iDraw: View From Below

iDraw: We Got Up Early To Drive Home & Go To Work

iDraw: Staring in the Mirror Always Makes Me Look Grim

iDraw: Flat-faced on the Fourth

iDraw: We Got Out of Town

iDraw: In the Bathroom Mirror

iDraw: Getting Bored with Drawing on my iPod Touch

I've done all my drawings this month on my iPod Touch, and I'm ready to go back to traditional media for awhile. Unfortunately, I expect to still be quite busy for at least another 4-6 weeks, and the Touch is the quickest as there is no setup, no cleanup, and I can do it anywhere. So I expect we'll continue to see alot of iDraw drawings for at least another month.

iDraw: Busy Brain

It's hard to still my busy brain. But at least I spent some time today being quiet.

iDraw: All Work and No Play...

...makes Julia a tired girl making a boring drawing. Well, I shouldn't say no play - I only spent 12 hours at the office this weekend, so there was a little time left to hang out and crack jokes with AK.

Dutch Cap

iDraw: I Can't Help Worrying

Think Warm Thoughts

Or, return of the flying nun hat.

Looking Down at the Mirror

As any photographer can tell you, the view from below is rarely complimentary.

iDraw: Never Assume

Never assume that just because something is easy one day, it will be easy another day. Hubris, hubris, hubris. Had to do about 20 drawings of myself today to get one I was willing to post....

Cockeyed

Gee, if you believe everything you see, I've gained alot of weight since yesterday!

I Pulled My Flaps Down Over My Cheeks

Both Flaps Down

It's been cold, so I flip my flaps to keep my ears warm.

That Hair!

I'm going to have to get it cut soon - and then what will happen to this series of drawings? Change, change, and again, change!

That Hat!

That hat has a mind of it's own. I expect it will continue to make regular appearances throughout the winter... but I can't say for sure - I only work here!

iDraw: Not Quite Awake

And not quite in the frame, either. Still, a serviceable drawing.

Tiny Glasses

Knit Cap, Big Nose, Venetian Blinds

More About My Hair

Forehead and Hair

Green Glasses

Done the Old-Fashioned Way - Staring in a Mirror!

iDraw: Still in Bed..

...but already drawing - now that's the way to start the day!

iDraw: Quick Drawings Can Take Awhile...

Sometimes I have to make so many quick drawings to get one I like, I might as well have taken the time for a longer drawing...

iDraw: Squinting in the Mirror

Is it time for new glasses?

iDraw: Black Hooded Raincoat, Rainy Day

iDraw: Sketch 'N Twist

One aspect of using the video camera in my laptop to draw from is that since it's down on my lap, I'm looking up at my face from below, an unusual view. Here I decided to emphasize that by distorting the drawing I made in Sketches with PhotoTwist.

Ow, I Banged My Head!

But it's not as bad as I made it look!

Also, since I've complained so often I'd also like to give credit where it's due. They swapped around rooms next door so that we wouldn't hear Rawlston Masoniai's music as much, and when I called him this evening because it was still vibrating in the rooms nearest their house, he did immediately turn it down. So thank-you to Rawlston, we really appreciate it!

Not Topical

Maybe tomorrow...

Wooly Julia

The latest little ap we've downloaded to my iPod touch is Wooly Willy, which allows you to draw 'magnetic shaving' mustaches and other hair on either the traditional Wooly Willy image or any image of your own. Here Ann and I have collaborated in giving a previous portrait some additional facial hair. The truth is my eyebrows are a little wild and getting wilder as I get older - so this may not be so far from some future truth. As Picasso famously replied when told Gertrude Stein did not look like his portrait of her "She will...".

This image also seems apropos of printmaker printmaker Ruth Paesch & my attempt to see the Frida Kahlo show at SFMoMA today... I can't say I was directly influenced by the show, however, because the museum was having a power outage and we went to Ocean Beach instead.

Ann says as long as I'm mentioning such fabulous women as Ruth, Gertrude and Frida, let's not forget Patti Smith.

OK, bed time...

Too Tired To Draw (But I did Anyway)

Not surprisingly, I'm still tired from being woken up periodically Wednesday night by our neighbor Rawlston Masaniai (Masaniani) of the San Francisco Seals, Unlike Rawlston, I don't get to sleep all day the next day.

