Between nectar and the sun, Q. Cassetti, 2010, pen and inkSummer beckons. We are on the verge of that slow time. A week or so longer of scheduled tests, time with friends, and finally graduation. Kitty has a few things to do…and then there is outside work to begin with Nigel. I have a mountain to attack of work, planning and getting my act in gear for the summer and finally prep for next fall. Lots of little things that add up that perhaps I can chip away in the next few days to reduce the pile.
I did something wild yesterday. I ordered some new software. I ordered Manga Studio, a software program that focuses on inking, drawing, tones, bubbles that are the tools for manga and comic drawings. I also have the only book, a “dummies’ guide to this software. I hope there is a link to a pdf guide too.This tone component and the brushes are what intrigues me that painter doesn’t provide. Nor does illustrator…where there are work arounds, but not the tool for that sort of thing. If it doesn’t work out, ah well…but it may give me some alternative approaches to the current and future work. We’ll see.
The bees evolve. I am thinking about the isolated queens and how she spends her life. I am thinking about how historical houses accomodated bee hives into the exterior walls of their houses, or nested into the walls surrounding the compound. Bee keeping was predominantly was women’s work—knit into the cooking, care of the family, gardens and house and home keeping. The queen is the center of her hive—focused on her job of creating the future of her community through her continual egg laying. She is tended by nurses and attendants who create the honeycombs, who tend to the larvae and who develop and feed the future queen(s).
I have a yearbook recap and discussion today. I woke up this morning with the process and thinking figured out. It is about story telling through pictures using examples (the Rick Smolen books, Elliot Erwitt, some of the Black Star photographers, Annie Leibowitz ) of how others do this. The yearbook is all about photo journalism…creating dynamic content that can go into a very simple shell, format that will allow good images cropped well….and that is the purpose. Everyone knows about picture taking. Everyone cannot take a good picture because they haven’t thought about it.
On to the work.