March 2023 – A Curveball

Posted on March 15, 2023 by SusanG

I try not to write too much about my day job because, that isn’t really what I want to talk about here. However, this year the day job has thrown a curve-ball my way that is impacting the time and energy I have for doing the things I do that I write about here. So for a little while I’ll probably be mentioning it a bit more here than usual.

In case I haven’t covered it, the curve-ball involves the retirement of my manager who is also the only other person on my team. He made it known in a somewhat unusual way, when he was filling out his self-evaluation part of our yearly review. In the section for career development for the next year, he put that it didn’t really matter since he is retiring at the end of quarter one. Yes, that means the end of this month. When our line manager laughed and asked if he was kidding my manager responded that he wasn’t. That of course set off a bit of a frenzy with all the rest of the management above, and in other departments that rely on our services.

Watercolor on Paper

As you can imagine, in the time since, as they have gotten more serious about understanding what he does and knows, my involvement in learning what he knows and taking over things he has been doing has grown. Just this last week we had the big push for management to really get an understanding of the knowledge of how our systems work and are connected something that he has a very good grasp of. And it made me realize how much documenting I’ve done over the years that needs updating. That’s a different story, though part of the same issue. We run a lean organization and like in many lean organizations backups for key people and key knowledge do not always exist.

Anyway. Because of all that has been going on at the day job I don’t always get to shut down at the “scheduled” time and even when I do it can take me a while to mentally recover and refresh to do anything else that I might want or need to do. This past week was an exceptional challenge for that given that of the four days of meetings at a meeting facility, at the end of the day I had to dine with everyone two of those days. At least the company was good. Some of our colleagues from our “home office” made the flight over from Germany to attend and ask questions.

The last week isn’t the only week that I have found it difficult to do much more than my language lessons after the day has ended. The time since his announcement has been very busy. That doesn’t mean I haven’t gotten anything done on my projects. I have. Even to my surprise. I just haven’t gotten as much done as I might otherwise.

I finished the watercolor painting of one of the pictures my sister took on her trip to France last year. It’s ok. Color is ok and the composition is good. Though she took the photo, and I didn’t really make adjustments to the composition so I can’t take credit for that. I did have a little issue with some perspective. Mostly that had to do with my challenges with the watercolors. Some might have been influenced by the age of the architecture and the possibility that things weren’t perfectly lined up to begin with, not to mention any repairs of the years, and all that type of thing. Mostly, I just didn’t get it right. Look what I learned.

After completing that I was looking at another photo that I thought I might paint, and I realized that I need more practice with those type of scenes. Buildings, alleys, city scenes and the sort, hard surfaces. I don’t do a lot of art of those sorts of subjects. So, I got out a sketchbook and have done a little practice. Not much because of the day job stuff. At least I’ve started. I plan to do a bit more practice before trying to make some sort of painting of it.

I also revisited a pastel painting that I started long enough ago that I don’t remember when that was. It’s been since the pandemic started; I just don’t remember which year. Anyway, I got the background in and then did some work on the subject. I’ve thought to work on it more a couple of times however, I don’t want to deal with the dust right now. Not because I’m picky about the chalk dust. Meh. I probably should be, but we’ll move on.

Pastel on Paper

The reason I don’t want to deal with the dust is because I have another painting in progress that takes some time to dry and I don’t want to fight the dust with the wet paint and so on. Yes, I can move the other painting to another room and if the urge to work on the pastel piece is strong enough and not five minutes before I need to be in bed, then I’ll move it.

That new piece? It’s my very first oil painting. Yeah, really. I like guitars and I have a few and one day I was looking at my Telecaster and thought it could be cool to make some art from it. I have this long-ish skinny canvas board that I thought would be really cool to use for it. I started sketching it out on that canvas board without a real plan as to how I was going to finish it. My choices were to do stippling, which didn’t really excite, or try acrylics, or try oils. I bought a set of oil paints early last year thinking I might try it with the wrist in the brace. I didn’t need brushes really since I inherited many from my grandmother. And that’s how I started my first oil painting.

