Category: Artifacts

  • Inktober24, Week 4

    I was less intense this week. It might show in the pieces, but I’m happy with the work. One big change is that I’m now working ahead, which takes a lot the pressure off the process. Next year, I’ll start working on the prompts as soon as they are announced.

    ,

    10/20

    uncharted
    words say it all.

    I wanted to write this one with the ruling pen. So I did. It’s going to take a lot of practice to get this working well. I suspect that basing the strokes on an established hand (in this case Chancery Cursive) might be the best way to get something that works consistently.

    ,

    10/21

    rhinoceros
    is
    her
    tooth
    fairy

    Like “uncharted”, I forced Copperplate into this composition. I hoped that a blocky Rhino would contrast nicely against the cursive. This was my first time playing with Copperplate and I’m clearly not ready for it. Fortunately the girl traced a Gyarados last year to partially salvage the composition.

    After Inktober, I have at least four initiatives to pursue:

    1. Straight Brush
    2. Ruling Pen
    3. Copperplate script
    4. Gothic Script

    ,

    10/22

    hop
    from
    camp
    to
    camp

    I own inks that go all the way back to undergrad. Some of it ink has coagulated but is usable after mixing it up. It’s not as good as brand new ink (I bought a new bottle of india ink to verify) but raw ink works for most of my compositions.

    I vaguely remember buying this white Higgins ink at Berkeley, being disappointed in its opacity, and setting it aside. I’ve used it more this week than during the quarter century that preceded it.

    That $4 bottle of ink would be worth $47 if I invested it in the SP500 back in 1997, but what’s the fun in that?

    ,

    10/23

    rust
    will
    find
    you
    too

    I’m in the video game phase of this hobby, unlocking new toys and levels every day. The white ink from “camp“ and the “rhinoceros” copperplate became the basis of today’s composition. On the computer I also started messing with extreme crops.

    ,

    10/24

    ​dancing thru life’s quick
    expedition

    I expected this to be a tough composition, but I quickly landed on a simple through-line (following the word in poem). I got lucky with a couple kids’ scribbles that play well with this arrangement.

    ,

    10/25

    ​scarecrow
    watches
    your
    every
    sock

    I was inspired by Randall Slaughter to incorporate raw open lettering. Making those letters feel right is harder than it seems. Last week, I would have grinded out another ten variations to get it just right, but I don’t got it in me.

    ,

    After last week’s post, my dad asked for a photo of the tools.

    1. Flat brushes (1″ down to 4mm) with a pointed brush
    2. Dip pens with a variety of nibs including calligraphy, flexible, and broad edge
    3. Pilot Parallel Pens (four 6.0mm, 3.8mm, and 1.5mm)
    4. Leadholder, pencil, crayons, and eraser
    5. A big collection of fountain pen inks (many more than in this photo), a new bottle of india ink, ancient inks, and a couple bottles of pen washes (for testing compositions)
    6. Pages of templates, though I now use drafting tools for locking in layouts
    7. Triangles, scales, rulers, and a compass
    8. Light table
    9. A practice notebook for quick 5WP’s to unwind after the compositions. (I use previously failed sheets for testing compositions and exploring design ideas)
    10. Not shown—Lots of books, by Arthur Baker, David Harris, Alan Furber, and the Speedball Textbook.

    However, that tool photo is deceptive. Normally it looks like this.

    Have a Fun Halloween. Cya next week!

    ,

    After finishing “uncharted” I cut loose with the ruling pen. This scan doesn’t do justice to the magic on the page that materialized as I did my usual bottom up scribing.

    .

  • Inktober24, week 3

    I kept pushing the graphics this week, to the point of dropping letters and even a word. I enjoy the visual puns, but this pace is not sustainable. Then again, we’re two-thirds through, so maybe I’ll just rest in November.

    ,

    10/13

    horizon
    beyond
    horizon
    beyond
    horizon

    This was a frustrating composition. None of the various schemes felt right. I eventually settled on this because I ran out of time.

    After posting this composition, I read Alan Furber’s short book Layout and Design for Calligraphers. It’s absolute gold. It energized the practice for the rest of this week. Total recommend, especially since it’s cheap on the used market.

    ,

    10/14

    range
    rove
    ramble
    go
    roam

    I thought the Furber book would lead me to simpler compositions to execute, which was an accurate prediction for two days.

    ,

    10/15

    the
    guidebook
    ate
    our
    dog

    I started with the trope “the dog ate…” but the page hinted at this vastly better poem.

