Lemons and Other Things
When life gives you lemons, make lemonade! At least that’s what the old saying tells us to try to do. But sometimes life gives you other things; including substances that you can only hope will one day make great fertilizer. I apologize for the long absence, especially since I barely got started before this interruption. Blogging isn’t done in a vacuum however, and sometimes, well, protofertilizer happens.
I’d rather not get into (or bore you with) my own private little hell, I’ll say only that some of the problems included, but were not limited to, an 87-year-old mother with Alzheimer’s, a 16-year-old “best animal I ever even met” dog with dementia, the Internal Revenue Service, my late father’s insurance company, and another company who’s name rhymes with “tears”.
At least the dog is getting better. Tito’s now on Anipryl (Selegiline hydrochloride) and the dementia that manifested itself as night terrors is gone. He’s remarkably old for a big dog, but has dodged death yet again, and is back to his wonderful calm ancient self.
Everything I talked about in my earlier posts is still going to happen, I just have to be more realistic about timing. Hopefully, those of you I lost with my absence will return as time passes and the entries continue.
Click here for a larger, more detailed image.
Like last month’s mammoth “how-I-did-it”, this is another digital painting done in Photoshop. This book illustration is a Sierra Nevada landscape and the major feature in it is the Thunderhead in the distance. Layering is perfect for “painting” clouds. Unfortunately, I don’t have any in-progress images, but there are at least 9 layers in yonder cloud. All were done at 100% opacity, but made into transparent layers of differing values (a couple at the edges are only 5%) before being merged.
Because I had to do it in black and white, I thought of Ansel Adams‘ photographic prints as I worked. You have to be more careful than when working in color, as only value separates the elements in the image. The white fir and the foreground beneath it I drew as a silhouette as if shadowed by unseen trees behind the viewer to brighten the granite and the cloud by contrast.
January 26th, 2006 at 12:27 am
We are still here and apparently well rewarded with one of the most amazing Photoshop creations I have ever seen. Unbelievably gorgeous.
Thanks,
January 26th, 2006 at 1:36 am
I’ll second that! Glad to hear that Tito’s doing better, Carl. All my best to you.
January 26th, 2006 at 4:28 am
Even before the image had fully loaded, I was thinking “Ansel Adams”. Wonderful stuff—thanks for sharing it with us.
January 26th, 2006 at 8:22 am
Great to have you back Olduvai
January 26th, 2006 at 9:47 am
That’s the beautiful thing about RSS. I don’t have to visit the site until you’ve added something. That way, I’ll never miss what you put up.
Beautiful work!
January 26th, 2006 at 9:51 am
The best things in life are worth waiting for………
My condolences and best wishes.
Glad to hear Tito is getting Better.
You’re Famous!@ least in Cryptozoology.com, Your Homothere/Tito pic was referred during discussions
Look under “The weird mammal in Arkasas” thread.
for The Arkasas Ozark Howler.Props!
January 26th, 2006 at 9:59 am
We’re still here! Waiting patiently. We’re just glad we didn’t lose you! (Although I perhaps thought we did…) As always spectacular stuff. Hope all goes well from here on out…
January 26th, 2006 at 11:08 am
Great to see you back on the web, and hope things look up soon.
I saw your lion and proboscidean illustrations in an article on Pleistocene rewilding in “Conservation in Practice”. They were amazing and really captured the fun aspect of the whole idea. What do you think about the possibility of introducing replacement species for prehistoric wildlife?
I love the idea of recreating the American grasslands on a large scale…large areas of the Dakotas are becoming depopulated as we speak! But I would want to see massive buffalo herds, grizzlies and wolf packs before African elephants and lions. However, if someone could clone an extinct giant ground sloth I might not be against it.
January 26th, 2006 at 11:17 am
I have a couple of old dogs too, and sympathize with you on Tito’s plight. Best wishes for a happy outcome (or as happy as possible) on the other issues.
