inked

Sharon went and got herself inked. As much as I wish she hadn't, I have to admit that I don't hate the damn tattoo as much as I thought I would.

I grew up with a strong visceral negative reaction to tattoos. In part, they weren't as mainstream then as they are now. But in addition, I grew up in a Jewish household and, culturally, tattoos were not a thing. It's not just a matter of religious law -- there are lots of religious laws that don't feel compelled to follow. But for many nonreligious Jews, tattoos are in a class separate from eating pork or driving on Saturdays. There is, after all, a widespread belief that if you have a tattoo you can't be buried in a Jewish cemetery. For the record, that belief is incorrect.

And some of my objections are purely practical. For example, I remember my high school yearbook photo. When it came time to choose a quote to go under my picture, I chose something that I thought was very clever and funny. I was sure that, decades later, when I looked back at it I'd smile at my creativity. In the event, I cringe and wonder how I could have done that. Considering that, I can't help wondering how much worse it would be if that clever quote had been permanently inked into my body.

I saw it -- Sharon's desire to get a tattoo -- coming. She hasn't exactly been secretive about it. There was a stretch that she was sure she wanted to be a tattoo artist when she grew up, and she has made money designing tattoos for other people. Also, a lot of her online friends (some of whom she has met in person) are inked. And she doesn't have the same reaction to tattoos that I have, and she's confident that -- even decades later -- she will still love her tattoo. At least I can take some comfort in the fact that it's a small ankle tattoo that won't interfere with her ability to get a "straight" job (assuming that's what she wants at some point).

And I have to admit that her design -- soot sprites from Miyazaki's Spirited Away is actually a decent design. I really want to hate it more than I actually do. But if you see her, don't tell her that. Just tell her that I hate it.

sharon's cover art (new yorker edition)

 Not much to say here except that I'm doing the proud show-offy dad thing.

Sharon's illustration class was assigned to create a New Yorker cover. The subject of the cover could be politics or New York. Sharon created the following:

sharon enters an art show

Sharon has, for the first time since she was a little kid, entered some of her art in a show. Specifically, the Bayside Historical Society 21st Annual Winter Art Show.

Rather than write this post all sorts of detail about the entry process, I'll just cut to the chase. Sharon entered two pieces, both of which won awards.

"Rise" (first picture), an ink drawing, won "Best Drawing Award." The judge, Neill Slaughter (a professor emeritus at LIU), wrote: 

Sharon Whinston, “Rise” BEST DRAWING AWARD
There were very few drawings submitted this year, however this particular pen and ink line drawing of a bird stood out from the other drawings because it is so confidently rendered in ink, a medium that is not forgiving. Aptly titled there is a sense of action as the bird “rises” into flight. Upon close inspection there is an economic yet effective handling of hatching and line quality.

"Black Kite" (second picture), a digital piece, won an honorable mention in the digital category. Slaughter's comments about that are as follows:

Sharon Whinston, “Black Kite” (Honorable Mention) 
Despite having already been recognized for her bold confident drawing ability in “Rise” this artist is very adept at creating a digital painting within the computer as is evident from the image of the Black Kite bird. All aspects work equally well from the perspective and proportion of the bird to subtle shifts in color and value within the kite as well as the gentle modulation from warm to cool in the negative space. It’s a professional looking illustration of a Black Kite, pure and simple!  

"Black Kite" was one in a series of seven bird pictures that Sharon drew digitally. I believe she was experimenting. Eventually she had stickers printed up with them. Each sheet of stickers has all seven bird pictures. It was a huge boost when a friend of a friend asked if Sharon would autograph one of the sticker sheets so she could have it framed. Since making those seven bird drawings, Sharon has added an eighth -- someone commissioned her to digitally draw a blue jay that he could use as his online profile picture. I think of it as part of the same series, but the fact is it's much more detailed than the others. I think she got better at it. Blair and I are thinking of getting good quality prints of the whole bird series, framing them, and putting them up on the living room wall. "Rise" is, as far as I know, a one-off -- not part of a series of drawings. It's just something she drew because the mood hit her.

Sharon and I plan to go see the art show exhibit this Saturday, after we have our weekly breakfast together. Words can't begin to express how proud I am of her. She certainly has innate talent, but she has also been working very hard at it, arting every chance she gets. Blair and I are doing all we can to support her passion. But this is bittersweet for Sharon. Her biggest, proudest supporter passed away last year; it would have been great for him to know about this.

sharon art

Three and a half years ago Sharon took an art course at the Bridgeview Academy of Fine Arts. I wrote about that here. As that class came to an end, she said she wanted to take another class. But not right away. Eventually.

Eventually has come, and Sharon is back at Bridgeview. After all this time she decided to take the same course over again rather than jump to a successor class. The illustration here is from her easel at the end of the first session.