    ,

    10/16

    greasy
    groggy
    gritty
    grungy
    grainy

    I made a couple mistakes on the first version, which was corrected with black ink. While doing that, I realized that the red “gr” and “y” were unnecessary. A fortuitous mistake that led to the second version.

    I used a ruling pen for GRUNGY. I’ve had one for years as part of a compass set, but had no idea what it did. With YouTube and Instagram, I am now cognizant of its capabilities but completely unable to write the lovely flowing script highlighted in those videos. Something to study after Inktober.

    ,

    10/17
    10/17

    journal
    recenter
    remind
    reframe
    relive

    Between the two options, I made twenty-two attempts (and more if you include unfinished failures). I’m happy enough with both schemes, though neither one matches what they could have been. It’s the Ira Glass notion about the gap between your taste and your skill.

    For the vertical “journal” I quickly learned Neuland to contrast against the main text. Funny how calligraphy betrays uncertainty and rawness, even in the most blocky forms. (BTW it was wicked tough to avoid spelling errors when writing backwards and skipping a letter in each word).

    Both of these final images came from early attempts. Even so, I wouldn’t say that those four hours were spent in vain. Sometimes you have to go overboard to realize the limitations of your skill.

    ,

    10/18

    drive
    through
    fear
    glee
    toil

    These also took a ridiculous number of attempts to get “right”. Even then, I had to digitally edit the top version (shifting the page) and bottom version (correcting a mistake on “toil”).

    It was fun to work in big caps using the 1 inch brush. But always nerve wracking to invest time on a page for a risky blowup on the final last loose word.

    “DRIVE” is written with an informal version of my architectural lettering. I would be more tight on drawing sheets, but would use this hand when writing thank you notes after an interview (to remind prospective employers that I was a legit hand draftsman). Beyond that, I also drew guidelines on the sheets, instead of using my printed AutoCAD templates over a lightbox. This exercise was a nice throwback to the old days.

    And I finally used the ruling pen as intended—to make thin straight lines!

    ,

    along the
    ridge
    of moons

    along this blue ridge crescent
     

    numbers line along a
    ridge

    This poem was an image first—a flowing script with a counterpoint of small text. I then burnt through sheets of paper trying to write a decent “ridge”, eventually settling on a pointed brush. Kill enough trees and you’ll eventually stumble into a few decent options.

    After that, the 5WP’s were informed by the placement and execution of each “ridge” on the page. There are six other 5WP’s that aren’t shown, along with twenty+ sheets of now-scrap paper. I wonder how many IG postings by other folks are also from their thirtieth shot. Part of the anxiety of that place must stem from the seductive assumption that everyone else is sharing their single-shot perfection while I clumsily stumble through my endeavor.

    ,

    I don’t have many deep thoughts on this week, aside from being tired.

    Social media comes with the pressure to constantly to beat your previous best. That dynamic might be beneficial for a month-long push, but it must grind artists down over the long haul, especially with the casino gamification of the algorithm.

    I’m not sure how artists can sustain a long term career, then again we’ve had the starving artist trope in our society long before Zuckerberg and OpenAI ate the internet.

    Thoughts and prayers to all the real ones out there.

    Cya next week!

    ,

    Last weekend, the boy asked me to script this up. We’re no 2nd Amendment family, and we barely watch TV. When I asked him how he came up of the original sentence, he quickly added an adjective.

    .

  • Inktober24, week 2

    I went hard on the brushes this week. I suspect this week will be the creative apex of this challenge. I’ve enjoyed pushing things to the limit, but it takes a lot of time and Halloween is looming!

    ,

    10/6

    worlds hiding
    trek
    inside pages

    Super-graphics look cool, but they are hard! Not only are they big, they have to be right. Then again, the misses create a lot of scrap sheets for extra practice.

    ,

    10/7

    sparrows
    fly without a
    passport

    I pondered this poem while hiking the arroyo. Getting into nature is one of the best ways to focus on an interesting problem (beyond the mundane distractions of daily life).

    ,

    10/8

    brain walk your soul
    hike

    Again, super-graphics are hard! I took ten shots to get something that worked. I got lucky that this sheet had a thin layer of crayon, giving “hike” a beautiful shimmer. This one also introduces my normal handwriting, even if it’s lost in the noise.

    ,

    10/9

    why does the sun sleep?

    I tried a few arrangements with this one, and started testing them all this one sheet. Eventually it became the (non)answer.