I always enjoy your pictures and posts (at least so far.)
January 26th, 2006 at 11:53 am
Welcome back, and my sympathy for the assorted hindrances. Age is a bitch, and so are several other things you mention.
It’s really not a problem to check in here daily, because that way I get to look at your work daily too. Always an encouraging shot of gorgeousness.
January 26th, 2006 at 12:45 pm
Good to see you’re back, OGeorge. And good to hear that Tito is getting better.
January 27th, 2006 at 1:38 am
Carl - I’m actually trying to contact you about your illustrations. I work for a publication called Chicago WILDERNESS magazine (chicagowildernessmag.org) and we are seeking an illustrator to help us with an opening spread for an article discussing the CW vision for 2030 in Chicago if ideally everyone was involved in restoration and the environment.
Your style is exactly what we’re looking for. Not sure we can afford you - it’s a nonprofit publication. But figure it doesn’t hurt to ask or see if you have any proteges out there that you could recommend if not.
Please contact me for additional details. Sorry to hit you up on your blog, just can’t seem to find contact info on you anywhere.
Thanks!
January 27th, 2006 at 1:59 am
Glad to see you’re back! And that Tito is doing better!
January 27th, 2006 at 4:11 am
woo-hoo! i’m glad you’re back! this is one of the websites that i look forward to visiting daily. your work is incredible. thanks
January 27th, 2006 at 11:46 am
Gad, George, it’s going around! I won’t tell you about my last two months, either, but you’re not alone. So many people I’ve been talking to can tell similar tales, with all kinds of not particularly amusing variations. Glad you’re back, though, and that Tito is hanging in there.
I love your work, and am so grateful to read your descriptions of your process. I have PhotoShop and a Wacom tablet, too, but would never think of using them quite the ways you do. I never think of painting in PhotoShop, except when I’m restoring damaged photos by reconstructing them digitally. Less environmentally conscious as it may be, I am far too addicted to the tangible process of hand-building paintings with material media that smell and have physical structure. Plus, the element of risk which is practically eliminated with oh-so-editable digital media is such a rush. Meanwhile, it’s better for my middle-aged neck and eyes to stand at an easel squinting at pigment marks than to hunch over the computer peering at pixels, which is what I invariably end up doing when I make digital art. (The pixels. The PIXELS! Zoom, baby, zoom! A HA HA HA HA Oh, uh…sorry…)
I do enthusiastically second your enthusiasm for the tablet, which is so much better than drawing with my thumb in Illustrator using a trackball sort of like this one, and I appreciate PhotoShop as a powerful digital darkroom which also works well with the tablet. But it would never have occurred to me to use these things the way you do. Virtuouso!
Thanks for sharing your process and insight. And for the rest, for what it’s worth, you have my sympathy. Continuing best wishes to you and yours.
January 27th, 2006 at 3:25 pm
beautiful!
…
January 27th, 2006 at 5:49 pm
I too have a parent with AD. But I am fortunate not to have more to worry about, and I know how draining it can be. Take my word for it — we will stick around.
January 27th, 2006 at 6:33 pm
Whoohoo, you’re back and bringing us more beauty on a screen. That’s just fabulous, Carl! I got lost in those clouds.
Sorry to hear of the other problems, but glad to know Tito is doing better. Hope everything resolves in your favor.
Ya know, once we’ve seen your work we’ll be sticking around.
January 28th, 2006 at 11:51 am
Carl, welcome back! I’m thrilled to see you’ve returned, although I hope you can find an easier pace. For a species with so many individual plans and dreams, we sure seem to end up dealing with the unexpected most of the time. It’s always chaos, so I say “just ride the waves.”
As always, I’m awed and inspired by your work. Your explanations have enhanced my own photoshop doodles, and, as today, sometimes more. I adore this line: “You have to be more careful than when working in color, as only value separates the elements in the image.” This explains why (for me, at least) this black and white image stands out over other landscapes you have posted.