I’ve tried to take my time and be patient with the process of oil painting. I know for some of it I really could just plow through from beginning to end. I don’t feel like I can do that with this piece. There is enough finer detail that I want to include that I want to be able to have some of it as crisp as I can get it. So, I work on it weekly. I do a part and then give it the week to dry so that any finer details that go over the top of what I’ve done won’t be muddied by the wet paint below it. So far it has worked well for me. I think I am a week, maybe two from being done with it. I have strings to put on the guitar and some background to tighten up and then I think it will be ready. I’ll need to figure out what sort of varnish to use with it after it cures but I can to that later. I think I’ll let it sit for at least a month maybe longer before I do that step. I made such a mess with my last stippling painting of the Gretsch because I tried to varnish too soon. I’m going to wait this time.

Oh, what song am I working on? Well, remember that book of songs from Charlie Brown Christmas? I’m still working on songs from that. Specifically, I’ve been working on the song ‘Skating’ that is played while they are ice skating on the pond. It’s a great song and the type of music that always reminds me of watching after school shows when I was a small child. Some jazz music reminds me of my childhood. That’s a whole other story.

And if you are wondering if I’m still playing guitar the answer is yes. It’s why the Telecaster is sitting out instead of in its case. I was reading a book on the history of the electric guitar and learned something really cool about the Telecaster and wanted to try it out. Apparently, the original audience for the Telecaster was the western swing guitar players in southern California who would use a hybrid picking method that used a plectrum (guitar pick) and their fingers. The single coil pickups on the Telecaster were designed or used to pickup the finger picking on the treble strings better. Cool. I’ve been working on this one song, and I wanted to see how this sounds. Out comes the Telecaster, plug it in, tune it up, adjust the tone a little and give it a go. Oh yeah. That makes a big difference. So, even though the scale is a little long, for my short fingers, the fact that the strings don’t require near the grip and the neck is skinnier than the acoustics I’ve been playing, the Telecaster has been getting some love again.

Oil on canvas board

I’ve learned all the notes for the song, now I’m trying to get it nice and smooth and flowing. It’s coming along nicely and I’m almost ready to start to tackle the song ‘Linus and Lucy’ which I think most people recognize as being the Charlie Brown/Peanuts theme song, whether it is or not I wouldn’t say.

The other thing that I’ve made a little progress on is the next character for the Blender character and animation course I’m taking. I finished the steps to build the character and was ready to do any fine tuning before the rigging part and I ran into an issue. I’ve figured out what the issue is and even how to solve it. I haven’t finished fixing it though. It’s a problem that I did in the first step of creating the limbs and because that piece was copied and used for other parts of the limbs, the problem was copied. Which means I either have to fix it in all those places or re-do that whole part. I got stuck deciding what to do and then the day job. So, I haven’t gotten back to it. That frustrates me a little because it puts me behind where I wanted to be with the character course and the project that I’m taking the course for. I’ll probably get back to it soon. I’m kind of excited for this particular scene because as I was watching the next videos, beyond where I am with the actual work, it inspired me to create something that I had thought to do a few years ago and even sketched out. It happened that, after watching the videos I came across that sketch and I got excited about the possibilities.

I’m also excited about the possibilities with the oil painting. After I worked on the Telecaster painting this weekend, I started thinking about what else I might want to try to paint in oils. Now I just need to squeeze out some time to work on all the cool stuff. It may be a challenge. My manager has extended his retirement date to the middle of April and right after that I have a trip to the main US office for the day job which means a trip to Florida. From there I will be on holiday for a week and traveling with my sister. I’m excited and I have an awesome sister. I’ll tell you more about the travel later. Until then I’ll be working on my projects bit by bit and will try to do better about posting updates. Cheers

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January 2023

Posted on January 19, 2023 by SusanG

Oh wow. It’s a new year. Holy cow. Did the holidays run up on anyone else like a runaway train. They were on me so fast that any of my plans for things to do for them were completely up ended because of it. And now they are over, and we have already started another trip around the sun. I’m going to take the opportunity to start a new project. I’ll also continue working on some projects that I started before the holidays.

My before the holidays projects are courtesy my sister. My sister finally got to take her trip to France that she has been trying to take for several years. She very generously shared photos of the sights along the way. Great pictures. About half way through her trip she sent me a text telling me that she had ‘so many projects for me’ from the pictures she was taking. I know some would consider this presumptuous of her, I did not. I found it a little bit funny. A few weeks after she got back, I was wanting to start on a new piece of art but didn’t have any real pull of something to paint. So I asked about her “projects” and she sent me several of the photos that she took that she had in mind. I chose a different one that she had sent me. And then printed the others so I would have them as reference for the next painting.

