250 extending the brand


A minute ago, I started walking to the Farmers Market without my phone. With the new tablet in my backpack, I figured I didn't need a second device.


About a half block from the house, I started to compose in my head something I would like to put in this blog. And and I realized hauling the tablet out of my backpack, in order to speak into it and create this blog post, as I'm doing right now while walking our dogs down Corbett Avenue five minutes later, wasn't going to happen.

With a sense of defeat, or relief, I turned around and huffed it back to get my phone. From having no phone until 2010, after a brief flirtation in the early 1990s, and only having gotten my first smartphone in 2015, I am now as thoroughly addicted as anyone can be. Well maybe not as thoroughly as anyone can be, but I'm certainly right up there with the rest of us.


So clearly there's going to be some sort of element of narrating going on in my future creative output. I was thinking of setting out to make a sketch today. Possibly city hall, or whatever strikes my fancy. The new tablet is requiring a rethinking of my art.


I certainly have a good starting point but it's a very strong tool with a lot of flexibility. One of the beautiful things about art is often you're limited by the tools that you use. 


This is limited in a certain way. It's digital and you can't really use a real brush and get a real impression or manipulate the media in a real way, but it's unlimited, really, in that you can get do-overs and layers and endless amounts of brushes and endless types of coloring.


I need to find an approach that works for me and creates the images I want to be able to create. 

I have a feeling it's going to take a while to figure that out.

Passing some interesting examples of shackitecture. Unsupported corrugating roofing is common. 
This example outside of a bar used pallets, and I think did a very nice job, with minimalism, of extending the brand of the bar. 

A little simple lighting, some paint, and an artistic touch is all it took.

Dumb dumb dumb dah duh...

Saw this sign at a protest in SoCal, and got curious.

Was Gavin in Hawaii last week?

No, no, he wasn't.

It's remarkably easy in this dis-information enslaught to lose track of our bearings. For example, above, a right wing smear on people who say they're riding an electric bike for the environment. Yes, there is a diminishing chance your electric bike is powered by coal. Yes, there is a great chance the lithium in the batteries was mined unethically in Bolivia or China. 

But what's really missing from that photo? The gargantuan pickup truck that lady isn't driving.

They didn't make it, but it was a good hook for the story, and just more proof of how much this segment is blowing up.

And while we're on the subject of greener ways to get around...

Alex Thompson, the celebrity sailor who pushed hard into a storm to get a lead in the early days of the Vendee Globe, had to slow down because something is breaking on his boat. He lost the lead.

And back to the virus...

This was three weeks ago. The guy in the coffin had Covid. Guess who else is dead now?

Finally, about that coup. So, yeah, it's a joke, put on by a liar, and it has no chance of flying in the halls of government.

In the minds of half the country, on the other hand...

At top was a tarot I drew a few weeks ago. It gave me hope.

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