2025.12.07

14°F/-10°C on a Sunday morning. There was a tiny bit of snow added
overnight, making the overall cover about 4in/10cm. I'm having my
one cup of coffee for the day (just recently returned the beverage
to my diet after a summer of drinking iced tea), and listening to
the sheriff department on the radio. I also monitor the local GMRS
repeaters, although activity there is generally not very exciting.

There's a painting that's been on my easel most of the year, and I
add to it a little here and there. I had fully intended to "finish
a painting. Just finish one. Focus on completing a task and not be
focused on trying to make it look as good as I believe I am able,"
but there are five or six other paintings in the same state I've
begun over the last few years. One day one of them will be "done."
URL: gopher://shawful.ddns.net/I/paint/2025.12.01-wip.jpg

I picked up an airbrush in the mid 1990s after becoming obsessed
with the work of H.R. Giger, and started getting good for a little
while, but then discovered computer graphics -- PC Paint, MS Paint,
PhotoDeluxe, and eventually Photoshop (v2, I think) and 3Dgraphics
 -- and drawing became mainly a digital thing for several years,
especially once I started using a stylus (a tiny 3x5in thing with
no pressure, then a Wacom Graphire, then Intuous). By 2015 I got
the urge to return to traditional art, especially as computer/A.I.
generated trash was making digital art something I wanted to get
away from, so I picked up some pens and inks and lots of paper.
I started out with sketchbooks, multimedia pads, cards, and 8x10in
illustration boards, but gradually wanted to work on a larger and
larger scale that led me to the conclusion that I needed to get
something that could lay down ink in much larger quantities. 
The logical next step was to pick up an airbrush again. 
It's been only the last couple of years that I've gotten a new air
compressor and a couple of airbrushes, and it takes more effort
and skill than I remember, but it's been a rewarding decision.
The airbrush allows me to paint just about any surface, and do it
comparatively quickly.

Now that I've been distracted by smolnet stuff, however, it seems
like I might be heading into another artistic pause. We'll see.