Tuesday, July 31, 2012

storyboarding house


For the past week or so I've been engaged in an attempt to draw pictures of a few interesting houses and buildings, places that might make it into the background of that mysterious story I sometimes mention. Architectural drawings are just not a strong part of my repertoire - neither are cars, planes, trains, factories, plumbing, and assorted mechanical objects. Nevertheless, the world isn't all flowers, grass, trees, beaches, people and animals, is it? Sometimes we have to try things that are difficult. While I consider a paradigm shifting career change by returning to college to study something useful like marine biology or Sanskrit, or possibly advanced typing (beyond two fingers), I'll show you the little street scene that may appear in a future painting.

Long ago and perhaps even now in some places a building would start out small and as time went by the owners and new tenants would add bits. If it didn't fall down right away they'd eventually add some windows. Now this one really doesn't bear close examination if we're to look at it as a place to live but I rather like the general idea.

Meanwhile, in my attempt to provide you with Olympic level entertainment here's some bog snorkelling from Wales:




24 comments:

  1. Love your storyboard house. For a moment I thought, when I first saw the title, that your storyboard project had taken over your whole living space.

    I love the house you drew. It seems so in character with the rest of the work you have been doing.

    The Bog Snorkelling, er, ah, um, . . . will probably never become an Olympic event. At least not in my lifetime.

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    1. Our living space isn't all that large, it's true, but thankfully my drawing table and art supplies don't take up much space. Now if I was a weaver...

      I'm glad you like it - the project is showing itself in bits and pieces.

      How about worm charming?

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  2. I love it! It's very Pippi Longstockings.

    I may not have been a pirate in another life, but I'm pretty sure I was a scullery maid in a building like this one.

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    1. You mean it's quirky? I wonder how that happened..

      Perhaps you were the scullery maid who was found by the prince?

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  3. I love the drawing. I wish I was good at architectural photography. Still there are plenty of flowers and my Nephew and Celena are not too far away

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    1. Yes, photography is another very tricky art to master in all its variations but you truly are very good at portraiture and macro studies.

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  4. I'm close friends with the spiders that live in the basement of that house, all 712 of them!

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    1. Living in such genteel surroundings, I'm sure they are all very friendly spiders who love sharing picnic lunches with you.

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  5. I love your kind of architectural drawings, like of another time of magic and ilttle people, a tavern maybe with upstairs rooms for rent. (Maybe it's the books I've been reading lately.)

    Had to laugh at the weakly hopeful Olympic event, but more entertaining perhaps to watch!

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    1. Yes, I prefer imagining a world that's in a slightly different dimension to our concrete and glass-walled reality. Not too far though because it needs to be one we can easily reach with just a little sideways step.

      Alternative, everybody is invited events are much more fun than watching super athletes break records.

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  6. I love how you've put your charming little building on a corner that way-like a cross roads of sorts. and the open window at the top corner. :) i have no idea how i would paint it and can't wait to see what you do.

    how you found this video is beyond me..you always find the best ones and this one is at the top, tho i can't always watch them. i did watch this one and after watching the O's a bit as well, not much as they so anger me, this was perfect. and fitting to what seems to be happening over there. i wonder why these Olympians don't keep their mouths closed? :)
    xoxox

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    1. Yes, when I hit on the idea of it being a corner (modified flat-iron?) building then the whole thing kind of took care of itself. I keep getting stuck on just how many different skills it takes to put together an interesting story in picture form. Nevertheless, when parts work out I actually enjoy the process. I have a feeling this is going to take a good while and I'm stopping myself from painting while I work on the overall setting. Delighted you like what pops up :-)

      I too am quite irritated about the whole Olympic thing - just how commercial it is; how they appear to be getting people used to a military occupation of one of the world's coolest cities; the ridiculous IOC demands for new and very expensive facilities; poor people evicted from their homes and businesses; etc. I wrote and then deleted a very long post after deciding to just leave it at what Crow said a few weeks ago. As for the bog snorkelling - well, my recent researches led to this.
      xoxox

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  7. I think it would be really nice if the world had more nature and less machines but that's just me :)

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    1. Yes, I think the Singularity you and I agree on would be a far more natural one than technology is striving toward.

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  8. Stop taking the easy way out, slacker, and learn Tocharian B. And I've gotta second, third, ninth, the thumbs up to your architecture. The lines and curves are "off" just a bit, as if under a magical physics from a world eerily similar to our own but decidedly not.

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    1. I already spend too much time talking to myself.

      I was hoping to make the building look pleasingly organic but strange. It appears I may have succeeded.

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  9. You have made something as mundane as a house interesting.

    The idea of the Olympics is disgusting: All of the money spent so nationalistic athletes and voyeurs can bump chest and strut while hundreds of thousands of people around the globe are starving and dying of preventable diseases is a disgrace. There are children here in the U.S. that are living in poverty and going to bed hungry. Republicans want to privatize everything - it should be the Olympics.
    the Ol'Buzzard

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    1. I prefer the idea of a house as being cellular rather than cell-like.

      I agree with you. The Olympics is no longer all about sport, but rather a corporate jamboree for the super-rich. The same pattern repeats itself every time as host nations are forced to follow the International Olympic Committee’s rulebook.

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  10. BOG SNORKELLING 2016!!!!!!!

    Oh, and your building is lovely, like a cross between the Old City of Quebec and something I saw once back in the altered-states days... ;)

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    1. I was torn between that event and worm charming.

      Ah yes, the good old days. remember trip toys?

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  11. I love your house. I'm sure if I were to see the structure standing from the street, I'd recognize it when I saw the drawing. I have started to see your "style". Your textures and fine lines that don't distract from the overall idea that it is indeed a building. You are a very good artist susan. Did you know I have saved your book "Hugo" and have shared it and the drawings with my Grandkids? (Hope that was all right to do so. I'm sure I owe you some kind of royalty)
    Then, you BOGgle my mind with the video!

    Peace

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    1. How nice to see you again and I'm glad you like my odd (and interesting) building. Just so you know, the Hugo story was drawn and written by my husband for our son many years ago. I'm sure he'd be delighted to know you've shared in with your grandchildren :-)

      Wasn't that funny?

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  12. I have a dream - of living in a Hundertwasser house, in a district of a city which has grown organically but was worked over at some stage by Gaudi. I think your house would fit in there, Susan - and Crow could always drop in for brandy and fruitcake ...

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  13. Yes, I have that dream too.. in a world where everyone can live in peace and harmony. Crow would most definitely have an extravagant library in this place.

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