I'm A Steady Rollin' Man part 2

 Decided to come back for a second day in a row.  Without having done any further research, I decided the best thing for me to work on was the lower left corner of the image area, since these were things I drew from actual objects, and things I know well.  The rest is mostly from internet sources, and I'd like to go back there for better detail before I cut those areas. 

That doesn't mean I won't be back again this week, just what I did today.  I also took care of some business, talking to our maintenance people about the broken window.  Double-pane windows were put in last time they did our windows, and the outer one is broken, likely by someone else, and not us inside the space.  The bits of broken glass have been cleaned up, but the hole in the corner of the outside window is still there.  Doesn't bother us, but it could impact heating come winter time, so it's in their interest to get it fixed.  Two problems- it probable takes a glass window professional to do it, and Molly has had a table against the inside wall of the window for probably years now, and that may have to move in order for a workman to get at that window.  Well, that's Molly's problem to deal with.  None of this is done yet, or even arranged, but I was told we'd be informed when this was going to happen, so we can do what is needed. On the other hand, the missing light has finally been replaced and things look good, which I did tell them today.

I'm A Steady Rollin' Man part 1

 Time to get a new image up on the blog- and that's my latest Robert Johnson print.  Last time I wrote that I had one more idea, but actually I had two, but this one gets done first.  It will be a vertical piece, like most of them.  The subject is a line from Johnson's song I'm A Steady Rollin' Man.  The line is "you can't give your sweet woman everything she wants at one time" Sounded like a still life full of items a woman might want, and right now.   Since I have had very little experience with relationships, this seems to be a print the will require some outside research.  And that's just what I did.

The person I went to was Nicol, the receptionist where I go for speech therapy.  She gave me one idea I had nowhere else- a large ring with a ruby in the center.  (she didn't get it)  She also mentioned money, other jewelry, a big house, and I think, top quality alcohol.  Some got used, but had other sources, some were similar to ideas I already had, and some just got rejected.  For example, she mentioned money, but so did the Roots, in their song "The Seed 2.0" which is actually a partial cover of Cody Chesnutt, but he plays on this second version a well, and toured with them while promoting the album, so I guess he was okay with it.  In a part of the song created by the Roots, they have a line, "she want a whole lot of somethin' to fold" which I interpreted as paper money.   Just before that line was "She want platinum or ice (diamonds?) or gold", which pairs up with Nicol's ruby ring.  

The key rings of Cadillac and Lexus were verified in a computer search, but the inspiration came from the television show The Wire.   I think it was season 4 that had a plot line where a two man shooter team was wiping out dealers by killing then and stashing the dead bodies inside abandoned, boarded up row houses.  (police wouldn't find them for a while)  Snoop (who was female) was sent to a large home improvement store to look for a nail gun, to make this task quicker and easier.  The salesman tells her that a higher priced gun is the "cadillac" of nail guns, and that is the one she purchases.  Later she tells her partner Chris that the salesman had told her it was the cadillac of nail guns.  After pausing a beat, she says "He means Lexus, but he don't know." I decide to use both in my image.  By the way, that Roots song also contains the line "Cadillac needs space to roam"  but I don't know what that is supposed to mean.

I used to have a princess phone in my props supply (from when we emptied my grandmother's apartment), but like most of what I owned, it's in storage now, so I got the image from the internet.  I had done some research, and it turned out that these things were popular with women, who liked the unusual phone shape, which carried the name princess.  It was certainly nicer than the standard desk phone of the era.  Alcohol also came from a combination of experience and internet.  A tour of a local liquor store gave me the ideas for the whiskeys I used (the prices were certainly high enough) and I found images of the items to draw from.   (for what it's worth, the FAQ on google for each called them High-End or Top Shelf whiskeys, so I guess they qualify)  The chocolate bar I'm going to credit to a student from my last Visual Thinking class at Kean (spring of 2013) where a female student said she craved chocolate at certain times.  In this case, I just bought a large chocolate bar from the supermarket and took a appropriate bite when I needed to draw it.  However, the item also fits with the song Anything, Anything by Dramarama, which has the lines "I'll give you candy, give you diamonds, give you pills.   I'll give you anything you want, hundred dollar bills".  For now I did add some pills to the image, in the lower right corner.  I didn't have any 100's to draw from, but I did have some 50's, so I used those to fill the background of the image, everywhere there isn't an object.  Both are something to fold.

What is here is the rough drawing.  I will fix things as I go, to have better things to cut.  What I did today was where I always start my woodcuts, the margins around the black line that borders my image area.  Results (and some of the wood I cut off) can be seen in the photo below:

I will go one more day this week, and probably start the image area.  Or maybe the words.   I'll figure it out when I get there.

Where Am I?

 A few weeks ago I got a call from my college friend Doug Daniel, wondering what I was up to and where I've been.  Simple answer- I was in the hospital, as I had been for a few weeks.  Spent a total of 24 days there, getting 3 brain surgeries along the way.  Good news is I am all right now.  At least as far as I know.  My memory seems to be intact, got permission to drive about a week ago, and I'm gradually learning to use my computer again.  It is surprising how much one forgets in a few weeks.  I have had a lot of meetings with doctors and other medical staff, even  after getting out of the hospital, but nothing much coming up the rest of the month.

The result is that I plan to get back to the Studio soon and get working on some new pieces.  I have one more idea in my Robert Johnson series, and the hospital inspired an idea that will continue what I did with my Blood Draw piece.  Not to mention doing some planned pieces from my recently revived boardwalk series.  So I have plenty to work on once I get started on some woodcuts.  Despite all the cleaning they did in my absence, I know where my tools are (at least the good ones) and my sharpening stone, and I probably have enough paper.  May need some wood, but that I can find out at the Studio.