New art supplies that needed testing.

I painted the one I chose and had mixed results. The subject came out ok but the background didn’t work out the way I expected. I’m using watercolor paints and pencils. I purchased a full set of half-pan Sennelier watercolors and a 60 piece set of Faber-Castell Albrecht Dürer Watercolour pencils and this was my painting to test them out. The paints and pencils worked out really nice, better than the background of my painting. I’m really pleased with them and excited to get to use them more. The tools were not the problem. It was me. One of the things I noticed was that if I mixed a color, I didn’t mix enough of it for what I’m was doing so I ran out. I’ve done that the times I’ve tried using acrylic paints and oil paints so I’m going to have to work on that.

Many of the pictures that my sister sent are buildings. A few are of some lavender flowers and many of buildings, or and a flag. Buildings are not my usual subject matter for creating art so these are definitely outside my comfort zone. And that seems to be my sister’s challenge to me. ‘Here, step out of your comfort zone and make something of these.’ Ok. I confess, the first one I started on has me stuck. I like the basic composition of it but I’m having trouble, particularly with the colors and the contrast. Though, as I think about it, it may be because of how I’ve approached it. I may need to step back and reconsider how I want to depict that. Hmm…

Painting from one of my sister’s photos

The new project has come about through my Taekwondo. We used to have these posters in the studio that showed the steps of our poomsae. Some time ago they were taken down when the place was given a fresh coat of paint and they didn’t get put back up. I was speaking with my Master who runs the studio about them and shared how useful I found them. He indicated that he can’t get them anymore and that he hasn’t found any new ones he really likes. That sparked an idea.

Several years ago I had an idea to do a series of Taekwondo animations around my experience learning it. I didn’t get far because I got wrapped up in trying to create the scene and props and never got to creating the character and the animations. So, I got to thinking that I could sort of revive that project. Instead of a series of stories I could do all the poomsae in animation and use that to create a poster like what we had in class. And maybe even revisit some of the story ideas.

It has been a long time since I animated a character in the computer. And the last time I did that it was in 3DS Max and now I’m using Blender. Which means, I get to learn how to do this all over again, in a different application. That’s the first step. I need to learn how to model a character for animating and learn to rig it and then animate it.

Sketch for painting from another of my sister’s photos

I’m starting with a course through Udemy. I’m expecting that at the very least it will get me back into working in Blender. It takes you through modeling a few characters and animating them. The first one is a really simple character with no need for a rig. I’ve just finished it. And I learned two new things. I learned how to create a walk cycle and how to create and use shape keys.

The walk cycle was really cool to learn. It turned out to be adding an item to the animation graph for each of the legs and then checking a box. And then the little character just walks and walks and walks. I have always understood that there had to be a simple way to make a walk cycle but I didn’t know how to do it. I only knew to animate step by step. This is a big deal for me. It opens up a lot of options for things. And has me thinking about revisiting some things I did in the past and trying them again. Though apparently, the method used for cycling the walk in Blender doesn’t take kindly to being interrupted and breaks if you try to do something different in the middle of it, or just after it is meant to stop.

The shape keys are really important for several things. The uses that come to mind at the moment are the squash and stretch deformations that are used for say bouncing balls and soft or semi-soft objects impacting other objects as well as for talking. Shape keys have been used for making the mouth shapes for the different sounds. So think about how your face and lips change shape when you say something like “oh” versus when you say something like “see” or “fine”. The shape keys we setup were fairly basic, just the squash stretch type for the ball. Still, it’s a start at understanding how to create them and how to use them.

Animation for the first character of the Blender Character & Animation course

I’m excited about the Blender course and about the Taekwondo project. I’m looking forward to seeing the results of the project. I am expecting this to be my primary focus for a couple of months, maybe longer. I’ve got a long way to go just to finish the course so you’re likely to be reading more about it and the characters for it. I’ll share some of the animations along the way.

