Taking No Hostages...

So I have been absent for over a year and a half, partly because I've been busy, but mostly because I did not feel that I had anything to say that anyone would be interested in reading.  Even if someone was reading.

Simply put, I had a series of major changes in my life, all linked, and happening in what seemed to me to be a rapid succession of cause and effect. 

I was happy about none of it.   

So what to do with my now empty days and nights?  

My kitchen more or less BEFORE

Call all my friends and cry on their shoulders until they began avoiding me? Nah. 

Write it all out here so my private life would be spooled on so many backup tapes and archived for a hundred years? Again, nah. 

Maybe curl up in a fetal position on my bed at night and cry myself through it all?  

Definitely, nah.

Instead I did something that I had been wanting to do for a very long time, but my ex and I could never agree on what was to be done....  I remodeled my house. Not that I could afford it, but thanks to some timely offers of deferred interest from some local do-it-yourself retailers, I pulled it off.

So days at work and working nights.  It took eleven months. If I could have rustled up some more credit, I'd still be at it.

More or less AFTER

Some rooms got just paint, others got more.  Ceiling fans, light fixtures, paint, furniture, drapes, floors, cabinets.. nothing was sacred.  For the first few months, my right hand held little but a three pound sledge hammer.  I had lived in this house for nearly nineteen years and had changed only the laundry room and a bathroom.  Now those were the only rooms semi safe (although the bathroom did get a change of towels and shower curtain). The kitchen would be the biggest change. Lights, cabinets, floors, ceiling, counter tops... the works.

This would be my sanctuary, my therapy, the route to a new life.  I would do it myself (which I did about 98%). I would not go down, and if I did, I was not taking anybody down with me.

No hostages.

Having a head cold is not the same as having a cool head

 I hope you will excuse my recent absence as the New Year has brought me the opportunity to explore the staggering semi-liquid production capacity of my nasal passages in the form of a whopping great head cold.  A journey which I continue this morning.  

I have also been struck by the amazing resistance, which my affliction exhibits, to all forms of remedy, store bought names, generics, and home styled.  No matter the active ingredient, nor the manufacturer, all seem to be totally ineffective.  

At one point it was suggested that it might be an allergy and not a cold at all.  But alas, Allergy meds from A to Z have also been tried only to find their way to the kitchen dustbin in miserable failure.

Felled by my cold have been boxes of various name brand facial tissues, all of which I now equate to the coarsest and most abrasive sand paper.

No sneezing, no “itchy eye,” no fever, or ache, just a continuous production of ever changing colors and consistencies as tissues by the truckload are filled and tossed away.

So excuse me for not participating in all the resolutions, hoopla, and joy exhibited by some.  I'm just not up for it right now.  

Happy Fricken New Year.

Scene 1 Background Painting

Although I would love to say that the activities pictured in my previous blog were being repeated again this year, it's just not the case. Due to a series of sob stories which I will not burden you with, my vacation is a "stay-cation", as in stay at home.

But one good thing has come out of it. In the last week I finally finished the background design for the first sequence in my fall holiday cartoon. One that I started last year and didn't even come close to finishing anything but the dance movement study (Which you can see as "Not Quite A Nutcracker" on the second page of this Blog or on YouTube).

The frame above is actually eleven layers which will be animated separately to create the illusion of 3D space. There are details (such as stars and such) which are only added in the final shot. All in all I expect this painting to be on screen for about 10 seconds or so.

And that is why cartooning alone take so much time.

Be Well.