The Banjo Player (one for Willie)

I have a collection of stuff I'd made for Willie intending to put in his pocket, but his mole was too small. So it's still waiting for me to mail it to him and I am adding this to the collection. Banjo player. Look out Willie. The hold up is the poems that go with the art.

This started out as a pencil sketch which I colored with those Staedtler watercolor crayons, but there weren't enough colors so I added Portfolio watercolor oil pastels and then a touch of actual watercolors. The paper is 5 x 7, that tuppence 70 pound sketch--too light for watercolors, but I intended it as pencil sketch--it needed color.

To see some of Willie's other pocket items, click here.

One of the Poems:

Needle Park at Night

The night is darker here.

The lights are broken

like the benches, broken,

never repaired.

The landlord said, “that place

is dangerous by day; never

go there at night.

He also said, “Don’t sing

or smile, a girl alone’s not safe.

He met me at the bus, escorted me

to the safely of my rented room

until I lost my job.

He put me on the street

when I had no rent.

“What can I do?” he said.

“I have to eat.”

I

don’t

have to eat,

I’ve learned,

not every day.

After a while, the pain stops hurting

quite so much.

And needle park at night

is not a lonely place; street people

share the darkness,

tell stories

sometimes smile or even sing.

Splotch Monster Collab with Steve for Willie

My Splotch Monster Collaboration with Steve Loya is at the top, his splotch is underneath. For Willie's Pocket. Willie may be getting the biggest (fullest) pocket ever, due to the long delay. Click image to view larger. Click here to see Steve's Splotch monster from this same splotch. (I love his wings and beak.)

Paul, for Willie's pocket

Digital Smudge painting, another homeless man, looking for help in the form of a possible benefactor whose head appears at the top left.

Another for Willie's "Pocket": Homeless and Hungry

OOoh, an unintenional Cripple! I made this for poor Willie--it's pretty big, 9 x 12, I think, slightly too big for my scanner. I'm going to send it with the other too-big homeless pictures I made for Willie before I knew he had a small mole.

Here;s the kicker--I drew it, painted it and scanned it and then noticed that I drew NO ARM!!!! I made a hand without an arm. DUH!!

Sorry Willie. Since I made it for you, I think I will send it anyway. You can use it for a dartboard or toilet paper or something.

I was holding something in my hand and looking at my hand and forgot all about my arm. And I have the thumb on the wrong side because I had turned my right hand around to face myself to sketch it. Galloping Alzheimer's, I guess. :-(

Water color and black permanent marker. Click image to view larger.

I fixed it up a little on photoshop and Artrage and printed a new copy for Willie--he will get both the new one and the old one. The bigs ones, however, will go directly to him, since I can't put them in the pocket for the remainder of the people to see--UNLESS y'all tell me you want me to mail them all together in a larger envelope--then you'll have to mail them all on. Other wise, when I mail the mole on to Mike, I'll mail the big pix and poems directly to Willie.



This is "self-portrait" of myself as a homeless person, but when I was homeless, we weren't called homeless, we were called street people" and we had no signs except if we were hitch hiking somewhere.

Insomnia! for Willie's Pocket

I did this last night for WIllie on my iPad. Printing it for his pocket. Did it on ColorPad HD. I enhanced it only slightly on the IPad's Qvik Sketch (eg: Colored lips). The background reminds me a little of Steve's fab washes and it might be fun to use one for a background to sketch over like this--which I guess is what he does only much more finely and with better detail. Like Andrea, I'd like to try it, too.

Iris for Willie's Pocket

I made this digital Iris smudge painting on my computer with the Cintique tablet--it was such a relief to use after trying to draw on the wretched iPad. (I'm not very good at drawing on the iPad!) I'm making a small print of it for Willie's pocket. It will be a contrast to all the other pieces which are mostly about homeless people. I am assuming that the Mole will be headed this way sometime soon. I hope.

I am home from my trip to the "Porkies" (Porcupine Mountains Wilderness Area) where we were camping and incommunicado --I'm back a week early because of some very distressing health issues.

"Wicked"

I "painted" (drew?) this on my iPad in Omnisketch at the doctor's yesterday--I had an interminable wait--read some, played on the iPad some. It was for the Monday Artday challenge, "Wicked." Then I fooled with it briefly on Photoshop--not to change much--I added the flames in the background, deleting the plain red background and some of my drawn flames. I'm not very good with the iPad. But I'm trying to learn. I made a print of it for Willie's pocket. Oh, and I replaced my spider with an upside down black widow. I just couldn't get a spider on the iPad, the control isn't fine enough (or I'm not). The top one is the one I printed for WIllie, and the bottom, for those inquiring minds who want to know, is the original from the iPad, unchanged.