I find it an interesting metaphor, as well: Are, perhaps, the “elements” of our world–this beautiful, complex and intriguing “picture” we see–also separated by only value? For instance, those little differences in the day to day ups and downs that lead to the unexpected and apparant chaos?
January 28th, 2006 at 4:58 pm
great photoshop work again! the clouds and bark are handled very nicely
January 28th, 2006 at 9:37 pm
oh bummer, i am late to the party, although i still have this very same picture on my desktop from when you emailed it to me. beautiful! and i am happy to see you back in the blogosphere where we all can appreciate and enjoy you.
January 30th, 2006 at 9:09 am
One of the things I’ll tell you about blogging is to set reasonable expectations for YOURSELF. Readers come and readers go (as do trolls), but first and foremost is that you have to get what YOU want from your blogging experience, or it takes on the trappings of “just another duty.” Trust me on this one, BTDT.
I keep an eye on your site through my RSS reader so I know when you’ve got a new post. I’ll hang around as long as your writing and posting. Quality has a way of causing that effect.
January 30th, 2006 at 5:15 pm
Been missing you Olduvai, hope life heads upwards for you after all this.
January 31st, 2006 at 2:50 pm
Welcome back!
Did you actually visit Beetle Rock and do sketches, or did this all come from your head?
January 31st, 2006 at 5:14 pm
Oh, and I love the silhouette of the weasel. I didn’t see it for a long time!
January 31st, 2006 at 5:48 pm
Thanks everybody.
KeithB: All the painting can be is Beetlerockish. I visited the place 25 years ago, but none of the rock forms or trees is taken directly from any of the photos I took. You have to have reference to get close, but that’s all it is, close. Half the fun of working digitally is seeing how close you can get to textures and forms through your own eyes and hand. Oh, does it help when the paleo-environment your trying to paint no longer exists.
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February 14th, 2006 at 12:58 pm
[...] Check out this wonderful black and white landscape, inspired in part by Ansel Adams’ photographic techniques. [...]
February 15th, 2006 at 12:35 pm
Hi, my name is Kari and I wanted to say thank you! Your article here helped me in my College project and wanted you to know it. I was searching for info about Omron proximity sensors and I somehow ended up on your blog. Tomorrow my teacher is going to get a very good job done! I wish we can keep in touch, thank you again.
February 16th, 2006 at 10:24 pm
Right on! I am on the same page as you. Added you to my favorites. Take care, Rachel
March 31st, 2006 at 7:06 am
Nice Site! I have a bearded dragon called Gucchi and a border terrier called Ruby.They both hate each other and run a mile when they see each other! I enjoyed your blog- Thanks. R
April 1st, 2006 at 1:53 am
cette image est vraiment belle
May 23rd, 2007 at 12:55 pm
Sir, I love your artwork! I do have a request/ suggestion: 5 1/2 Million years ago, at the end of the Miocene, the Mediterranean dried up (Messinian event). Initially it was thought it would have been one huge hellish desert.
But it seems there was plenty of moisture provided from rivers, at least locally. Because of the ‘lapse rate’, the increase/ decrease of temperature of 6 deg C (13 deg F) per Km, the basin, which was up to 5 Km deep, would have been ‘unearthly’ hot. But life would probably have taken a foothold, migrating from the rivers. it had several 100s of thousand years to adapt!! We will probably never get any fossils, as it is buried under miles of sea and sediment. The atmospheric pressure must have been almost 2x sea level. In the deep, probably only extremophiles would have been able to live, but higher up, there must have been ‘ultratropical’ forest and fauna.
But it does arouse fantasy what could have roamed these landscapes!!!! (speculative drawings???)
(I am currently doing an essay (literature study) for my master ‘ landscape ecology’ at univ. of Amsterdam, about landscapes and climates of the late Neogene, to compare with possible future developments)