Of course, there will be traditional art to share. I do have my sister’s projects to work on. They should be a good periodic break from the computer. And for those who like to follow the music stuff, there will be more of that to come. Though for the moment I have lightened my practice schedule. With the Taekwondo animation project, the painting project, and so many other things that I need to do fitting in in depth music practice on a regular basis is going to be challenging. I do still have the day job. At least, as my grandfather used to say, it will “keep me out of meanness”. With so much to work on I expect to have more to write about and post about. See you soon.

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November Update

Posted on November 29, 2022 by SusanG

I’m wondering if I should start titling these posts ‘weekly update’ again. Maybe that would help me get back to posting regular updates. And then the posts wouldn’t need a specific topic. Hmm. I will be giving that some thought. Of course, doing that does make the title so generic that it might not excite you to read the post. Again. Needs thought.

Something I was looking at recently reminded me that last year at this time I was working on filling the pages of a sketchbook with a daily/nightly drawing. I haven’t done that this year. Though I have worked on some art. I have thought about doing that project again or mor accurately, a variation of that project.

Watercolor & colored pencil in progress

I’ve done a couple of mixed media pieces recently that I like. I’d like to explore this a little more because I think I can do some good stuff with it. I like the stippling with the watercolor. And the piece I’ve recently which is watercolor and colored pencil. That one is turned out to be a little bit of a surprise.

When I started the flower piece that is the watercolor with colored pencil my intention was to use the set of Caran D’Ache watercolor pencils that I have. Unfortunately, when I got ready to use them, I found the set I have lacks the colors I wanted and in some cases needed. So, I used the large set of Prismacolor Premier pencils that I have. I’m a little disappointed to have had to do that as I really wanted to use the other. However, results can’t be denied. And the piece turned out really nice.

I have a few pieces that I’ve shared pictures of the work in progress shots and not the final product. It’s because I want to post them places where you can order a print of them. The challenge is that to do that I need to be able to get a really good quality scan of them and that has not been so easy. Believe it or not. On top of that is deciding where I want to post those items. Right now, I’m leaning towards an Artstation site for the fine art things that might make better prints than just cards or t-shirts. Stay tuned. As I get that setup, I’ll be making announcement posts for those things. And I’ll add a link.

There are a few things that I haven’t posted final products of because they will be going up in the Zazzle store. While I’m excited for you to see them, I’m not excited to do the work to get them out. I’d offer a good excuse or explanation, except I’m not sure there is one. Well, aside from not wanting to do some of the “clean-up” work I need to do there and feeling like if I’m going to log in to add things, I “should” clean things up while I’m there. *sigh

Watercolor & colored pencil finished.

I have some music news. I bought a new guitar. This is a nylon string acoustic guitar. It’s from Cordoba. I have another guitar made by them that I love. And that guitar is how I came to find Savarez guitar strings which I am also a big fan of. The new guitar is called The Stage. It’s got a slightly smaller width neck from a regular classical style guitar, but it is the same scale length. Which is a bit long for my fingers, however, with the smaller width and the difference in the body, it’s not as big an issue. Which surprised me. And that brings me to the body. This is a thin body acoustic. It isn’t nearly as deep as most acoustic guitars, and yes, it is intended to be played plugged into an amplifier. It doesn’t sound as thin as a regular solid body electric guitar does when it isn’t plugged in. However, it is quieter. Maybe not a bad thing.

I confess, when I first saw the Fender thin body acoustics, I wasn’t a fan. I wasn’t even a little excited. I certainly had some unjustified bias. I’m not even sure I tried one to be honest. So, when I got a chance to play a Stage I was really surprised at how comfortable it was, and is, and that things I was struggling to do on my regular nylon string guitar weren’t an issue. Though I am not in the market for another steel string acoustic guitar, were that to change, I would reconsider a thin body. Now, I would like a nice acoustic amplifier to go with my Stage. Which, like my first Cordoba guitar, it came with Savarez strings. Yay.

Cordoba – The Stage

I recently had the opportunity to have my opinion of 6 string bass guitars challenged and changed. I watched an Instagram post of and by Sebastián Tozzola playing a 6 string electric bass guitar and he played a really beautiful melody on it. Previously, I didn’t really understand what the point was to have those extra strings. I had a very narrow opinion of the bass guitar. That has definitely changed. If you want to check him out your can find him as @sebasstozzola on Instagram. He always looks like he is so happy and having so much fun when he plays. It’s great to watch.

