[Drawing] TNT on a sea turtle

A long time ago, I drew on a postcard, and did not post the picture (I think?) so that it would still be a surprise for her recipient. Here it is for you now! 

[Glass Etching] TNT "out of your league"

I met a girl at a party which I liked, and left her a contact card. When she contacted me, I invited her to a restaurant, and she came with a tee shirt with a big writing "OUT OF YOUR LEAGUE".  Yesterday she suggested to meet again, and I got inspired: I want to draw a TNT with a tee shirt "OUT OF YOUR LEAGUE". Which I did, and etched, this morning: here is the result.

Since I was doing the whole project in one run (I usually work on a project in a few days, half an hour at a time), I took regularly pictures and timed the whole execution (2h and 20 mns) from the first touch of the pencil on the paper to when I ordered my tools (redaction of this blog post not included). The idea is that people who want to learn how to glass etch can refer to this post (among others) to get an idea of the process.

First I chose the support (a flat glass plate) and penciled on paper the size of the drawing area on the plate, and within this area the character that I want to draw:

When I am happy with the design (as Franquin said, one uses the eraser even more than the pencil), I marked in a stronger way the final design:

So that when I ink it (you can't erase any more after that!), I do have the design that I want:

I then flip the drawing, put it on my home made "light table", put the plate on top (four well placed erasers maintain the drawing close to the surface of the glass), and start copying the design. In other occasions I copied the face version of the drawing on the face of the glass, and then copy it to the back by transparency, but this process is faster and minimize the amount of transformation (and is quite easy with the light table):

You can see the result after copying: the two are quite similar!

Then I etch the glass plate with a dremmel and a diamond head, and wash the ink:

After some hesitation, I colored the hair, and the letters (with a distinct diamond head, as this using more of the diamond powder on the head):

I like the final result!

It took me in total 2h and 20mns, but I have a lot of experience drawing TNT and I had already the idea, so the design process was fast. When I copy an existing drawing it can come down to 1h, and when I have to design and the inspiration does not come, it can take days or weeks or months... 

And the girl? The reason she wanted to see me was because she felt it  was important to tell me that she had fallen in love "from one day to the other" with a "Peruvian guy living in the south". Blah. 

[Drawing] Prisoner in the eye

I can't remember exactly the first time I drew this motif of a prisoner inside the pupil of the eye of a clown, but it must have been while studying for my Ph D in Paris. I used the motif  again when I was in Waterloo, and again, in glass and in copper while living in Chile. 

Each time, there was this feeling of being trapped in obligations and expectations, from the society, from people around me, from my past self and more importantly from my imaginary future self. As for all those people who end up prisonner of the image that they so painfully created. 

But the drawing stands to say that in the end, most of us are only prisoner of ourselves, and it is only up to ourselves to open the cage and let ourself free to follow whichever path we fancy. which is not to say that the path is easy to choose ('just listen to your heart!', bah !), but merely that the choice is always here, at every moment, and that the constraints of continuity are there only to save time, otherwise lost in perpetual self questioning... 

[Drawing] Who wants to save the world?

I used to assume that everyone wanted to save the world, that people disagreed only on the need or the mean.

It still is hard to believe that some people just do not care?

[Drawing] On changera tout...

P made a video for J's birthday anniversary, based on a song named "Pleure pas Boulou" ("Don't you cry Boulou", where "Boulou" is an affective term for an older kid to address a younger one), where two kids on the  street discuss their (non and mis) understanding of the adult world. 

The song is very nice (and the new jazzy/gypsy  interpretation at once refreshing and appropriate), and the chorus is catchy (if a bit sad), with a simple melody 'la, la, la, pleure pas Loulou; la, la, la, on changera tout...' ("here, here, here, don't you cry so much; here, here, here,  we will change all..."). With family pictures appearing at key moments, it did bring out a few tears! 

It also brought regrets that my music group with P and G disbanded after only a few months of good fun: there  are so many musics and song that I would like to revisit and record. I could (will!)  buy myself a remix kit and play all tracks by myself as I used to, but it's not as fun as when I play with others. 

In the meantime, it inspired me today's drawing on my kitchen wall, someone in an Guy Fawkes mask singing the second part of the chorus, an image which somehow seems in accordance to the various uses of the mask in cinema and among activists... 

[Drawing] TNT has an identity crisis

A few weeks ago, the woman who inspired the TNT character was acting depressed and suicidal, crying and complaining of loneliness and asking desperately for an answer to the question "Who Am I?" 