    ,

    10/10

    nomadic
    galaxies
    herding
    wayward
    nebulas

    I came up with this poem with similar sized words and then flailed for a composition. On one shot, I used an oversized brush to make the pink layer. That was pretty good, but it didn’t hold it’s own. So I scanned and printed a few copies to experiment with a second layer. It was nice to come up with a good solution, but I still had to execute. Writing the blue layer was the most stressful thing I did all week. If I made a mistake, I’d be ruining two attempts at once.

    I imagine such exercises will get easier after acclimating to this script (as opposed to creating it an hour before completing the image).

    ,

    10/11

    he yowled
    daddy
    stole
    snacks

    Speaking of ruining a composition on the last word. I messed up the “y” on yowled but was too burnt out from yesterday to try more than a few attempts. November’s project will learning copperplate and writing with a sharp nib—proper cursive is a black hole in my game and there are enough youtube and instagram videos that prove it’s doable for lefties.

    ,

    10/12

    remote
    is your next minute

    It‘s nice to just do a simple composition. It helps that I’m now good enough with the brush to easily repeat a word. In this case, I had already completed a decent composition, which erased all the stress. So I just played, trying slightly different arrangements and landing on that script that I learned a few days with “nomadic”.

    ,

    Two weeks into Instagram, it’s a mixed bag. Discovery is awesome. One can feed any interested with an endless supply of images by following hashtags. But the algorithm is capricious (for an addictive slot machine dynamic), creating psychological tension.

    There is an implicit pressure to compare oneself against the best. That’s a ridiculous notion. An amateur would be wise to reference the greats, but the flattening effect of social media creates a mirror of self comparison against those who have dedicated their lives to the craft.

    So I must constantly remind myself that the goal is to make images that I’m curious to see, not to enter a popularity contest of algorithmic work. Even more fundamentally, the doing is the prize, everything else (even that image) is a bonus.

    Cya next week!

    ,

    My daughter joined in for Trek, this time with Procreate. Hopefully she’ll draw more, preferably physical but I’ll be happy however she wants to create.

    .

  • vertical

    Earlier in the year, I waited eight weeks for the local Ikea to finally get a shipment of Billy bookcases.

    The particle board smell was so strong that we started with two book cases and let the rest air out in the garage. This start was enough to handle a third of my books.

    A few weeks later, we raised the final three and finally emptied our boxes of books after eleven years!

    ,
     

    ,
     

     ,
     

     ,
     

     ,
     

     ,
     

     ,
     

    Social media is dangerous. Our puny individual ape brains were not evolved to survive hordes of corporate psychologists. However, there is great value buried in those sites.

    After being on on Instagram for #inktober for two weeks, I am all the more certain that the best way handle a social media website is to decide upon a real-world analogy (to limit your use) and never let it slip out of its prison.

    Here are my personal metaphors for various social media sites.

    • Twitter—Newspaper opinion pages (lurk only—no comments, no hearts)
    • Facebook—Telephone gossip among old friends
    • Linkedin—Awkward business networking event
    • Instagram—Mall of private galleries (I’ve had a rotation of interests, but my current selections are calligraphy, illustration, and airports).
    • Reddit—Collection of old school special interest web-forums (ignore the all-in-one feed on the main page).
    • Substack—The collected newsletters make an Arts and Poetry Magazine, with Notes as an attached web-forum (I avoid hot button topics like politics).
    • Youtube—A giant Fry’s Electronics wall of TV’s. Even though I only lurk the site, this is by far the hardest place to keep in check. I might institute a personal rule to write a sentence about each video I watch (h/t James Hart).
    • Tiktok—Just Say No.

    In these battles against the algorithm, you will be constantly presented with intriguing morsels creeping outside of your proscribed boundaries. Don’t take the bait. You must constantly ignore, mute, and cull your feeds. Big Social is a fine servant but a cruel master.

    .

  • Inktober24, week 1

    This year, I’m doing the Inktober Challenge, which includes a daily word prompt. Instead of waiting a month to compile all of my entries, I’ll share them a week at a time, with a little commentary to accompany each 5 Word Poem.

    ，

    9/29, 9/30

    dancing
    letter
    poems
    Inktober
    incoming
                                hi!

     
    The weekend before the challenge, I learned Textura Prescisus to have a script that contrasts strongly against scripts. I then wrote this 5WP to mark my the arsenal on the eve of the event.

    It had been a struggle over two months to learn twisting the nib for both Foundational Hand and Celtic Half-Uncial because they move the pen differently from each other. To my surprise, that painful skill building set me up to learn Textura Prescisus in a flash. I learned it so quickly, that I picked up Chancery Cursive (hi!) the morning after.

