018 tuesday may 25th
foothill fields / shape poem / vegan california rolls / apartment interlude
tuesday is more of a vibe than a concept. you know?
the recap up top section. the context section. the sometimes obvious life lesson description section. the life lessons this week are not obvious but are instead woven throughout the material of the four actual segments. annoying! i know.
but what’s going on this week?
well. this week i am hitting the gym again, i think is the main thing. i was getting pretty into lifting heavy* weights before the pandemic hit, along with a couple of then-roommates, and it felt like we had found a great little gym and settled into a great little rhythm. then, well, you know the rest. no gyms for a while. and i moved to a new part of town. new to me. and i wasn’t vaccinated and it seemed very risky to be going into a place where, despite the mask requirements, people were doing a lot of very heavy breathing in relatively close proximity. so i pressed pause for a year.
*heavy-ish
and i kind of kept up with it a little bit at home, doing some pushups and bodyweight squats and going on walks and etc. but it was hard to stay with it. and kind of hard to see the point. for me, having a place to go to is a big part of the routine. the big house where all the strong guys and their weights live. and a lot of things were blended together over this past year and once “work” and “life” were mashed into a blob, well, i felt like there was not enough capacity to also cram “workouts” into either of the living spaces i’ve occupied during the past year.
but all that is about to change. second shot, baby! time to hit it again. found a new gym two blocks away from my new place, went in, signed up, did the complimentary 1 hour personal trainer assessment you usually get with new gym memberships these days that feel right on the edge of being a scam to get you to pay for more personal training, and discovered that i am even more out of shape than i thought i would be.
and in this case i am not measuring that by physical appearance. since going vegan and drinking way less, i have actually been feeling a lot better about the way i look. i have some facial definition again for example. and since i spend a lot of my time staring soulfully at myself in mirrors these days, well heck, i don’t mind that at all.
no, in this case i am mostly judging by how un-strong, un-flexible, and un…. cardio… i felt after even a short workout. and i’m not getting younger! at least not yet. i would like to be able to climb more stairs, lift bigger things, and not throw my back out every 4 months. so i am planning to take all that a little more seriously over the next few months certainly and ideally longer than that, and hopefully therefore throw my back out a little less and strain, pull, and tweak various other elements of my body less too.
also this week the blazers won the first playoff game against the nuggets. and the refs won the second one. i’ve made that joke already but if you saw the game you know what i’m talking about. come on. come on with that shit. blazers in five.
okay let’s get into the rest.
1. painting
comfort zones: they’re so comforting!
this might come across as a lazy return to familiar ground. probably in some ways it is. this week, though, i spent a lot of time doing a series of illustrations for kate wagner (who i kind of know from the internet) & her collaboration partner, jackson roman, (who i do not know) for their cycling newsletter, derailleur. currently they are covering the Giro d’Italia which as far as i understand it is basically the Tour de France, but, you know. italian. no idea how they stay on the bikes with all those hand gestures they’re making! ey cmon, ova here.
it is also known as “The Beautiful Race” i think because a lot of it goes through some very scenic mountains that look like absolute hell to ride up on a bike.
for them i painted / illustrated (i need to decide on a verb at some point) four paintings / illustrations that i will not spoil (a couple i think will be visible by now though) for various interesting stages of that race. and wouldn’t you know it, 3/4 of those paintings / illustrations were mountainous in nature.
so i was in that mode already and doing a lot of work from photo reference / google earth and wanted to see about taking some of those lessons and applying them to a composition of my own. the desert can kick rocks we’re back in the mountains baby.
linework. some of the simplicity of that middle ground has been lost in the final, i am currently noticing. ah well.
first pass at colors. you know how the song goes by now. slap these colors down at 10:30PM and then turn off the iPad and look at them again in the morning. some fields and canals in the front, mountains in the back. standard stuff.
the sky is too muddy here. i toss in these little negative observations not really as a way to be falsely self deprecating — i have a pretty high opinion of myself, thank you — but as a way to let you know what i am noticing and thinking about that i would like to improve on next time. assuming you are interested in that stuff and 18 editions of this newsletter in, if you are still reading, i simply must imagine that that is a reasonable assumption.
i did a bad job saving intermediate shots which means i did a good job working on fewer layers than usual. fewer layers = less "digital trickery” and more of an approach that’s similar to physical painting where you can’t isolate layers.
but here we are pretty far along. like a lot of digital artists, i’ve made myself a few “groups of trees” brushes that make doing a lot of piney hillsides pretty quick if you are OK with a certain look. if you follow some landscape artists on instagram, i think you will notice this if you look for it now.
a little town, and some fun, low clouds. i don’t think the foreground cloud shadows on the grass are quite translating right. the last step from here to the final above are some subtle color washes used as overlays, which help balance out the color range a little and help emphasize the warms and cools, and get the overall contrast more where i want it.