The above should not be interpreted to mean that she stopped doing art in the interim. Sometimes it seems that she's always drawing -- whether digitally on her computer or non-digitally with pen and paper. I could shae a practical gallery of her art on this post, but that's not the point. Maybe I'll devote a post just to that. At this point, a good bit of her art -- at least the digital stuff -- is commission work. So people are paying her for her work, which is really cool.

the pastrami shirt

First, a shameless plug. You can go to Sharon's Zazzle store to buy the shirts discussed here.

A couple years ago -- I'm not sure how many -- I asked Sharon if she could draw a pastrami sandwich for us to make pastrami-themed T-shirts. I had ideas for what the shirts should say, but lacked the artistic skills to create the shirts that my mind was envisioning.

It took a long time to get things going.

Sharon was interested in the challenge, but it was hard for me to explain what was in my head as the iconic pastrami sandwich picture. It had to be an overstuffed sandwich on rye bread. Cut in half, with both halves facing the viewer. And the top slice of bread has to be sort of arched because of the meat below it. It was really hard to convey what was in my brain. Eventually, we started googling "pastrami sandwich" and we found some pictures that looked pretty close. But Sharon was having trouble drawing a sandwich that she felt was good enough. I thought several of her pictures were plenty fine, but she was unhappy with them.

Eventually, I asked if she could take an actual picture and use software tools to turn it into a drawing. She liked that idea. But then there was another issue. It didn't seem like a good idea to start with someone else's picture and use it for a T-shirt design that she would sell. Even if she digitally altered the picture, it seemed to me that this would present an ethical problem, and probably a legal one as well. Admittedly, it seemed like a remote possibility that it would cause us problems. But, still...

Fortunately, I hit on a better idea. We could buy a pastrami sandwich at Sarge's and take pictures of it. Then she could work with the pictures. No copyright issue. No concern ethics. Of course, someone would have to eat the sandwich, but that was a sacrifice I was willing to make.

Even with all that, it took a while before everything was done. This wasn't exactly Sharon's top priority. She's a teenage girl who's into drawing animals. I don't really believe she was greatly enthused about drawing deli meats for her middle-aged father. But she did it eventually. I think one thing that helped encourage her was when her friend started selling mugs online with one of her drawings. It wasn't pastrami -- it was a drog. I guess it helped when she saw how easy it is.

So now she has her Zazzle store with three different pastrami T-shirts. And one drog. Next I'll see if I can get her to add T-shirts with math jokes on them. 

on cow drawings and cheese

TL/DR: Sharon drew a cute calf for Cabot. 

Blair and Ethan were popping into the supermarket to get some things. I asked for Muenster cheese. I should note here that I'm the only one in the house who likes Muenster cheese.

"This one doesn't have good cheese," Ethan told me.

I started to say that I'll be fine with whatever they have, but Blair beat me to it. "They have stuff that's good enough for Aba," she told him. After 21 years of marriage, the lady knows me.

And the next morning, I grabbed a couple slices of cheese just before starting work. And it was...well, I wouldn't say "inedible." I mean, it'd be disingenuous to say that it was inedible, because I did end up eating the whole package over the course of a few days. But it did taste kind of bad -- in a "thank God I finished that so I don't have to eat anymore, because there are starving kids in <fill in place where kids are starving>" sort of way.

So I learned that some brands of cheese don;t taste as good as others. I should have known. And the fact is I've gotten spoiled by Blair and Ethan's taste in food. I grumble that they buy stuff that's more expensive than what I used to buy for myself when I was single. So, yes...Fiji water tastes better than Poland Spring which tastes better than tap. And some brands (e.g., Organic Valley) make better cheese than other brands (e.g., Borden).

And, while we're on the topic of cheese, another really good brand is Cabot, which brings me to what was originally going to be the topic of this post. Yeah, I can go off on tangents when I really get going.

So, Cabot has some kind of contest going on to draw a cow for them. I don't know if it's for their logo or not, or if it's just to get attention. I don't know if there's a prize. I know nothing, except that Sharon entered with the cow picture shown at the top of this post.

I asked her to text me her picture so I could see it. When I saw it, I tried to respond with "cool." But with my fat fingers, it came up as "cook." Which, with my meat-eating ways, did not appear to be a simple typo.

Sharon's response was "Don't cook him."

Ever-observant, I made a correction. "Her."

I hope she wins, but even if she doesn't, I like the drawing. And I don't like Borden's Muenster cheese.

monday art break -- hammond and his mech

Well, the title of this post kind of gave it away. This is a sample of Sharon's Overwatch fan art. Overwatch, by way of background, is a videogame that Sharon plays. Or did play -- I'm not sure, since it sounds like she's not as into it as she used to be. She does (or did) manage a team, and had to spend a lot of time with them, prepping for matches and then reviewing their performance.