    That said, these new scripts betray an uncertainty in the hand, but only time and practice will fix those lines.

    ,

    10/1

    proudly
    carried
    his
    red
    backpack

     
    The boy got a red backpack at a back-to-school event this summer. Even though we’re doing online school, he proudly wore it when we went to Springs Preserve. With the brilliant Birmingham Ink Magma in one of my pens, this was a no-brainer.

    ，

    10/2

    reaching
    out
    we
    discover
    ourselves

     
    I started the challenge with Foundational Hand, which I knew best. On this second day, I snuck in Celtic Half-Uncial to highlight the day’s prompt.

    ,

    10/3

    boots
    never
    worn
    new
    work

     
    I bought a pair of steel toe boots since we were about to start construction on a new DMV. Then I changed jobs. By the time life slowed down, it was too late to return the boots. They’re sitting in the closet, waiting.

    ,

    10/4

    exotic
    is
    your
    neighbor’s
    normal

     
    I paired an extreme form of Textura Precisus (cutting off the baseline of the script) with Chancery Hand (its narrowness lets me fit “neighbor’s” onto the page). These 5WP’s are a balancing act to find a decent poem that also works visually on the page.

    ,

    10/5

    eye
    see
    binoculars
    far
    out

     
    I took two bites of the apple with this one. After posting the first version, my daughter mentioned that the “b” looked small. I was also unhappy with the original wording so I went back upstairs to try again.

    The shading displays the proud entrance of brushes into the mix. I wanted something that could let me write larger on the page, after maxing with the 6.0mm Pilot Parallels. So now I got hairs to lay ink.

    ,

     
    This week has been fun. The 5 Word Poem format had gotten stale, so it’s been invigorating to have someone else hand me a fresh word to wrangle every day.

    It’s also a pleasant challenge to produce a finished drawing every day. Sometimes it’s important to lie fallow and just play, but a little pressure is often necessary to push the process. Luckily I had enough free time this week to both play with brushes and make a 5WP each morning. I doubt I’ll be so lucky in the coming weeks with incoming Halloween events.

    Cya next week!

    ,

    BONUS!

    The girl finally joined the Inktober fun on Saturday after I showed her a series with Pokemon. Hopefully she’ll keep it up, at least on the weekends.

    .

  • unordered

    The husband of local architect collects Pokémon cards. When I asked her where to buy a big box of cheap commons, she handed me a pile that I passed onto the kids.

    That became a giant mess on the floor, way past bedtime!

    ,
     

    ,
     

    ,
     

    ,
     

    ,
     

    ,
     

    I’m learning that cleaning up is a slow necklace of focused moments.

    Each attempt at organizing takes way longer than planned. But if you tackle each clean-up endeavor as a focused chip off a giant boulder, you’ll make a dent over time.

    Last Saturday we finally put up shelves in the garage. Sunday, I threw the mess up on the wall. Admittedly this just made a vertical wreck, but it was nice to see the concrete slab again.

    This morning, I sorted through the stuff, consolidated the boxes, and we now enjoy a tidy garage.

    Onto the house (a small corner at a time)!

    .

  • tundra


    In winter, we played in the snow as the sun set over the girl’s last afternoon as a 9 year old. With the rains of that week, our usual spot at Mount Charleston (in the valley below the visitor center) was in fresh deep fluff.

    Coincidentally, this week, I’ve been listening to the Fred Frith soundtrack to Rivers and Tides which includes a few scenes of Andy Goldsworthy working in the winter cold. My memory of the sounds from that afternoon have blended with the sounds of that lovely film.

    ,
     

    ,
     

    ,
     

    ,
     

    ,
     

    ,
     

    After four and a half years, COVID finally found us.

    I got the symptoms first so I rushed off to my in-law’s empty rental house. Too late, the family all came down soon after.

    But inertia took over and I stayed there for a couple of weeks as we recuperated separately.

    One can get a lot done without family responsibilities. I cleaned up the place thoroughly, finally finished T-Zero (fine book, but still a sequel) and The Conference of the Birds (a glorious Sufi poem that I can barely comprehend), created AutoCAD templates for my calligraphy practice, and ate a lot of TV dinners.

    Without kids, the place stayed remarkably clean. Entropy moves slower in the absence of little people. But still, nice to be home again, mess and all.

    .

  • shelter

    We settled into our new home six months ago and reality intruded on the even the earliest moments everyday magic.

    Here is the boy is looking down as I tidied the garage. A minute later, a yellow pencil poked a hole in the screen.