2. poem
“shape poem”, spring 2021
stretching my body in new ways,
hoping the light catches an appealing angle
and
i am, at least, thought of —
and what am i going to do,
just not read it?
and well, so what —
life is full of things
you end up not liking
3. vegan california rolls
shit, this is going to be a long one i think. i hope substack can keep up.
i think i have written about these before in this newsletter but i am not going back to check. if you go back and do that legwork, back to march probably, hell, maybe february, you are welcome to all the rewards that will earn you. the chance to compare my perspectives. a window in time! ah! a delight.
these are really good tho.
start with tofu. if this picture makes it into the final edit, just know that i overhyped the running-out-of-space-in-the-newsletter thing just now.
use a cheese grater to make some nice shreds. we are going for that fun imitation-crab-meat California roll texture. tofu, for once, is almost perfect for this right out of the gate.
our shreds are going to marinate for a bit. this is soy sauce, vegan fish sauce, sesame oil, regular oil, some dulse flakes, rice vinegar, a bit of sriracha, a bit of garlic powder, and some ginger. and i must be forgetting at least one thing. marinate your shreds in this in the fridge while you make your rice and prep the other stuff.
cucumber. pointless photo. you all know how to chop cucumbers. sheesh.
when the sushi rice is cooked (1:1 rice:water, rinse rice, boil then quick-shift to very low heat covered for 20 minutes, then let sit for 10 still covered) stir in your rice vinegar-sugar mixture. i am using coconut sugar here so it’s more brown than it would be otherwise. mix that in, then the rice also goes in the fridge for 10 minutes, just to take the edge off the heat. but don’t let it dry out.
mix up some vegan mayo and sriracha into your now-marinated tofu shreds. this batch turned out too liquidy and i cut it with some more shreds after i took this pic. adjust your ratios based on how you like your california rolls. you could even drain your shreds a bit first.
the fun part! nori sheet goes down, then either spoon or use your fingers to apply a layer of your sticky rice. leave a strip at the top for the roll to fasten. if you move quick, you can sprinkle some water on that strip and roll up your roll before the water curls it up. better seal that way.
i let these sit before cutting them, usually in the fridge. gives the wrappers time to dampen up and seal themselves together better, in my experience.
top with spicy sriracha mayo if you want, toasted sesame seeds, and sliced green onions. or whatever you want! red onions are good too. presto, yummo.
4. apartment interlude
a short story
the sirens had mostly stopped by now. as they knew they would. those you could still hear were dopplering away into the distance and you could somehow hear the thick clouds of dust muffling them.
you could see the dust too of course. these days it was everywhere. too-red sunlight slanting through the high windows setting the motes swirling.
“i can’t believe this” he repeated. voice echoing down the hallway. louder than it needed to be. he had raised it for effect as usual. he was packing a bag, supposedly.
she pretended not to have heard. or she didn’t have anything new to say. they had been through this cycle a few times already in the past half hour and although she was calmly un stacking the dishes from the upper cabinet onto the counter, there was a tremble in her calf that would turn itself into a tapping foot before too long.
curly head of hair poking out of the door down the hall. one of only two doors, left, and right. hallway lined up on axis with the small kitchen. clink, clink, softly, still respectfully despite, well. another plate onto the stack. two staying in the cupboard so far. three or four on the counter, next to the mugs. some of the mugs.
“did you hear me? i said --”
“yes! yes. i heard you… (and under her breath) how could i not hear you.” clink, clink. “what do you want me to say?”
shadow shifting at the other end of the hall as the head froze for a moment. then ducked back inside the doorway. muttering. and now clattering — again, too loud. rustling. thumping and then, the zwip! zwip! of a zipper zipped dramatically shut.
outside another percussive thump and a slight shiver through the walls. still far away— farther than the sirens, maybe — but she felt it tremble up from the wood, up through her bare soles. the forever shimmer of dust motes thickening and swirling briefly. shifted over one cabinet, the plates and cups divided. only a couple bowls to go, and some odds and ends. his garlic press. his stupid plastic lemon juicer. who’d even seen a lemon in the past three years.
stomp, stomp, stomp. always heel, toe with him, and mostly heel. stomp, stomp, and a pause. the hallway wasn’t that big. like everything else in the place.
she turned to face him, again, finally, the last couple spoons in one hand, the other on her hip. foot tapping now, definitely. a light tapping, a trembling, staccato release of tension.
his arms crossed, defiantly he thought. bravely. a little petulantly she thought. set down the spoons, clink, clink. raise one eyebrow. tap tap tap. dust swirling smoothly again, and the upper cabinets cutting a dramatic shadow slice across her forehead and one eye.
naturally he broke first. shift back on one heel and downward glance from him, caught just in time to turn into a head shake and then defiant (petulant) eye contact once more, red rimmed burning blue, implacable deep brown.
“i just. you know! it’s crazy. it’s crazy!” rake hand through curls, as if it was still charming.
tap tap. clink clink.
a sigh now and she knew it was over. half turn back to the stack of plates, a victory turn. feet still and sure. and now under his breath (for once in his life):
“seriously — who breaks up during the apocalypse, anyway?”
well that’s all for this week! hope you liked that little piece of fiction at the end. i have another one coming next week too. different theme. and as always, if you didn’t like it, i do not care.
check out derailleur to see my illustrations and to learn more about pro cycling, which i am assured is a fantastic sport to be a fan of! and have a good week everyone. see ya next tuesday. bye.