Portrait of an Old Man as an Artist, Part 1

Rat #1 by Cliff Hutson

Showing My Work

“Art is good for the soul.”  -  Edythe Broad

Art has long been a fascination of mine. One of my childhood memories is writing and illustrating a book about tadpoles which had a series of adventures based on Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne.  But, I never drew very well and whenever I had to take an “art” class going through school I always finagled my way in to ceramics, art history, or (of course) photography rather than try my hand at drawing or painting where I would be judged on my efforts.

The desire to draw never was never completely submerged, though, and when I recently read a couple of books that were richly illustrated with drawings that could be described as primitive, if not crude, I dared to think  that I might be able to do as good as that. Now, I am sure that the people who did this work are highly talented and could probably work in any style they choose. Many comic strip creators have shown that they can hold their own in other genres. But, I figured it was worth a shot and, at my advanced age, picked up a couple of children’s books on drawing, some pens and pencils and am going to give it a go.

Rare Cat by Cliff Hutson

These three sketches are my first attempt at this endeavor. As noted, I have no designs on becoming an artist, but hope to get to a point where the viewer can tell the difference between a cat and a dog; or a rat and a Chihuahua. It is probably much too soon to show my work, but this sets the baseline and I am actually pleased with them in my way.  Also, by doing this I gain incentive to keep at it and see if can avoid totally embarrassing myself in the future.

It is said that creating art is a wonderful way to stimulate one’s brain, thereby improving well-being and health. I guess it pretty well accepted that taking on new challenges is one way of staving off the decline in cognitive abilities and memory that many of us experience in old age. And, as I am so untalented in this area, drawing will be particularly challenging to me.

Sleepy Cat by Cliff Hutson

January's Reading List

The books I read in January 2015

January 2015 Reading by Cliff Hutson

Shrimp & Avocado Salad

Shrimp & Avocado Salad by Cliff Hutson

Shrimp, Hass avocado, and Roma tomatoes on hearts of Romaine lettuce with Italian dressing

Butterfly Stamps

Butterfly Stamps by Cliff Hutson

The other day, I was cleaning out a drawer in my home office desk and found these stamps that my late wife and I used to mail our wedding invitations in 1977. We saved a few as a keepsake because we felt they were so pretty.

Both of us had a keen love of nature and butterflies were a special favorite of her's as well. So these these stamps seemed a perfect grace note to the announcement of our union.

Notice the Ordinary

“Notice the Ordinary” is the second thing listed in a small book called Fifteen Things Charles and Ray Teach Us by Keith Yamashita. It is an essay about Charles and Ray Eames.  The author makes the observation that by photographing and cataloguing the ordinary - such as seashells, the side of a building, or a manhole cover - they show us that the ordinary can make “a wonderful cast of characters”. 

This fits in well with a quote that I often refer to:

"To me, photography is an art of observation. It’s about finding something interesting in an ordinary place…I’ve found it has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the way you see them.” ~Elliott Erwitt

So, in pursuing this line of thought, I have embarked upon a personal project I call "Photo 365 - 2015". The idea is to take and post a photograph everyday of the year. I have done similar projects before, but this time I intend to mess around and do stuff that I most likely would not have shared in the past. The idea is to break out of the shell in which I have normally cast myself.

The year started with some food photography, a carry over from last year's project, "Dining In". That went really in my opinion. Not only did my food photography improve, my cooking did as well. The idea behind an activity like this is that I am not sure where it is going to lead me. That is probably a good thing in this phase of my life.