    And while making our first batch of pancakes, he threw a tantrum after I mixed the batter, after telling me to go ahead and mix without him. Then I got into a tiff with Mama because I burnt the first few pancakes while learning the new stove. (Couples cooking has never been our strong suit.)

    The gods have been gracious, but they always spice things up to keep us in our place.

    ,
     

    ,
     

     

    ,
     

    ,
     

    ,
     

    ,
     

    ,
     

    ,
     

    I was given a tour of landside operations at the airport. Since they manage parking and traffic, they have a large team. I asked one of their managers how someones stands out when a promotion is open.

    First, he noted that not everyone is ambitious. He started with an entry level job 25 years ago and some of his colleagues are still in that exact same position.

    Beyond that, he advises every new employee these three simple guides.

    • Be here when you’re supposed to show up.
    • Do what you’re supposed to do.
    • Don’t do what you aren’t supposed to do.

    After that, he said it’s a matter of politics and luck. These factors are out of our hands. For example, he almost got a job with another county agency in 2007. It didn’t work out, but that team experienced massive layoffs during the great recession while the airport avoided layoffs altogether.

    You never know if you’re winning by losing.

    The gods are funny like that.

    .

  • relocate

    This kitchen table continues to serve us over twenty years through six abodes.

    This afternoon, we thoroughly cleaned up lunch (cod, broccoli, and rice).

    ,
     

    ,
     

    ,
     

    ,
     

    ,
     

    ,
     

    It’s been four months since I posted the letter “Q”.

    These hand sketches were photographed last year, so it’s just a matter of tidying the images and writing a little journal entry to mark the passage of time.

    I started the year hoping to catch up on the backlog—let things go, either out to the wild or into the private archives.

    Hopefully I now have the mental space to do this work.1

    Of course, there is a fresh set of sketches to scan. And tiny poems . And those zines that I slammed together twenty months ago.

    One step at a time.

    .

    1. To repeat myself: if you’re unsure about staying at your current job, it’s time to leave. ↩︎

  • Vegas Ordinary, July 2024

    In early May, this daily practice sprung up at a delicate moment. I so busy at work that I had no mental space to practice anything creative, especially with a looming job switch.

    But I made time to post a simple photo every day.

    This practice kept me afloat amidst the during a season of change. It’s now time to sunset this three month project to make time for other pursuits. Thanks to everyone who supported this little creative life raft on Substack Notes. Your likes and comments helped me persevere, turning a stray notion into a project of seeing (and framing) the mundane.

    ,

    Carpet.

    7/1

    ,

    Ceiling.

    7/2

    ,

    Wrap.

    7/2

    ,

    Checkout.

    7/3

    ,

    Cereal

    7/4

    ,

    Flowers

    7/4

    ,

    Angles

    7/5

    ,

    Dinner.

    7/6

    ,

    Cabinets.

    7/7

    ,

    Reflect.

    7/8

    ,

    Can.

    7/9

    ,

    Cloud.

    7/10

    ,

    Legs.

    7/11

    ,

    Up.

    7/12

    ,

    Plate.

    7/13

    ,

    Wall.

    7/14

    ,

    Twenty-five.

    7/15

    ,

    Telephone.

    7/16

    ,

    Games.

    7/17

    ,

    Mail.

    7/18

    ,

    Cookie.

    7/19

    ,

    Science.

    7/20

    ,

    Snowman.

    7/21

    ,

    Diamonds.

    7/22

    ,

    Phonics.

    7/23

    ,

    Blue.

    7/24

    ,

    Aggregate.

    7/25

    ,

    Smoke.

    7/26

    ,

    Elbow.

    7/27

    ,

    Retail.

    7/27

    ,

    Feet.

    7/28

    ,

    Gap.

    7/29

    ,

    So what’s next? A couple of months ago, I came up with the idea of 1P+1P (one project, one practice).

    Unfortunately, life is complicated. So I’ve changed it to 2(P+P)—two practices and projects (a creative and practical endeavour for each).

    For my Projects, I’m returning to my 2024 theme of “Settling up”. For creative, it’s time to tackle the Grizzlypear backlog (200+ drafts!). And for home, we need to fully settle into our “new” house (six months after moving in!).

    As for Practices, I need to start exercising and I’d like to work on my calligraphy. I’ve hit that inevitable point in this new hobby where it’s time to grind down to reach the next plateau. Maybe I’ll eventually give up, but I want to put in a solid effort before deciding that the next level of proficiency isn’t worth the time.

    Hopefully this dual track approach provides a better balance of fun and responsibility. We’ll see!

    .