A Work Progressing

I can’t leave it alone. Gotta try reworking. And I’m really only using two different brush styles.

Okay, the last one is my grandson’s.

I wanted to revisit Egon with my Apple Pencil.

I wanted to focus on the Mucha women, mostly their expressions, so I removed the background.s. Then I could see the faces, and naturally I took some liberties to make some changes. Changing color and line weight was a good study. I still may print these and add some color pencil.

Steve Jobs had very strong opinions. Way back when the Newton was a thing, he liked it but couldn’t stand that it had a stylist. “It could get lost!”

Well, yes, Steve. It could get lost, and it did get lost periodically. But it also did some pretty remarkable screen images that my finger can’t make!

Yep, I bought and Apple Pen for the iPad Pro. It’s remarkable.

Tribute Wyeth’s Helga

Tribute Vincent

Portrait of Wyeth

Marilyn from Stills

Laura in Jerusalem

I haven’t even explored the middle basics, let alone the advanced.

I’m using AutoDesk Sketch for the first time. Nice app. I like sketching, then printing, then Prismacolor work, then scanning for more iPad sketching! Lots of layers!!!

I finally upgraded an old iPad that cracked a screen. On the way to better vision, its getting hard to see detail. the doctor says its all good but I struggle. So i busted for a 12.5 iPad Pro, and I’m very happy. Still drawing with my finger but the sketches on this big screen are much easier to get. I have twelve sketches in progress and eight are as done as i can get. Two are family sketches and six are various tribute pieces or personal projects

“The Big Island

Today I stepped on new earth.

Earth that rose from magma,

Mother giving birth to child,

As unlovely to look at as can

be imagined.

Yet time will pass and the child

Will change, gaining the

Rainaments of forests & grass,

While we scamper on the surface

Like small mites, barely aware

of our host.

Today I stepped on new earth,

Convicted of my parasitic nature.”

I wrote this about ten years ago. I’m still convicted of our parasitic nature on this planet. I once read that if you think of the Earth as an orange floating in space, all life, and all of our busy drama, exists in the fungus that is growing on the peel of the orange.

Wow, now that puts it into perspective!

And yes, I am a parasite on this earth. A particularly nasty one at times.

At this moment I am trying to walk carefully, barely touching the ground. I sway with the slight breeze, the sand is hardly displaced, I make no discernible mark as I move from place to place.

I just wish to be here completely enveloped.

I’m back in the land of new earth. Dirt that is younger than I am. Yes, I know, composting trees, brush and vegetables creates new earth. But this place belches new earth from the core of the world. The Big Island!

This really has been in the works for more than three years. Sherry bid on a Hawaii vacation at a charity auction, and we won! Stuff was happening, I was under treatment for cancer, so the plan was to reserve from the owners a week after my treatment was done.

The plan backfired because the week after radiation was finished is not the best time to travel. He graciously allowed us to cancel and set up for the following year.

The beginning of summer for the following year was the summer of the heart attack. Yikes! Cancelled again.

The next summer we went to Jerusalem, so It seemed that Hawaii was out. Nope! We went anyway.

Now I’m pondering new earth after experiencing very old earth. From dry desert to island paradise.

It will be a good week!

Diogenes was noted for holding a lamp during the day, saying he was looking for an honest man. He often disrupted the teachings of Socrates and Plato, by bringing food and drink to their lectures. He even criticized Alexander the Great to his face. He was a founder of the school of Cynicism.

Finding truth was like finding an honest man in daylight with a lantern. It’s not impossible, but the tools you use don’t help.

Many will say, “I know the truth when I see it!” There is an element of truth to the phrase. But does this mean that a blind person cannot know the truth? Does visible evidence guarantee truth? There are thousands of magicians that hope people will only use their eyes to know a truth.

A friend often uses the phrase “sufficiency of the evidence” in knowing the truth. Yes, but when is it sufficient? Don’t most people set a limit, and when the limit is reached, then truth is found. Is it the same limit for everyone?

“I know because I saw, I know because I read a book, I read three books, I took a class at a community center, a college. I know because I have a degree, I know because I teach, I know because I once knew for certain, and now I’m not sure!”

The worst of all proof is, “I feel it in my bones!” But isn’t that the most honest answer?

I’m not an expert on Bedouins, I’ve read very little on their culture, and spent less than an hour listening to a young woman explain the Bedouin life to a tourist group. Something did ring true to me during the discussion. Bedouins have embraced technology and the modern life. They have engineers, doctors, lawyers, etc. but they also have a deep connection to the “good life”, the life of a tribe. Living with little technology, sleeping in tents, tending herds, praying, and drinking strong coffee. Simple truth may be found in a simple life.

The “good life” can also be seen as the intentional simple life. The world is often too much, and causes a confusion in value systems, “What is the value of this? Is this important? If I embrace this, will I be a slave to this in the future?” These are good questions.

Why do we need a written code of conduct that determines the truth of things? Because we have been given the gift (or curse) of rationalization. All things are subject to interpretation.

Life is sacred. What about war? What about self defense? What about the impact of one absolute right, when it conflicts with another absolute right? In our culture today we handle this by making one of the absolute rights as false. Both can’t be true, so one is false. Weirdly enough, that actually might be true, but it might also be false. What are we to do? How can we know truth?

Sadly, I go back to, “I feel it in my bones”. This is dangerous because I must be honest about the things that I’ve experienced, the things that I have read, I must know that I’ve looked at the possibility that I’ve been manipulated, or that I have not seen correctly, I must look at how much that I “absolutely know” something.

“I believe, help me in my unbelief”.