I tried to make her feel better, by talking and listening. We talked almost every day for those  weeks, many times for one hour or more. She liked it and asked each times if "we would talk"  the next day.  

I  tried to get her not only to remember good memories, but rather to remember and relive how she felt at the time of those good memories: it looked as if it worked, she was smiling and laughing again, she said that she was going to the swimming pool and to the gym again, that she made her first new friend in 6 months, because she was not afraid to talk to another girl at a shop. 

I tried  to teach her what I have learned of positive Psychology. She asked me for three references of book for ger to buy, made me revise it to her taste, but in the end she didn't buy them because she "did not have the energy" to do it (I refrained to order it for  her on Amazon: the energy to read and act upon them being greater than that for buying them). 

I shared with her some youtube videos about the psychology of gifted children and adults, and  in particular about the asynchronicity between their intellectual and emotional development: 

In Erik Erikson's model of the emotional development of humans, the question "Who Am I?" rises between 12 and 18. TNT is way beyond 18, but as the studies show, many circumstances can stop or slow down one's emotional development. 

I tried to explain/convince that the question itself is badly defined, as the "I" in "Who am I" is changing at any time, both from the outside (circumstances) and from the inside (the choices we make, the habits we form), and that much more relevant questions could be "Who do I want to be?", or "What do I want to do?" (and "Who do I want to be doing it with?"). This didn't seem to convince her as she affirmed her unshakable belief that people could not change (which, of course, is contradicted by her memories of being different before), which brought us back to the theme of growth mindset versus fixed being mindset. 

Now she announced that she was not sure if she could talk again in the next two weeks, because a boyfriend that she used to (work and)  date with will be visiting her for two weeks. He is visiting her from quite far away and at quite great personal expenses, just because she told him that she was "feeling lonely". It felt a bit like a betrayal but then: I was 'only' trying to help, right? 

The theme of human's emotional development (my own and other's) is fascinating, but much more frustrating than mere Mathematics! 

[Art] On Postcards and Transparency

A postcard is transparent, in that anybody can read the message on it, this message is not "private".
While browsing the content of a box of postcards designed from the cover of old recipe books, a few called my attention by their title, which could be recycled in the current debate about privacy.
Came the inspiration for some amusing "transparency" effects on those postcards:

I drew	on	to yield

The combined drawing appears only when one put the postcard in front of a bright light, by transparency!

[Drawing] Penguin 200

One year ago I designed a new Tee-shirt for the hash, based on a running penguin. Fer made her own design for the celebration of the 200 th hash in May, with a happier penguin.
I liked it a lot and wanted to learn how to draw it : here are my tentatives. I am not there yet but I made some progress!

[Art] Hush Bandana

I painted a Hush Penguin on a bandana:

I like it, but it is a bit too large to put in my hair: I will have to make another design, using less height, to be able to fold four times the bandana.

It works well to hide the face though ;)

I also have pending a mug that I want to etch with the same drawing: another day!

[Postcards] Heart, and Clown

Matinée de dessin :

J'espère que les cartes postales arriveront avant Noël !

[Drawing] Drawing Smiling people makes me smile

Here are two drawings that I made on postcards for some good friends.

Even when I feel sad/depressed and/or tired/exhausted, I find my face smiling when I draw the smile on the face of a character.
I wonder if there has been any psychological study about this effect?

[Drawing] Not Yet...

Sometimes my hand almost draws all by itself...

[Drawing] Rest In Peace Denise Barbay...

[Drawing] Optimist Hatty

Here is an optimist Hatty:

Makes me feel more optimist just to draw and to see him.

[Drawing] Rainbow Hatty

Here is a drawing for peace:

[Drawing] Anhedonie

I learned a new word:
Anhedonie / Anhedonia.

[Drawing] Hatty

It's a pleasure to introduce a new character, answering to the name of "Hatty", a bit in honor to the "Mad Hatter". I hope that he will teach #algorithms and #data structures soon!

TNT Chemical Engineer

TNT and Today's peace

My mother is easily worried. I found this quote on the web and sent it to her via our shared Dropbox folder, and forgot about it. She liked it so much that she asked me to write it on a wood spoon. I told her that the text was a bit too long for a spoon, so she brough me... a cutting board :)

My mother had complained about the knife falling from the other cutting board when one admired the drawing, so I reversed the design for her, and did not draw on the knife this time.

As for the previous one, I enlarged the eyes to make it more "chibi", and left simplistic hands to not take away the attention from the text. TNT looks like she is wearing gloves, but at least people focus on the essential!

I like the result a lot!!!

And it fits very well in the kitchen with the wordy wood spoons =OD