. Spinning .

My ability to focus comes with a Kevlar string attached.  In other words, I can’t break free.

After confirmation from a friend that Recycling was too distracting with imagery (boy, that reminds me of the first story, Reflections, where I discovered imagery and turned a woman into a world of oceans and mountains and such) and so I played a bit more.

Neat thing about learning by doing and discovery–what you learn sticks (somewhat, except for all the steps in the middle where you were just playing and didn’t concentrate on what made what into what in Photoshop).

Bad thing–you haven’t fiddled with each and every option. 

Just realized that "Ease In" and "Ease Out" in the Movie Maker Effects did a better job of zooming in than I did with my four versions of Mars I made by reducing the image repeatedly.  So that eliminated five (Mars & Earth) jolting frame changes right there. 

Also finally gave up my red funeral bush (since only I saw it as a metaphor for death–snowball bushes are always found in New England cemetaries) and turned it into a desktop image for one of the computers so I can still enjoy it.

Made another split in my head image and replaced one of the text frames to make a smoother and more obvious transition of face to fetus.

As my friend said, people like to read poetry themselves (hey, if they’re still stuck in old-fashioned mode, I’m obliging!) and now, with the audio off, the poem isn’t such a flash of images rushing at the viewer.

Still two areas to work on, Poe/Jesus and the tunnel, but I think I’m doing a better job of presentation.

So no; it’s not done yet.

I suppose this is new media, at least it is communication-related…

I’ve discovered a way to combat the phone robots and get put through instead to a real person.  In calling the telephone directory service to get the local number for our post office, I kept ending up with the 800 number which goes to Hartford where they don’t care that my mailbox got knocked down. So, when you are asked to say the name of the party you’re seeking, I mumble.  Voice recognition asks you to repeat and I mumble again.  Then, and only then, are you put through to a real live person.

Who, by the way, told me that they don’t give out the local numbers for the post office any more.

Wish I could show you the "timeline" of Recycling; with the frames squished together, you can see the bulge of a round form in the edge of each frame.  The theme then, is a circle, which affirms nicely the premise of the poem.  I noticed this early in the selection of visuals (Mars, Earth) to match the words, then consciously sought the form to fit in some of the other verses.

But did I do this subconsciously when I wrote the poem?  I don’t know.  I know I didn’t do it consciously, but some of these things surprise me in my writing and that’s one of the greatest highs for a writer.  I wonder if an accomplished artist finds this same thing happening; when he doesn’t know what’s going to come out on the canvas, doesn’t know where the "story" is leading him.

I do know this:  Jesus came out a lot sexier and meaner-looking than I’d planned.

All the borrowed photography has been replaced with my own work, either hand drawn with pencil or drawn in Photoshop.  It’s been quite a project.  While I’m kinda proud of it, I know that there’s still an image overload.  While I may fix the audio if I get a better microphone, I’m not planning on doing any more tweaking with the visuals–at least for now.

Couldn’t do what I thought in Photoshop–couldn’t master the look of pencil-drawn-in filling in Edgar’s suit–so I ended up back “at the drawing board.”  But I did turn to computer assistance in colorizing, cropping, and adding a background.

I’m not super-thrilled with the likeness (which, thank God, I don’t have to worry about with Jesus Christ) but if anything, it’s a bit flattering to the fellow.

Now on to the Son of God.  Hair’s no good, but I can’t work on a bald man.  It’s fixable.  Just like I’ve always done, I start with the eyes, which didn’t come out to be what I want–I want Him looking directly into the camera…

As well as learned technique I should add.   And I’m finding out that what I’d learned in courses on literature and writing need be applied in art as well.

As you can see, my version of Edgar is coming out looking more like a friendly Scotsman, perhaps a carpenter or woodsman of some sort.  I have several images (all that are available I think) of Poe, and I’m trying to use just the photographs rather than the renderings.  A note on the photos–because of the photographic techniques of the era almost all of the images have a mirror image, and with Poe, his most telling feature is his hairline.  Now we all know that whatever way Mom parted sonny’s hair, it stays that way for the rest of the man’s life (unless he went through the 60s and 70s and went from hippie ponytail to afro).  We also know that faces are not exactly the same on the left side as the right.  I noticed this once when I saw my dad’s face in a mirror.  We get used to the image we see–larger left eye, drooping right corner of the mouth, etc.  So which are the true photos of Poe?

I’ll have to keep working on this obviously, but one thing has come clear:  there are details to look for and emphasize in art just as in reading and writing.  There’s a good, better, best way of doing everything.  In art, I’ve rarely drawn from life or from photos; though I’ve mainly done faces and bodies, it’s been from imagination.  I’ve also sought realism.  Just as in writing experimentation that releases the true creative spirit, caricature would be the most useful exercise in learning to find and capture those features of a face that make someone recognizable even in a dozen pencil strokes.  Conciseness is the writing equivalent of caricature in art.

I may be looking for some art courses come Spring.

Well, I thought I was going to have to depend on the old technology for drawing.  I needed to replace the photo images of Mars, Earth, Edgar Allen Poe, Jesus Christ and a tunnel.  Only one of which could I have had the opportunity to photograph myself.  Of course, that’d be the tunnel, but I don’t feel secure standing either on I-84 in Hartford at night or on the Merritt Parkway in Hamden–the two lit tunnels close by that I’m aware of; so that too, was up to drawing rather than the old camera.

However, my initial plan was to draw in pencil, scan it into the computer, and maybe Photoshop to colorize and distort as needed (several copies in varying states are needed of each image).  This, because I don’t have the experience of drawing in Photoshop and past experimentation proved I had about the control of fingerpainting with the mouse. 

BUT!!!  I drew both Mars and Earth in Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop, though depending upon a circle template as a starting point so as not to make eggs instead of planets.  My version of Mars–even though I had the original image to guide me–was somehow mixed up with Jupiter and so it turned out redder and swirly until I realized my mistake and made sort of a cross between the two.  Earth was a bit harder.  I had to look at images of globes to see what was placed where in the oceans.  My shapes of South America, the bottom of North America, and the side of Africa are a bit geographically incorrect, but I put treesies and mountains in where I thought they should go, a lion on the tundra and gorillas in the mist.

I’m working on a tunnel now, and because I like the last shot in the series, I’m working my way backward.  This means going from a stylized birth canal to a fairly realistic tunnel, and believe me, it was easier to turn a tunnel into a vagina than vice versa.

So that will leave me with Poe and Jesus.  These shouldn’t be quite as hard for me to do since my forte in art is portraits if I’ve any talent at all.  And for these two, I’m definitely going back to paper and pencil.  For Poe, I’ll have to depend on the photographs available of him, and I will likely use the pose I’ve used already in the clip. 

For Jesus Christ, my model will be Bob Dylan.