Tag: arts

Making Stuff

When I get bored I start thinking about making something. Unfortunately, I’m not very adept at making anything other than a mess.

For example a couple of summers ago I decided that I could paint. These resulted from my delusions:

   

I call the first one “A Brace of Fairies” while the second one is called “Pinterest Fail.”

  
I do have them on display at Doright Manor. There’s no charge for viewing them. By that I mean I won’t pay you for your waste of time should you happen to stop by.

One summer I found a jewelry making kit at a yard sale, and for six weeks I made the ugliest jewelry imaginable: Earrings that didn’t dangle evenly, anemic looking bracelets, necklaces that appeared capable of attracting the evil eye.

Another summer, at the urging of our daughter, I decided to create family scrapbooks. After several weeks of sorting through stacks and stacks of pictures I created one page. At least one batch of photos got organized for a brief time as a result.

Yesterday I told Studly I was thinking of creating something artistic. He told the cats to hide and he’s secluded himself in a guest bedroom. I think he might have heard me say I was going to attempt nude drawings next. Good thing he didn’t notice my fresh stash of glitter. 

   
  
Peace, people!

Criminal Animation

On a typical Saturday morning one would usually find me wandering around Tallahassee or neighboring communities while Studly plays eighteen holes at Southwood Golf Club. I had planned to explore the annual LeMoyne Chain of Parks Art Festival this morning, but a bulging disc (not nearly as glamorous as it sounds) and the threat of rain have kept me homebound. Maybe tomorrow….

I’ve had a couple of cups of coffee enhanced with Irish cream, and a protein bar for breakfast. The forest in my backyard is bathed in that processed chrome lighting that accompanies cloudy days in the Florida panhandle. It looks as though a fae clan might emerge at any moment to dance around the toadstools growing beneath a magnolia tree. I keep watch, just in case.

I’m doing laundry and watching Saturday morning cartoons, and I have a complaint to lodge. Namely, whoever the hell is doing the animation for the cartoon Alvinnn!!! and the Chipmunks should be arrested posthaste and forced to serve a life sentence watching the original series. Maybe he/she/they would learn what Alvin and company should look like and draw them accordingly.

My years spent sitting enraptured by Saturday morning television surely qualify me as an expert in the field of cartoon esthetics, and what I’ve witnessed this morning is a disgrace. So, how do I report this travesty? The chipmunks look like sleazy rodents instead of clean cut, chubby cheeked faux-teenagers. 

Flipping through the channels I find that few of my other cartoon favorites have fared any better. They’re either so heavily computer-generated that they look nothing like the originals or drawn so poorly that their original animators must be rolling over in their respective graves.

Today’s children, though, have been raised on this second-rate fare, plus, they have so many more choices than my brothers and I had with our three channels (ABC, NBC, CBS) that I suppose they don’t realize what they’re missing.

But I do, and it makes me sad. 

 

Now.
 
 
Then.
 

Peace, people.