Cat drawing, dog drawing, Hemingway drawing

Well, I've been doing pretty much nothing but programming, but I've managed to do a little animation and drawing. I've also finally purchased web hosting and have a real-for-sure website up: www.benjaminsloan.com.

I've been doing a little pixel art:

Cambria

Here are some doodles I did the other day. Sometimes, when I want to relax, I listen to music and draw random photos I happen to have on my computer. This time I was trying to make myself draw faster, so I paid less attention to accuracy and pretty much ignored the subject matter and just started drawing shadows until they cohered into an image. It shows, I think, in a non-positive way, but meh! It was fun. I'll have to do a real drawing of Hemingway soon.

Random angry cat from the internet.

My mom's dog smoking.

Hemingway

As for animation, I haven't done a whole lot lately, but I put together this compilation of the bits of 3D animation I've got lying around. I hope to finally finish a full animated short soon. Until then, enjoy this:

Hippo-drawn Wagon

Behold the glory of the hippo-drawn wagon. Based on a random photograph I came across online.

Bukowski and Wood

In continuance of my "Poor Drawings of Great Artists" collection, I present Charles Bukowski and Liz Wood. Bukowski is, of course, the famous poet, and Liz Wood is a fantastic singer/songwriter/ukulele player whose blog can be found here. Click the images for larger versions.

Pennywise

Pennywise The Dancing Clown, in honor of the month of October. Done with graphite and gel pens while listening to Liz Wood, The Growlers, and Kings of Convenience.

I still have a tough time scanning graphite drawings in a way that doesn't murder the shading.

Doodles while listening to music

Walt Whitman Painting

Walt Whitman painting I did on a piece of cardboard. For most of my previous paintings, I used a kind of line-based drawing-in-paint method, but for this I actually tried to "paint all at once" and start with an amorphous white blob which I gradually sharpened into Mr. Whitman.

If you're ever in the mopes, pick up a copy of Leaves of Grass. His love for life is terrifically contagious, and I'm not sure it's possible to read him in any depth without being fundamentally altered for the better.

I will sing the song of companionship,
I will show what alone must finally compact these,
I believe these are to found their own ideal of manly love, indicating in me,
I will therefore let flame from me the burning fires that were threatening to consume me,
I will lift what has too long kept down those smouldering fires,
I will give them complete abandonment,
I will write the evangel-poem of comrades and of love,
For who but I should understand love with all its sorrow and joy? And who but I should be the poet of comrades?

Excerpts From The Waves

"I see a ring," said Bernard, "hanging above me. It quivers and hangs in a loop of light."
"I see a slab of pale yellow," said Susan, "spreading away until it meets a purple stripe."
"I hear a sound," said Rhoda, "cheep, chirp; cheep, chirp; going up and down."
"I see a globe," said Neville, "hanging down in a drop against the enormous flanks of some hill."
"I see a crimson tassel," said Jinny, "twisted with golden threads."
"I hear something stamping," said Louis. "A great beast's foot is chained. It stamps, and stamps, and stamps."

This is the beginning (or almost the beginning) of Virginia Woolf's seventh novel, The Waves. Already, it is obvious that this novel is not only very different from her previous novels, but from all previous novels. It continues in this fashion through the entire book (aside from each section's italicized introduction, which details the sun's movements over the course of a single day), following the lives of these six people as they grow from childhood to old age. I cannot begin to describe how terrific and different this book is. I am not well enough read to be an authority--nor am I a book reviewer--but I will say it tops my list of favorites. Here are a few quotations which show how excellently Woolf captures the immense range of feelings and perspectives not only from childhood to old age but from introvert to extrovert and all the other unnameable contrasts of multifarious being.

"I cried as I ran, faster and faster. What moved the leaves? What moves my heart, my legs? I dashed in here, seeing you green as a bush, like a branch, very still, Louis, with your eyes fixed. 'Is he dead?' I thought, and kissed you, with my heart jumping under my pink frock like the leaves, which go on moving, though there is nothing to move them. Now I smell geraniums; I smell earth mould. I dance. I ripple. I am thrown over you like a net of light. I lie quivering flung over you."

"Now I will wrap my agony inside my pocket-handkerchief. It shall be screwed tight into a ball. I will go to the beech wood alone, before lessons. I will not sit at a table, doing sums. I will not sit next Jinny and next Louis. I will take my anguish and lay it upon the roots under the beech trees. I will examine it and take it between my fingers. They will not find me. I shall eat nuts and peer for eggs through the brambles and my hair will be matted and I shall sleep under hedges and drink water from ditches and die there."

"We have proved, sitting eating, sitting talking, that we can add to the treasure of moments. We are not slaves bound to suffer incessantly unrecorded petty blows on our bent backs. We are not sheep either, following a master. We are creators. We too have made something that will join the innumerable congregations of past time. We too, as we put on our hats and push open the door, stride not into chaos, but into a world that our own force can subjugate and make part of the illumined and the everlasting road."

"Oppose ourselves to this illimitable chaos," said Neville, "this formless imbecility. Making love to a nursemaid behind a tree, that soldier is more admirable than all the stars. Yet sometimes one trembling star comes in the clear sky and makes me think the world beautiful and we maggots deforming even the trees with our lust."

I only have two more of her novels left; then I will have read all of them. So far she has easily gotten better with every book--it has been fascinating to follow her development chronologically. If you have not read anything of hers and are interested in giving her a try, I'd recommend starting with any of her novels after the first two, as they are more conventional (though I love The Voyage Out) and do not have the innovative brilliance which grows throughout the rest.