Sorry I haven’t posted for so long!
UPDATE: I finished this pencil sketch, and added some color, using Photoshop. He is now named Parnassus, the shy dragon.
Here is something I was drawing tonight. It isn’t finished, but sometimes people like to see works in progress. Or at least that’s my theory. And it’s easier than thinking of an entire blog post topic.
I have not been sleeping well lately. I wouldn’t call it insomnia, but I have been waking up in the night, for no apparent reason. I can usually turn over and fall back to sleep, but not sleeping the night through is new and annoying to me.
I have still been dreaming, though. One theory of mine is that waking in the night makes your dreams more vivid and memorable. So far this has not really been the case. My dreams have been as indistinct as ever, and even less memorable than some.Â
But last night I dreamed that I was posting a poem to this blog. I have no idea why.
And I am not posting a poem to this blog, so it wasn’t prophetic.
Dreams and dreaming fascinates me. I would have, in the past, said I was “pretty good at remembering my dreams” but that was before I met many friends who are excellent at both remembering and influencing their dreams via lucidity. Lucidity eludes me; at least, it eludes me 99% of the time.
If you are interested in lucidity I suggest checking out lucidity.com Your results may vary. From my own experiences with it, I have decided that really trying to improve your dream recall takes as much concentrated effort and time as anything else in life that you are trying to improve, so be forewarned. I do not really keep a journal, though I usually write it down if I have a truly interesting dream.
I do not put any stock in dream “meanings” since I know that most of the time the things I dream about are the things I have encountered during the day mixed with fantasy adventure. If I see a dragon in a dream it’s not going to be a metaphor for something I have to battle – because I really like dragons. And flying is not necessarily escaping anything, it’s just how I prefer to move.
Feel free to recount any dreams, hints on better dreaming, jounalling ideas, etc. in comments. And if you want more information and links, let me know that too.
Today I wanted to sleep in, but couldn’t go back to sleep. Instead I actually exercised on the stationary (stationery? erm.) bike. I have been trying to exercise this week – so far so good.
Then my parents went with me to see an exhibit at the Canton Cultural Center for the Arts on the Kimono landscapes of Itchiku Kubota. Here is a link: http://www.kimonoexhibit.com/Â
The kimonos were amazing. There was an installation comprised of 3
0 larger-than-life kimonos, sleeve to sleeve, and the intricate dyed and inked art spanned across all thirty, depicting the change of seasons from fall to winter. It included oceans, mountains, sunsets and snow storms. Each one took nearly a year to make. I never expected that I would be so awestruck by a display of kimonos. I have certainly never felt this moved by “modern” style art: give me something gloriously representational!
After touring that exhibit, there was a display of Taiko drumming that happened to be beginning. It was also stunning to watch! I had no idea how interesting it would be. I am not sure I want to run out and buy a lot of CDs full of Taiko Drumming music, but it was fascinating. The choreography was stunning and beautiful.
Here is a fuzzy camera-phone photo, because it’s all I had with me.
This past Saturday was the Hebron Youth Conference for 2009, entirely put together by the associate pastor of my church. He was simultaneously going through a rough spot in his family, so I am awestruck that he put so much time and effort into this as well. God definitely blessed his efforts!
I went as a chaperone, for the youth from my church. The theme was Proverbs 4:23 “Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.” The main point being that we, as Christians, are to be holy – which does not mean “off in a monastery” but it does mean “set apart”. We need to keep out of the grime and sin of the world and culture. It’s a hard thing to do, but when the fruits God promises are things like love, joy, peace, etc. it does seem like there are good rewards. (And it is your “reasonable service.”)
I am not going to go over every thing every speaker said, but I will point out a few things that struck me as interesting takes. When you have been listening to sermons since birth sometimes it is amazing and refreshing to hear something that seems new.
Penultimately, I want to add a list of “Five things we want the Lord Jesus to be able to say to us if the Rapture should occur today” – as listed by Dr. Michael Peck. (I was even more struck by these since I knew the two other chaperones sitting next to me were going through such family trials that these were heart-wrenchingly relevant – and still nodding and amen-ing along with this. I was humbled and awed.)
Finally, in the border of my notes during the sermons I ended up with this little character. I drew her once during each message, and so this was message #5, the final version. (We did have a 6th sermon but I didn’t draw her again.)
Not all harpies are screaming, bird-woman hags.
But since most are, Heldra felt very alone. She tried so hard to find companionship in the lost travelers of the waste – but none would go near her; all fled when they saw the shadow of her outstretched wings. Her sweet voice did nothing to allay their fears: all knew that harpies and sirens were kin, and so many had heard the (true) tales of folks ripped to shreds.
