I have been working on this blog since 2007. When I started, I thought I would write about the Borough of Highland Park, New Jersey. In turns out, I rarely write about Highland Park, and the name Here in HP confuses some people who think of Hewlett-Packard. In any case, few of my readers live in Highland Park. I prefer to post my art, my art sketches, my Photoshop and Illustrator attempts, my photos of nature, food and whatever else looks appealing, a few book reviews, a recipe here and there. I’ve decided the blog needs a new name.
So, how to go about making a decision? Fortunately, the urls will not have to change. The blog is merely positioned as a subdirectory of my main domain:
https://www.leoraw.com/blog/
It’s just that annoying Here in HP that I do not like. I want something related to art. Here are a few ideas:
– Sketching Out
– Sketched Out
– Sketch and Photo
The idea of Sketched Out is that I put up sketches when I can, but most of the time I am sketched out, so you get a photo or a book review or a recipe.
Obviously, I’ve got sketch on the brain. I would love to get your help. I was thinking of making this an official contest; however, I read over contest rules, and one must have a definite end to a contest. I’m afraid the unofficial contest does not end until I finally like the new name. Also, one is encouraged by U.S. law to limit the contest to only U.S. entrants, as one would have to follow the contest rules of every single country in order to make it internationally legal. Well, I’m not doing that, either. So this is an extremely unofficial contest. Unofficially, I may give a prize to the winner (an Amazon gift certificate). And equally unofficially, I may post the names (with links to their blogs or to a recent blog post of theirs) of the honorable mentions.
So, do you have any good ideas on what I should rename this blog?
Instead of skipping Nature Notes yet one more time because I have no new photos or observations to add (I did see a hawk on Sunday flying over our home, to add one new comment), I decided to post a photo from last summer in three different ways.
It can seem like a different photo if you crop it differently.
Crayon drawing inspired by the exercise A Child Could Do This
Book Review: One Drawing a Day
I took a wonderful book out of the library called One Drawing a Day. The book, written by artist Veronica Lawlor with the help of other artists, has over 42 drawing exercises, some color, some not, some outside, some for at home. I soon discovered that there was no way I was going to keep up with a drawing every day, so I am trying to content myself with one drawing per week, as the title of my post suggests.
There is an accompanying blog to go with the book, also called One Drawing a Day. However, it seems to be examples of drawings as opposed to more exercises, so if you want the exercises, get the book. I may just need to purchase the book, because there is only so many times I can take it out of the library.
The exercise on the top was done with children’s crayons. It is called a Child Could Do This – you are actually supposed to ask a child for suggestions. I just sorted out some of my daughter’s crayons and used those. Scribble and make shapes a kid would make was part of the suggestion.
Below is a sketch of a family member on the computer:
You are supposed to concentrate on the person you are observing and not spend all your time staring at your paper. I did the sketch with a drawing marker.
This was the very first exercise in the book, observing objects in one’s home:
The flower was actually a design on our sofa cover. What objects do you see?
The Jewish Book Carnival for January is up on the Association of Jewish Libraries blog. Thank you for including my review of Jews in Gotham – it turns out that the series (a three volume set on the history of the Jews of New York) won Jewish Book of the Year.
Lorri reviewed a book by Aharon Appelfeld called Until the Dawn’s Light. Appelfeld is a prolific writer, and his words are always well-chosen. Years ago, I heard him speak in person. His topics are not easy ones.
Swirly Gigs created in Illustrator – for the sole purpose of putting some swirls on a post
I’m not sure what the above represents – does it need to represent anything? I’ve been practicing swirls in the software program Illustrator. You can also create patterns with Illustrator. Maybe what this design needs is some nice patterned wallpaper behind it. Stay tuned to see if I play around with it more.
Thinking and praying for Michelle as she writes about her breast cancer. Her surgeon said mastectomy, but “the good news is that there probably isn’t any invasive cancer and that this is treatable by removal.”
Ilana-Davita has been reading some scholarly posts – check out this one on Hapax Legomenon (and don’t let the title scare you – it’s not hard to understand).
