When you don't feel like sketching...

You can always use a web-based tool, like Wordle.net.

It's a word generation program. Very cool. You key in the words you want (or cut and paste from somewhere), make a few adjustments and wham: a very cool layout.

You could paste it into your journal, or on your journal. Or you could watercolor wash it.

So many ideas, so little time.

...dave
Why is the slowest time of traffic called the 'rush' hour?

a rude purple chair

purple chair
Originally uploaded by daveterry.

Our offices have a unique selection of chair colors. The desks are pretty much the same gray muted tone but the chairs are a fantastic mayhem of color.

This chair stared at me from across the table while I ate lunch. It was fairly quiet, didn't even move, but it's presence was evident. You can't hide purple in a stagnant lunch room. It popped at me.

As first I thought it was being rude, just sitting there, looking at me. But eventually I ignored it, and then I decided to draw and paint it.

That'll teach it.
...dave
Red meat is not bad for you Fuzzy purple meat is bad for you.

ugly feet

ugly feet
Originally uploaded by daveterry.

Oddly enough, I like my jeans and the border better than the sketch in the book. The woman's feet came out looking ugly.

I got sort of bored with the feet so decided to draw and paint my jeans. I don't like the primary colors. I prefer the muted colors of Lazy Sunday. I'll go back to color mixing. Maybe I should have painted her feet.

Speaking of feet, I've been trying to get my feet to walk a mile-a-day. I'm taking the stairs more often. I park further from the exit when I go to the book store. If I can get in 2000 steps, I will have walked a mile. (My step counter doesn't calculate miles, only steps. It's a discount step-o-matic.)

I've been on this kick before, walking a mile a day. My biggest challenge is finding the time. One thing is certain, walking saves gas.

So today I took the stairs down from the 9th floor. I checked the step-o-meter before I left the floor. I was 602. I was getting sort of excited to see the numbers climb while I descended. When I got to the bottom of the building, the meter read the same as when I left the ninth floor. What's up with that? Doesn't it work going down the stairs?

Tomorrow I'm going to climb up four floors. I'd like to get to the point of walking up the nine flights of stairs. That would be a good work out.

...dave
You know you're into middle age when you realize that caution is the only thing you care to exercise.

Dry Clean

Dry Clean
Originally uploaded by daveterry.

In spite of gas at $4.00 a gallon, the one luxury I allow is dry cleaning service. I really want my dress shirts pressed. I like crispness for my button downs.

It takes me 10 minutes per shirt to do them myself. I got 13 shirts pressed for fifteen bucks. Thirteen shirts would take me two hours and 10 minutes to press them myself. And they still don't have the razor sharp creases that the dry cleaners gives them.

I've cut back on my Rex Goliath (everyday drinking wine), and lunches out with the group at work. I eat left overs at my desk nuked in the lunch room. I'm brown bagging it. I like the idea that I'm saving big time. It's a good feeling that I'm beating the ascending prices.

Ruth has planted a garden out back. If all goes well, we'll add more vegetables to the mix. I built her a box and it's already growing well. We'll have something to eat within a couple of weeks.

So we'll have free fresh vegetables, little wine, but pressed shirts.

I guy has to prioritize.

...dave
Rich people stay rich by acting poor and poor people stay poor by acting rich.

Sketching Frogs

frogs
Originally uploaded by daveterry.

Frogs are really easy to sketch. That is, as long as you use a picture. I copied this from a magazine. I think I'd like to try my hand at live animals in a zoo.

I'm talking about animal zoos, not corporations.

Although . . . there are similarities. Offices have cubes as zoos have cages, the managers are the handlers, and if you toss them lunch they'll stay in their cubes and behave.

Sometimes you can herd them into rooms where they co-mingle in meetings but only for short periods of time, and you have to be selective about which animals you mix in the same area.

Yeah, quite a few similarities.

...dave
Eat well, stay fit, die anyway.

Lazy Sunday

sleeping
Originally uploaded by daveterry.

Experiments in watercolor wash.

I tried to pick evening colors since she was reading the paper as the sun set and painted an evening hue into the trees behind the house.

As I finished up the watercolor wash I realized I was drawing Lazy Sunday on the Saturday journal page. Rats. I hate that when that happens. I get so involved in the sketch I forget where I am. I'm sure that doesn't happen to other sketchers.

After my right brain finished the sketch, my left brain began to analyze the page. It found stuff like:

I like the arm bleeding out of the page but I don't like the border line going through it. I should have done the border AFTER the picture.

I should have sketched on the correct journal day.

I forgot to put "evening" on the sketch. That meant I had to add it scrunched up. It's so small it's hard to read.

But then, the journal page is only an exercise. It's for relaxing. It's for experiments.

It doesn't hide the imperfections.

It's real. And I like that.

...dave
I plead contemporary insanity.