“Guniea pig” has entered the vocabulary as something upon which you experiment to learn about humans. If so, “health food” is going to have an uphill battle. I grabbed some advanced diet whoop-de-doo guinea pig pellets for my guys last time I was out. It had a glossy package and promised to make them healthy … Continue reading
CJ’s dad, Casey, who is also an artist, asked me for the steps to making CJ’s pastel Tweak portrait. I told him they take about eight hours so I’d try to give the condensed version. First I find a photo that strikes me. Why? Different reasons-the way the sunlight shines through someone’s hair, the soft … Continue reading
I see arguments about why the Bible isn’t “true” all the time. Supposedly some people interpret the Bible literally and conclude that the world was created a few thousand years ago and the events in Genesis, for example, occurred in chronological order just as described, in seven literal days. These people are supposedly a threat … Continue reading
Once again, the news today is full of death and destruction resulting from “sectarian” and “ethnic” conflicts. Sectarian and ethnic cooperation is not news. In studying history, I have often been struck by the similarity of political movements to religions. An excellent and appropriately passionate summary of these similarities can be found in the book … Continue reading
I have developed a new portrait style called Tweaks. It’s probably not new, there’s nothing new under the sun, but it’s new to me and solves several problems I’ve been working on feverishly for months. I love pastels, but they have drawbacks. They are fat and you can’t get details, such as teeth in a … Continue reading
The perfect portrait does not exist, of course. What we want is a beautiful picture that captures both the likeness and somehow, the personality of the subject. Probably the most famous portrait is the Mona Lisa, which DaVinci never delivered to his clients, because he was not happy with it. Like most artists, he probably … Continue reading
I know this was a crazy project, but then it worked so that has to count for something. I had ugly white linoleum in the kitchen and nasty brown carpet in the living room. Not only was this depressingly ugly, they were both hard to keep clean. First I did the normal, un-crazy thing: I … Continue reading
