Here’s painting done on train along the Hudson with the wonderful Brushes app. I’m now in the Catskill Mountains trying to post without Internet access. For a computer junkie, this is a bit like paddling up or downstream (in a storm). One more try.
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Have iPhone Will Keep Trying
December 28, 2010Argh!
December 28, 2010iPhone paintings may be made in almost any circumstances I.e. along the Hudson in a train. Alas posting from a place with the barest satellite connection i.e. the mountains is not so easy.
Argh!
December 28, 2010Frustrated in the cold!
Argh!
December 28, 2010Frustrated,cold.
The King(?)’s Speech
December 26, 2010
The King(?)'s Speech
A lovely film. (Not a dog and elephant show, but if you’ve seen it, you’ll understand.)
Three Dog Night Christmas
December 25, 2010
Give Three Dogs a Bone.
(More iPhone art, using “brushes” app.)
Developing An Apptitude (“Brushes”/Blog/Christmas)
December 23, 2010I have to confess that this past couple of weeks I have had intermittent but very strong urges to halt this blog. At least temporarily. It’s not that I don’t enjoy both posting and the sense of community the blog sometimes gives. (I obviously do.)
But there is the proverbial problem of choices. Really, limits: minutes in the day, energy in the brain, will in the will.
The immediacy of a blog tends to crowd out longer-term projects; these (mainly old novels) had been languishing even before I began this blog. Now a year and a half later, they are calling for last rites.
Which leads me once again to….the iPhone!
The “Brushes” App.
Rather than simply stop the blog, I’ve been thinking that it might be nice to try going visual. Post pictures, save up words.
I started drawing on the iPhone yesterday with the “Brushes” App. After I learned how not to block out the entire drawing, I ran into problems with issues like big and little:
Big Tortoise, Little Dog
This morning, I learned how to get finer detail. This led to such small detail, the picture seemed all background:
All backdrop?
Finally got it right this evening, while in the waiting area for Chinese take-out.
Duplicate Santas? (Or Skating Imposter?)
I still don’t know what I’ll do with the blog, but going “visual” sure seems fun.
Have a very Merry Christmas Eve! (And thanks, as always, for stopping by.)
“Brushes” With iPhone – Feeling my Way into Apps
December 22, 2010The iPhone is not all things to all people.
While it is purportedly the toy of choice for many (presumably well-to-do) toddlers, it has a pretty steep learning curve for many adults.
That said (along with the disclosure that I hold Apple stock), once you get over some of the initial humps (no finger keys), it can be pretty terrific.
Especially if you are someone who spends a lot of time on computers, because, frankly, the more time you spend on computers, the more that non-computer life can seem obstacle-ridden. (As in, ‘what! I have to look for a stamp?!’)
This is where Apps can be handy. I’ve hardly used Apps, but I tried today a “drawing” App called “Brushes.”
Keeping track of physical art materials in a New York City apartment (without room for studio or even desk) can feel extremely trying. Especially if you are used to having the world at your fingertips (in bed.) This is what attracted me to the idea of computer art.
Sure, it would be better with an iPad. But I only have an iPhone. So, this morning, I made my first little extremely clumsy two inch drawing of an elephant kneeling in front of a fir tree in a Christmas tree stand. It may have worked out better had I read the directions.
(I did not understand "layering".)
The second try:
(I avoided background fill, but the mountains started as Christmas Tree.)
And third.
It’s amazing how intriguing it is to manipulate something that is nearly mechanically impossible (i.e. your fingers on a teeny-tiny screen.) It somehow reminds me of Gloucester in King Lear describing how he sees the world – “feelingly.”
But there we are! Or me anyway! Feeling, in limps and bounds, my way.
Conversation Piece
December 15, 2010
More poetry! Or draft poetry! Whatever you want to call it. I think it’s a little difficult to consider a poem finished on the day it’s first written. (The initial draft of this was actually written on the subway yesterday, but still to say it’s “finished” may be a bit premature.)
The Conversation
He, who has not always been
kind, but wants to be,
told me of a dream.
“I was crying,” he said,
“as I looked at you,”
and that it had to do, he thought,
with something painful that
I had once refused to disclose,
he’d forgotten what.
I knew the conversation,
but also could not remember
exactly what I’d not said–there is so much
I would not tell him–only
that it was suddenly more painful than ever
it might have been
in the reflection of that girl,
the girl in his dream, enough so that
when he looked at me, I felt small
cracks at the backs
of my eyes and, for a moment,
could not speak again.
“Well?” he asked, and I said,
“anything else?”
Correction?
December 12, 2010Posting from iPhone (a very welcome gift that has a steep learning curve), so will try not to include weird typos from touch screen.
The crazy words and lines typed by a new iphone user could be a poem in themselves but i have been thinking about yesterday’s poem about choosing the wrong train. I used the phrase “tremorous grind” to describe the quivering plod of the wrong train. I knew ( from spell check) that tremorous was probably not a word but it seemed right to me — a combination of “timorous” and “tremor”. On the other hand, I tend to question invented words–words invented by me at least–since (1) my brain is faulty and (2) the ENglish language as currently constituted is pretty comprehensive. Which makes me think today that the word I truly wanted was “tremulous”–“tremulous grind”.
On the other hand, the subway trains in NYC really do shake and quake.
Tremorous? Tremulous? Is it all just a grind?
Any of you English language or poetry mavens have any ideas?
(Finally–an apology. I’m not sure I’ve figured out the interface of iPhone and wordpress enough to edit this! It’s just amazing to me to be able to post without internet connection.)
ManicDDaily 
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