Arbor Day: Grow and plant your own trees

Today I'm going to write about our trees. I have a sweetgum "cutting" that's stood up in its pot for two days now, and of our Japanese Black Pines we still have Shang Chi standing tall, with growth in the middle. The sweet gum "sticker" shows some signs of creating a root end, so I'm keeping it buried. I picked up another one yesterday and started keeping it in water. I've included a picture of it with hopes the little brown end will start root formations. I'll plant it, too.

I want to tell you about what I've learned from growing life, and here and in my Integr8d Fictions blog I wish to go over the process and our trials and errors.

Follow this blog

Grow Your Own!

We've been busy growing plant life from the seed! These little Japanese Black Pine sprouts were our first attempt to grow trees of our own as bonsai.

I'll give you a full rundown on what we learned as we learned it, as well as the little reflections on life our trees have spawned. Today started a new chapter: I found a gumball root, I think, and I've planted it like a cutting. More next time!

Follow this blog

Money done right

Follow this blog

Why DO Economies fail?

Follow this blog

Drawn to Comics

It looks like we're both sketching with any moment we can spare...possibly an Artists' Alley slotinside San Diego International Comic Convention! I have three projects I'd like to get finished, if not five, but at the top of the list is Not Another Comic Book! I warmed up with thumbnails of a friend's superhero comic that's in the works and soon joined Marc Kane in putting together our own story again.



We both sketch from life as well as photographed models. If you've ever wanted to try, it just starts with sticks and circles---then it's a matter of determination, and enjoying the task for its own sake!

I also had a ball penciling in occult titles, real and imagined and funny, into a book shelf for a panel set in a studio. Since my pages won't be published, without revealing anything else about the project, here's my pencils.


I had directions to include two Filipino artists and decided to learn something while picking out a photo reference: I found Botong Fransisco and his 1960's era mural art, and before him, Fernando Amorsolo. Amorsolo was presented as so influential that his fellow Fillipino artists tended to fall into camps of imitating or creating opposite styles in reaction to his popular art. He's known as the "Painter of the Filipino Sunlight." Born in 1892, he was known for pastoral themes and portraits of common people working and surviving with dignity; during World War II, the Japanese Occupation became his subject, depicting its destruction, as mentioned in this Hub Page: http://littleprincess1.hubpages.com/hub/The-Controversial-Painting His backlighting technique is his primary contribution to Filipino art. Amersolo, who died in 1972, was "an incessant sketch artist." Nice for him to help me out this once. I gave the figure a shirt based on the cover art for Dio's "Magica" as a nod to the story's creator.








I decided to look up a little surrealist art and found the Low Brow Movement. I won't attempt to summarize here, but the point is, I thought I'd do a bit of research. I ended up doing one background piece based on the theme "Rocket Man," then added a lovely female face and darkness, thinking about Bill Sienkiewicz.

Finally, Marc Kane took a pregnant friend's picture and commemorated the days of Shonna expecting, and then, inspired by the Leprechaun Horror Movie Fest on SyFy, she continued the first sketches of Gaby and Celestia. WE've been discussing their backstory again; the comic's going well, and we have a basic concept and the majority of the plot in mind, allowing it to remain elastic long enough to see what turns may lurk with the addition of characters inspired by Princess Jenn and Miss Bonnie Delighte.









All right, sketches to follow! Long live Not Another Comic Book! Or: Not Just a Comic Book! That may work better as a title; what do YOU think? (Wait till you see the other tricks we have up our sleeve---even a trio of script pitches, hush hush till the Con!)

Follow this blog