Collaboration with Steve (And Steve's Wife): A Swelling of Sound

This is not a splotch monster, but it is a collaboration with Steve. When I looked at the string splotch as shown by Steve in the post below, all I could see was a naked woman or two people embracing, but when I turned it on its side, I saw a conductor.

All the lines in this piece are directly from the original shown below (Or you can see it on Steve's post, a little further below). I used the clone tool to clone lines in the original into new positions.

I will print this and place it in Willie's pocket when Willie's pocket arrives.

1)My collaboration with Steve and his wife

2)a crop of the original area

3)The original string print turned to show the conductor. I could have used the whole area, showing the sound washing over him, which I considered doing, but decided on the crop. Partly because I just returned from a trip and have much to do to get caught up! We were camping in the Pinery in Ontario Canada. Lovely spot.

For some reason, this looks much less saturated on here than it does on PS.

Another for Willie: "Lonely Street, 3AM"

Here is another for Willie's "pocket." I've made a number of these, but I wanted to post some with companion poems and haven't had time. This one, "Lonely Street, 3 AM," is done in gouache on arches 140 lb watercolor paper. It's from the homeless series I'm working on. The paper is is bigger than the size of my scanner. so it's slightly blurred because it was lifted off the platen and also, slightly less purple than it really is. I don't know why the scanner didn't pick up the purple.

If you click on the painting, it will enlarge significantly.

For Willie's "Pocket:" "Home"

I've been working on a series of Homeless pictures for Willie's pocket--these two are just part of the collection--Then, I realized from someone's note (Aya's?) that Willie has a small Mole, and that my big paintings won't fit in his pocket. SInce I made them for him, I will send them to him under separate cover, these and the others. Two of the others have accompanying poems which is why I haven't posted them yet. Willie will have to consider these pocket matter, even though they won't fit in the pockets.

They are both done with gouache on colored paper. The first is called "Somewhere to sleep" and the second "Home." Somewhere to sleep is 8.5 x 11 and Home is 5.5 x 8.5. The first is on bright saturated red paper and the second on pale blue paper.

I guess I won't be getting Willie's mole for a while, since Steve, the person ahead of me, hasn't received it yet. But I will just keep working on stuff for him until it comes. Both images get bigger if you click on them.

Down on his Luck, for Willie's Pocket

Down on his Luck, Homeless Person. For Willie's pocket. I painted this today with a large wolf-hair Chinese bamboo brush in a small watercolor Moleskine (my current wc sketchbook). I was using a technique different than what I've been trying to do normally (Which is wet into techniques and washes and glazing/layers etc.) Normally, I use different size brushes for different amounts of detail, not one huge brush for everything. This brush is new to me, holds a lot of water, but seems to dry out fast, so water management is an issue--it's either too runny or too dry. (I guess you learn these things. like anything else.) And there is very little control, since the brush is so big and floppy and tends to feather out. The idea is, I guess, that it gives the painting looser, freer look.

This, by the way, never was supposed to be Keith, I was looking at a picture of a homeless man. NOT the one Keith is modeling. I'm saying that because it sort of slightly resembles all those pix of Keith, but it is not a failed portrait of Keith, LOL!

If you click on the image it will enlarge to about 4 times the original size of the painting.

Homeless Shelter, for Willie's Pocket

In 1965, I "ran away" from home. I had just turned 19, dropped out of college, and was living with my parents when something bad happened to me. I didn't know what to do, so I left home and went down to live with a girl friend in NYC. We shared an apartment, but we got robbed several times and lost our jobs. She went home, but I stayed in the city, living as a homeless person on the streets. Everything I had was stolen, including my shoes. I had no where to stay and one of things I did was sleep--not on top of, but UNDER the park benches--I was afraid--and with good reason. I was afraid to sleep, ready to run if I needed to. I chose benches away from the main paths, with protective bushes. My life as a homeless person lasted off and on for several years. They were probably the worst years of my life.

I pasted a photo of my own face in the painting.

I am making a 4 x 6 print of this digital collage/smudge painting for Willie's pocket. (I mailed Andrea's Mole to Mike yesterday).

And here is another for WIllie's pocket:



This is my husband, who is also my model--for both art and photography. He was modeling a homeless person during the holiday season.

You can click on both of these images to see them larger.