It seems that every year about the time of my birthday (I’ll be 61 on the 29th), I start this blog up again. I miss blogging and interacting with the Internet community, but family difficulties and the incredible workload I have right now make posting with any regularity impossible. So this is not Olduvai coming back, it’s just me looking at this site, getting tired of seeing that same mammoth and feeling the need to do something. So here it is.

Not that I’m unsatisfied with them, but I tend to fall out of love with my own images very quickly. I’m sure I look at them more critically than anyone else, and I’m always thinking of ways I could have improved them. This little digital piece is an exception

click here to go to my Flick’r site.

If I looked long enough, I’m sure I could find a few little things to change, but it doesn’t matter. I love the feel and atmosphere. I want to be there.

Most of the illustrations I do are for publication. You always have to bear in mind that any image you’re working on will end up being ink on paper, and whether it’s done with pigment or digitally, big areas of black will only work - if then - when done by top-end presses on very high quality paper. I started this painting knowing all that and still couldn’t bring myself to stop and paint something more “useful”. Because of the family difficulties I mentioned, I haven’t sat at a campfire in years. I will again. Until then I think I’m going to make this little digital piece my screensaver.

I can’t use this image for the original purpose, but it did bring back memories of a poem I wrote as a teenager 40+ years ago. I can’t remember it all, but the last two lines are…

“Imagination’s endless paths
My mind at peace to tire,
All past adventure known again
To sit before a fire.”