The Neighbors Are Partying Again on a Wednesday Night

Actually, it's one neighbor in particular, Rawlston Masaniai (Masaniani) of the San Francisco Seals. I guess consideration for your community isn't part of the sports experience.

Green Sweatshirt

Strangely, I no longer look like my eyes are quite so rolled up. I didn't fix those weird nostrils, though - they're still weird!

Rolling My Eyes to Heaven, Day 2

Rolling My Eyes to Heaven (But I Don't Know Why)

Worrying About My Friends

There's something High School angst-y about this, which seems appropriate to wondering about my High School friend Chris Lombardi's big move from NYC to Philly today.

iTouch!

I drew this with my finger on my iPod Touch - fabulous!

With vers 2.0 of the iPod touch/iPhone software, released last week, there are now independently developed applications - including several promising draw/ paint/ scribble/ doodle programs. Reviewers are whining about the $2 - $6 costs, but obviously they've never paid full price for photoshop (OK, these programs have a long way to go before they can be compared with photoshop). I downloaded the four most interesting ones and took them for a spin. Although the interface for Lint Labs' No. 2 (like No. 2 pencil) has some clunky-ness (double-click would be a much better way to turn the pencil on and off, for instance), it is the one that gives the most precise control and allows you to really draw - and erase, for goodness sake! Can't wait to see how these grow as the developers, um, develop them!

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

I cut up an old landscape watercolor painting, planning to draw portraits on the back. However, I was drawn to the front and drew right over the old attempt at trees.

Last of the Beet Juice Paintings (for now)

This was done with borscht and a brush. I was having a good time, though I certainly look very serious in that way that I do...

Noisy Neighbors

Worst Allergy Day Ever!

Peering at Myself in the Studio

Orange You Glad You Aren't Blue?

Tomorrow I'm off to the East Coast for the Annual General Meeting of the American Society for the Alexander Technique. I'll still be drawing every day but I don't know how frequently I'll be able to post.

It's Been a Stressful Week, But Today I Had Some Good News

Continuous Contour

Here's another variation on the theme. This was drawn right-handed, and allowing myself to look at the paper periodically. But the game for continuous contour is that you can't life the pen off the paper, so the whole thing is one continuous line.

Traditional 'Blind' Contour

In a traditional 'blind' contour you look only at your subject and not down at the paper. However, you do often have a sense of the paper and where you are on the paper in your peripheral vision since your eyes are open. That's how this was done, and you can see that it's different than the previous 10 days when my eyes actually were closed, and the only clues I had to where I was on the paper came from feeling for the edges. In both cases, the drawing was left-handed and the painting right-handed.

Some of my More Colorful Ancestors

I Come From Remulac, a Small Town in Southern France

I periodically have alot of trouble uploading images to blogger via ftp from my mac to my website hosted outside of google-land. On the assumption that others are having similar difficulties, I thought I'd share what I've figured out. I used third-party ftp software to look at the uploaded_images folder on my web server, and it looks like often when there is a failure message, the error is happening after a successful upload of the image. The problem is that in order to reference the image in your post you need to know what it is called - your original file name with blogger-generated numeric suffix. However, using the third-party FTP software I could see the names and sizes of the uploaded files, so I was easily able to deduce which was the thumbnail that appears inline in the blog, and which was the full-size image that it links to. I copied the 'a' tag from a previous successful post and then changed the names of the files based on my preview via the ftp client, and voila, it worked! For mac users I recommend cyberduck, though there are many fine free and/or inexpensive ftp clients out there. (In case you're wondering, .ch is Switzerland)

Bull-headed and Pig-nosed

I tried to turn my mouth up into a smile but it didn't work... so I don't look too happy here about my 500th post (and this is still just a subset of my lifetime self-portraits!). Still, we like round numbers and 500 seems like a good one.

Revisiting the Hall of my Ancestors

When I Don't Get Enough Sleep, I Get Dark Eyes

and apparently dark nose, too = oh, well!

And Happy 50th Anniversary to my parents, even though neither of them is here to celebrate.

Why Did I Make Such an Early Appointment Yesterday?

Why Did I Schedule an 8:00 AM Appointment?