She still sits often in a dead tree, singing to wyverns and birds. Occasionally a faun or dragon. But for the most part, she has the wilderness to herself – and her terrible kin.
Until she met the wizard.
[I won’t tell you how old this sketch is. It’s really old.]
The quest to find copper sheet continues. Home Depot (or at least the one I tried) says they don’t carry it. So I did buy some copper paint (made of ‘liquified copper particles’ so it should look authentic). I will eventually have to go back to that first craft store, but it’s in an inconvenient location.
Finally, here is a bit of old art I just dredged up. It is really from 2005, don’t tell. But I hadn’t posted the silly thing yet so I’ll sneak it into here. It’s a lot like the Garjubble. My style hasn’t changed very much. Which is not necessarily bad, but I do always say I should work at doing more life sketching.
(The title was a riff on the delightful podcast of Paul Tevis, that you can find here.)
As mentioned in the last journal I bought a card game, called Rage. I also bought Farkle, and played Save Doctor Lucky. (Note: not Kill. You lose points if you accidentally say Kill.)
Now, Rage was very fun, even though I don’t like trick taking games. The fun part was the company I played with. Farkle was less fun, because I lost, and I’m not always a good sport – and it was so hard I had to make a house rule to add an extra die. We also tried it with two extra dice, but that made it too easy. Save Doctor Lucky worked surprisingly well, considering we only had 3 people. I used a chunk of glass that looked like an ice cube for Doctor Lucky’s meeple. I didn’t think about how ironic that was, on the Titanic.
I was playing with my family. And it turns out that shorter games work better with them. Much as I wouldn’t have minded buying a copy of Wealth of Nations or Pandemic, I can’t see many of my local friends playing it. (Not counting my game group – they are actually an hour away so I don’t consider them “that local”.)
Here are some more fairly-quick-to-play games on my radar screen. If you have any experience playing these I’d love to hear about it. (Also I shall be checking out BoardGameGeek.com)
Tuesday I began a game of Spirit of the Century, a storytelling game of pulp action heroes! Let me just say that any game that involves crazy scientists with explosives (note: they were not the enemy!), and fighting ninjas on a train in 192- is 100% supreme in my book. The game play may be podcast, and I apologize in advance for my own voice and annoying (to me) laughter. But I do not apologize for picking on Chance Random, the Improbable Man With The Strange Arm Of Living Wood That He Inexplicably Got From Mysterious Druids Under Cardiff* Being a woman of [mad botanical] science (in this game, especially), that bothers me to pieces. The next time we play won’t be until April, but I’ll be working on my maniacal laugh.
 *Perhaps that is not his official title.
I went into the semi-local (I do have one store closer) game/comic store, in our mall. I was looking for a copy of the card game Rage, since I’d just played it and it was a fun (and quick) game for a group – especially a group that doesn’t have the patience for me to set up Seafarers of Catan.
When I went in I made a beeline to Rage, which happened to be right near the front of the store. That was entirely too boring, to find what I was after in the first ten seconds, so I did a thorough wandering of the store for probably a half hour. Sadly I didn’t find anything else to buy.
But at one point the proprietor said “Can I help you?” So I asked if he had any green-stuff, and he pointed it out. (I didn’t buy any, but once I use mine up now I will know where to get some!)
He asked me, “Please, tell me that is for you.”
I cleverly replied “What?”
He said, “Please, tell me you’re the sculptor. We need more gaming girls!”
I, fortunately, was the one that was going to be sculpting – but I find it funny that in a world where a woman ran for president of the United States it’s still shocking when one walks into a game store on purpose.
For all of January I was very good about posting in here about three times a week. This has fallen apart in February. That’s why I don’t think I would ever be able to do a consistent podcast – I am poor with this, let alone something that requires so much editing.
Anyway I hope you had a wonderful Valentine’s Day, and a wonderful Monster Day (Feb. 16, a day where you buy up leftover Valentine’s candy, and get friends over to watch crummy B-grade Monster movies, and draw monsters if you are of the artistic bent.) Not my idea (though I would take credit). I heard of this at Ninjahinjinx ( http://ninjahijinx.livejournal.com/Â )
While I’m plugging ineresting websites, let me get in a word for Cabinet of Wonders. This site is a wonderful (no pun intended) aggregation of information on things true and/or quirky. It’s much better than my blog, so go check it out right now. It has photos! I always intend to have photos, but I usually type this up during lunch at work, and don’t have access to my camera. Not a good excuse at all.
I was looking at some excellent photos of clockwork at the Cabinet of Wonders site, and pondering the whole Steampunk genre, and wondering how clocks actually work, and found this great site that explains the mechanics of, er, mechanisms: http://www.flying-pig.co.uk/mechanisms/Â
I will be looking at that one a lot later today.