Technique my brother taught me (draw and trace)

I had a rough time figuring out how I would render a giraffe.  I'm sure it's possible, but I wanted to get my results done fast.  My client already paid, and I have 2 other projects that need attention.

So I started with a pencil sketch.  It's pretty simple and fits with how I have been presenting ideas on quirky.com.   The title on top and the meat of the idea filling most of the page.

From there, I took a picture of this with my iPhone and used inkscape to trace the outlines and color in the rest.  

I figure I will do more animals based on the quirky communities recommendations and requests, so this is the main image I used for the idea submission.

One step closer

In Central Massachusetts the rain comes at a time where I'm dealing with a cold as the summer approaches and bracing myself for another Monday morning.  While I do feel like I have a fever, my daughter assured me my temperature was only 22.  

The rain acts as a natural soother.  All the diligent leaves that can be seen shine with a green glow.  Even with these perceived forces before me, I look for a pick me up to help start my day with a high.
This pick me up comes in the form of two poems.
I definitely see this world, as resources continue to grow, polarizing our population.  People are going to be more free to do work that makes them stand out.  That highlights their strengths and helps them find others during their success.  For me, I find that the quiet poets that share their minds on reddit.com/r/poetry act as the perfect remedy and are a consistent source of inspiration.  Not all poetry there does the trick.  I tend to favor shorter poems with potent the metaphors.  


I thought about poets and realized that hip hop artists fall in this category.  They often have the fortune of being backed by a beat and tons of promotion.  The poets I read have very little promotion, and I find my favorites after passing by 20 or so other poems that aren't right for me.  The ones that stand out are backed by the world I bring to them.  The noise in my lab and my blur of a commute...  The happiness I feel when my 2 year old daughter can successfully crack eggs and wash her hands to stir the eggs as they cook...  The isolation that can happen in the suburbs... Finding out a new neighbor has a garden... All this... every ounce of it is the background for the poems I found.  

My Final Poem for my Creative Writing class by reddit user Darmuh 

When a fire starts to burn
And the smoke hugs the flames,
It becomes my concern,
How they know me by name.
They creep at night,
Stalk in the day,
They creep at night,
When you walk their way.
You may never know
Or be able to grasp,
Where these creatures grow,
In a land so vast.
They travel in pairs,
Whilst hunting for you,
And to your despair,
They never lose.
They creep at night,
When the fire starts to burn,
They creep at night,
And for you they yearn.
Memory distortion,
A sense of Déjà vu,
Memory distortion,
Have I met you?
A man starts a fire,
The smoke hugs the flame,
And sure as hellfire,
They call for his name,
For he shall expire as a
casualty in their reign.
They creep at night,
They never lose,
They creep at night,
Whilst hunting for you.
And now they’re here.

And this next poem pushes my levels of inspiration even further.  

Fatescissor by Fancypan7z0 

The womb was warm,
Her embrace was firstly cold.
Clotho made form,
As the pink mass wailed.
As a fine tyke you were raised,
By father’s grin and mother’s kiss.
Under the watchful gaze,
Of keen Lady Lachesis.
You conquered the world,
By paintbrush and TV screen,
Your fabric slowly unfurled,
Through the hands of three blind queens.
Your aged body grazing fate,
You know what you shall face.
Now you patiently await,
Utropos’ scissored embrace.

At this point, I was totally in the moment.  I started to get some perspective on the past weekend and the wonderful things that had happened.  In this moment I formed a poem out of appreciation for my morning trips to the garden (often spurred lovely conversations with my wife) and the simulation ride at the Museum of Science in Boston with my two kids.  The simulation was of underwater craft travelling to the Burmuda Triangle looking for wreckage of lost planes and ships.  Both kids sat on my lap as we were guided with narration into the depths of the Atlantic.  My morning garden walks are to see how my plants are doing, and prune + pinch when necessary.  I always am surprised with plant growth, which recently was fueled by three 90 degree days.  The poem I crafted was a fusion of the garden world with the underwater world.  I go by bitcoinbash on reddit.

Passing Phase by bitcoinbash

This was the rain
unkempt knot twirls
stroking garden plains
combing strands under. 

Airy roots discovered
sea floor vessels
what my eye would measure
was time scarred with wonder.

 For the first 2 poems I had the opportunity to tip them in a new and trendy online currency called bitcoins.  Someone else had tipped me and I passed on the favor.  What I didn't expect was the warm feeling associated with quickly tipping someone who inspired me.  It gave me the virtual equivalent of dropping change into the hat of a generous musician busking on a busy street.