Anyway, one of the cutest characters is Hammond. He's a vicious hamster who spends most of his time in a mechanical weaponized ball. And this is a drawing that Sharon made of him.

monday art break -- cream's better nature

I found this drawing on Sharon's Instagram page. Is she trying to guess at Cream's nature?

monday art break -- wiglaf

I used to have a cat named Wiglaf. For a little over a year anyway.

The picture accompanying this post is a portrait Sharon drew. It's based on a photo of Wiglaf sleeping on the papers on my desk. When Sharon started selling her artistic wares via fiverr (please check out her account), I thought about commissioning a picture. But she offered to do it as a birthday gift.

We got Wiglaf as a kitten from the breeder that we got our other cats from. Wiglaf was a mix -- half Maine Coon and half British Shorthair. His parents managed to get together despite the breeder trying to keep the Maine Coons separate from the Brits.

The breeder was bringing a few kittens for Asher to choose from. He was picking his second cat after Spiderman died. As soon as I saw Wiglaf (the breeder had named him Simon) I was in love. I wanted Asher to pick him. But for some reason, Asher was taken with Alvin -- which we renamed 18. I was disappointed, but this was to be Asher's cat, so we let him pick the cat he wanted. Ethan and Sharon managed to talk me into getting the cat I wanted as well.

Early on, Wiglaf had his share of health problems. He would go into sneezing fits. One. two. three...up to a dozen or more sneezes in quick succession. And by the time he was done, he'd have given himself a bloody nose. Also, shortly after we got him he seemed to have an ear infection. The vet told us he had a ruptured eardrum. Just great. The vet said he'd recover, though he was likely to be subject to illness. I asked if he was likely to just have one health problem after another. If life with him would mean a never-ending stream of worry and veterinary bills I would bring him back to the breeder before I got too attached. But if we could expect him to have a happy, relatively healthy (even if short) life, then I could deal with it.

The health problems cleared up, but they left their mark. Wiglaf never could walk straight or meow. He'd look at me, and move his mouth as if he was meowing, and no sound came out. And he loved the cold. During the winter we had to be careful opening the front door because he was always trying (sometimes successfully) to get out. But there was one time, when we had a deep snow, he shot out the door right into a snowdrift. A second later he strutted out  and back to the door looking immensely pleased with himself. Ethan picked him up and tossed him into the snow. He disappeared beneath the surface, but quickly came out and ran back to Ethan. Ethan threw him again, and again he came back. They played this tossing game for a half hour or so, until he had had enough and went inside.

Wiglaf quickly caught on that I was his person. He would spend his nights in bed next to me. And when I worked from home he would sleep on the papers on my desk -- hence the photo that served as the basis for the illustration above. He was fine with the rest of the humans in the family, but never as close. And he was a terror for the other cats. He was very food oriented, and wanted all the food in the bowls for himself. But he didn't simply eat it. When there was fresh food, he'd go to the kitchen and wait in ambush. When another cat came by, he would pounce. Only after another cat ran away he would eat. Blair would have to hold him back so that Cream (the blind, deaf one) wouldn't starve.

Wiglaf would, occasionally, get out and stay away for a few days. But he always came back -- until he didn't.

I miss Wiggy.

monday art break -- mousecow

In her art, Sharon likes to concentrate on animals. One way she's practiced is creating combination animals. Apparently there's a website that will help with this. It gives you two animal pictures (chosen at random from it's ginormous library), and you then create a picture of a hybrid between the two. Exactly how you combine the two is entirely up to you.

This picture is but one example -- a combination of a cow and a field mouse. It kind of reminds me of the rat creatures from Jeff Smith's Bone books.

sharon the tat artist

Time to daddybrag.

Sharon has started taking commissions for her artwork. So far, she's been designing tattoos for members of her Overwatch team.

My understanding is that it started with a teammate seeing a drawing she made of an Overwatch logo. He had been planning to get an Overwatch tattoo and asked if he could use it as a tatoo.

Somehow it went from there. Another teammate ios really into Hammond, who's a character in Overwatch, and asked her to design a Hammond tattoo for him. She started with a few concepts showing different aspects to Hammond's nature. The one's shown in this post represent her closing in on what he wants. In addition, his mother is a domestic abuse survivor and wants a tattoo based around the "True love shouldn't hurt" slogan. Sharon's been working on concept drawings for that.

In all cases, I apologize for the low-res nature of the images I am including with this post.

In fairness, I'm not really pro-tattoo. I would be unhappy about it if any of my kids were to get tattoos -- though I acknowledge that, once they're 18 it's their decision. And, on that note, if her teammate and his mother want tattoos that's their business. And if Sharon's art is good enough that they want it permanently inked into their skin, then I can't help but being proud.