Sometimes I really don’t understand armor design in video games. Specifically, I refer to what friends and I refer to as “battle panties.” Battle panties are those pieces of high-level armor that has the best stats, but only seems to cover the character’s privates. I know they exist as cheesecake, but it still strikes me as terribly impractical, and just a little bit gratuitous. Still, my friends and I have managed to have managed to make use of such armor in-game. Usually, in rather troll-like manner. Usually, this involves creating characters those physical attributes are nowhere near what many may consider as cheesecake. And then we parade the characters around in those battle panties.

Printmaking

Both intaglio and linoleum printmaking are pretty intensive. In both, it can take a long time to draw or carve out an image. Once you’ve made a mark, you are stuck with it. The best thing to do is either figure out how to make the mistake work for the piece, or start over. Intaglio prints, when using wax, can be sensitive to heat and cold. So when traveling from school to home and back on my bicycle, I have to be careful to not expose the plate to either temperature extreme. Then when it comes to printing with a press, you can run through over twenty prints in an attempt to get one that is perfect. Despite these troubles, I found that these are mediums that I enjoy working with. I don’t know why, but there seems to be a more rewarding feeling that comes with producing a handmade print, rather than drawing something digitally and printing on a printer. 

Digital Painting and Textures

Found out today that I’ve been going about digital painting in totally the wrong way. Or rather, the very laborious way. I'd painstakingly spend upwards of 30 or 40 hours drawing out the intricate details of some texture within the image. And then I’d find that I didn’t really like the location of something, or some detail about the object in the image, and then would have to spend that same out of time repainting the whole thing. Apparently, a lot of time can be cut out of the process my creating my own brushes. While I had modified brushes in an attempt to get the look I want, often they fall just short of the goal. Apparently, though, I can take photographs of the texture that I am trying to simulate. Then, with some adjustments to the contrast and minor editing, I can a section of that image into a brush. The result would be that with a single stroke of the pen, I could paint something that looked like concrete. I used to draw every little ding and put when trying to make the texture by hand. I will have to try out making my own brushes. Hopefully it will save some time, and allow me to produce art at a faster pace.

On the road...

My family came from Utah. We spent most of your summers traveling through the various national parks and camping grounds around the state and in states nearby. Among the ones we vested most frequently were Calf Creek, Devil’s Garden, and Goblin Valley. We’d also been through Coyote Gulch, Bryce Canyon, Zion Narrows, Arches, Dinosaur National Monument, a petrified forest, Yellowstone, Carlsbad Caverns, and others. Oddly enough, we’ve never actually been to the Grand Canyon, although we were not far from it. There was this scary road that we’d often cross during these trips. I don’t remember the name of the road, but my dad would often refer to it as a ridgeback. It was this very narrow road that dropped off like a steep cliff on both sides. I remember thinking that we’d drive off of it, if not careful. However, we’d make it across and move on toward our next destination. 

Cayote Gulch

There was this one time where my family was backpacking through Coyote Gulch, Utah. A few different things happened while we were there. At some point, my sisters and I had lost sight of out dad. When hiking, he tends to walk on ahead while leaving the rest of us behind. As a result, we needed to track his footprints through the desert. Luckily, his footprints were easy to find. Once foot has grown at an odd angle. So, we were able to catch up to him. During one of the nights, we heard roaring outside our text. It turned out that a mountain lion had wandered near. We were eating sardines, so it was probably attracted to the smell. The sardines were thrown outside the tent, and eventually it went away. We’d also run out of water about midway through. While dad hiked back to the car to get more, we waited under the tree. It took most the day for him to make the trip.

That time we went ice fishing...

Back when I lived in Utah, my family used to spend many winters ice fishing at Strawberry Lake Reservoir. I don’t remember exactly what kind of fish we were after, but I assume that it was some sort of trout. We’d go out into the middle of a lake, and with an auger, drill a hole through three feet of ice. Then we’d wait around for hours, waiting for something to bite. Sometimes we’d catch fish, sometimes not.

Ice fishing, at least in Utah, is not as cold as one might think.  With the sun reflecting off all that ice, sometimes it would feel warm enough to take off our coats. That, or we just got used to the cold. Sometimes, it would seem rather warm out. It was on one such day that we had to cut out fishing short. We’d been out until early afternoon, when the sun was high in the say. It was at the time that we started to hear loud, groaning noises that seemed to echo over the whole lake. It was the sounding of ice cracking.

We decided to call it quits, and hastily made our way back to the car—only to find that the ice had melted along the shore. The gap was as large as three or four feet in places. We moved along the edge of the floating slab of ice until we could find a spot where the ice seemed to still connect. Then, we made a running leap for solid land. My sisters and I made it alight. I guess we were light enough to not really make a dent in the ice. However, dad was not so lucky. During his running leap, his foot broke the ice and fell in. Luckily, the water was shallow and dad only suffered an incredibly cold and wet foot.

"That Time We Went Ice Fishing..."
intaglio, etching with aquatint, 11"x17"

Family Trip to Goblin Valley, Utah

I spent many summers of my youth hiking through the deserts southern Utah. Among the more memorable sites vested was Goblin Valley State Park.  The place is filled with many cliffs and rocks that had been eroded away through a mix of water and wind. The result is a bunch of mushroom shaped rocks that sit upon a landscape of muddy bedrock.

My sisters and I would try climbing on top of these formations, in order to see how high we could go. My father would stand at the ground and take pictures of us standing atop the mushroom rocks, or inside small crevices in the cliff wall. Among one of the oddest rock formations, I remember seeing one that held a strange resemblance to the alien in E.T.  Whenever we return to Goblin Valley, I always try to locate that same rock formation.

My intaglio print, “Family Trip to Goblin Valley, Utah” is based upon my childhood memories of hiking and climbing through that state part. 

"Family Trip to Goblin Valley, Utah"
intaglio, etching with aquatint and a la poupee, 6"x12"