I’m sure there are a lot of things that I’m not including here that as soon as I click the post button I’ll think of. And then think that I meant to or should have included that in this post. Oh well. I guess if that happens, I can just start writing another post and maybe that will get me back on track of regular postings. There’s a thought. For now, I think it is time to retrieve the coffee that I left in the other room and is now cold and close this out.

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Old And New Again

Posted on November 10, 2022 by SusanG

A little while ago Elon Musk took over Twitter. If you were paying attention, you knew it was coming. Though I don’t doubt he did try to get out of it. His mouth got ahead of him and when he finally woke up, he realized maybe it wasn’t a good idea. But then he was going to be forced to do it or pay a big penalty. At this point I don’t have anything good to say about the person. However, the doom that it has spread is having some interesting side effects.

I am still, for now, on Twitter and I have seen the notices of the people that are leaving and where they are moving to. I have also setup an account where some are moving to and I’ll post a connection so you can follow me there. What I find as I read the posts on the alternate social site I’m participating in is a feeling of ‘the old internet’. The internet of two decades ago, maybe a little more. Yes, folks it’s been around long enough to use the word decades in conversation about it. I know stop a moment. Catch your breath.

“Back then”. Lots of things were more experimental. Not everything was all gloss and shiny and the big companies were the browser developers. Yes, I did buy books online to be delivered from both Amazon and Barnes & Nobel back then, but I didn’t do a lot of online shopping. It wasn’t the norm. We were still leery of putting our credit card numbers in online. Or at least I was.

But there was also the sense of the possibilities. I studied VR for my college degree. Yes, it was around even back then. And there was always this sense of the cool and the possible and what would come next. I think more of us wanted a Jarvis and a KITT than wanted the dystopian world of rampant capitalism and data mining that are Amazon and Google. And though Apple is one of the big names in the FAAMG group of companies, back then they were still counterculture. Google said, ‘don’t be evil’. We were all for it.

With the exodus of people from Twitter or at least the sudden interest in finding other options, it feels a little like the internet of old. When you found out about something from someone you were chatting with in a chat room or on a bulletin board. Or you came across something on a webpage that was about some niche something you happen to be into. There weren’t influencers out there telling you that if you want the shiniest hair to do this or if you want perfect abs do that. Yeah, they had ads and affiliate links but the pressure to monetize your onlineness wasn’t there. You could just be there and share the cool stuff you learned. Or find the cool stuff other people learned. And you could usually tell the fake/troll sites from the genuine ones because, well, they weren’t into making them look legit to fool everyone. They were there trying to look like they were sharing real secrets, and the sites looked like it.

All of this was brought to mind recently as I was scrolling through the posts on the new social site I’m starting to participate in and a conversation with a friend whose daughter wants to build a robot that she can program in python because she wants to learn python and doesn’t like block coding. Ok. She’s in fifth grade.

As I was trying to help my friend understand and navigate what she was looking for and might need for the various robot kits, and then explaining the Raspberry Pi and the Arduino to her and why one wasn’t the same as the other and that there are different models, I also realized this is much like having a computer or wanting to upgrade a computer two or three decades ago. You had to know more about what you had then in order to get the right parts.

Much like going online then, you kind of had to have an idea of where you wanted to go, what you wanted to do or see and sometimes finding it wasn’t easy. But we did have a plethora of search engines. Yeah, some were better than others and some more specialized. But you had choices. And their ads were along the side of the page, not boosted in the results.

I’m not a luddite and I’m not saying that was the best of times for the internet and I want to go back. I do think that the shakeup has been a good thing. I don’t know that that many of your average internet denizen will be searching out the alternative services because many of the people I’m seeing there are already proponents of open source and FOSS software, which in the world of capitalism is revolutionary and to some scandalous. But maybe. Maybe a few more of the average person will give an open source, option a try, and find a new way of participating in our ever expanding, encompassing, and devouring digital world.

So, while I am still on Twitter, I have never been very active there, I am also participating on Mastodon which is part of the Fediverse? Anyway, at the moment you can find me at: @susangasong@mastodon.social. I’ll add a link to the sidebar soon so you can use that. I think it will work. I guess I’ll find out. It’s new, and old again.

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