Painting: Winter Ghosts

"Winter Ghosts" acrylic paint, 2017 Western Washington State Fair entry, sold for $350

This painting was another case of I-started-it-ages-ago-and-then-finished-it-in-a-flurry-of-panic-before-a-deadline. I actually started painting it last winter, when the weather was bitterly cold but without compensating snow. I wanted snow. Badly. Bad enough that I painted it into existence; that winter we had a record 13" snow fall in a single day and night. Course, once the painting was half way done I dabbed at it for months before finishing it mere days before the deadline. Typically, I actually LIKED this one and someone bought it. Probably shouldn't complain.

As far as titles go, I named it after my favorite song on the album "Stray Ashes" by JBM, which I was listening to a lot that winter. You're required to title things; you're not required to have it make any sense to anyone but you, still, it seemed to fit.

Poem: Memory

There’s a shadow in your life
That haunts you with haltering hops,
And brushes its fingers against your mind:
It’s all the things that you forgot.

Leaves you with a vague sense of unease
When it pulls out vacant thoughts.
‘Cause one day you’ll stumble on an empty space
That was something you forgot.

And it’s not enough to panic you – yet.
But always there will be,
The sense that you left something behind
Undone, untold, unseen.

It’s like when the stars come out at night.
The darker it is, the more you see.
But always at the edge of your sight
Are all the stars too dim to be seen.

As you glide through your life,
Remember, the shadow is not:
That you cannot remember what you forget,
But rather, you remember what you forgot.

Drawing Portraits

An unintended self portrait, liquid Ina ink.

Drawing people is hard.

Our brains are specifically hardwired to recognize faces and the subtle differences between them, so getting things exactly right is really, really tricky. For years, I shied away from drawing people for this very reason.

But honestly all it takes is practice.

Your first attempts will be, well, bad:

They won't look how you intended:

And something will be slightly off:

Something that you just can't put your finger on:

And of course, getting that other eye right is just impossible:

(Unless they're the late, great, and conveniently glass-eyed Peter Falk):

But keep practicing:

And eventually you'll get better:

Much better:

The Purpose Of This Blog

Why write a blog? It’s a fair question. After all, there’s already a lot of them out there. Used to be, if you wanted to share something beyond your circle of acquaintances it was similar to shouting in a vacuum. Thanks to the internet, and the ease with which you can access it, your voice can be heard.

And it’s gotten pretty noisy with all that shouting.

So why bother? Well, it’s somewhat like asking why bother with making art in the first place. We do it to create, to communicate, to inspire. To express. And because we just find it so dang fun. Sometimes these things have a value intrinsic to themselves. And yes, I have stories to write and art to draw and I’d like people to know they exist. But even if no one reads it, even if no one appreciates it, there’s a value in the creation itself and I find joy in that.

So, to all who find this site: Welcome!

My only plans so far are to share some of my creative work, as well as the process and some musings on art in general. I don’t know exactly what kind of blog this will grow to be (funny, sad, sarcastic, sincere;­ God, I hope not too serious, that would be embarrassing) but to all who wander this way, I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I am going to writing it.

Thank you.

-C.T. Eiser