writing

/ˈrʌɪtɪŋ/

noun

1. the activity or skill of writing.
“parents want schools to concentrate on reading, writing, and arithmetic”
2. the activity or occupation of composing text for publication.
“she made a decent living from writing”

West to East and Back Again, or How to Draw from the Window of a Train.

| Paul Greer

A week or so ago I travelled across England to pick up a car. So the away journey was by train and the return by car.

There’s a lot of enforced down time during a trip like that so I took a few photos made a few drawings, read a bit of Vonnegut, thought about stuff. Very enriching in all.

I liked the idea I could sample the sea on opposite coasts in one day. This was not possible on the way there as I was effectively on food and couldn’t get to Clevedon.

So my morning photo of the West that day was this one:

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Morgan’s Hill

Caught the 11:05 to Paddington, with the express idea of drawing, a possibly trying to catch up on the 365 drawing thing I’ve been going. Not sure if you have tried drawing on a train, most people are too close for you to study without causing a uncomfortable situation and generally stuff is going passed so quickly outside you need a super fast photographic memory to get it in your brain before you can decide how to represent it on the page.

So I decided to go for the horizon, because that goes pass slower and if you miss a bit it doesn’t look too weird if you just join on to the contiuation.

I added the times and locations at points, also a few announcements from the guard to add some

ambience

.

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70/365 Various horizon lines drawn from the window of the 11:30 to London Paddington. Going through Bath Spa, Chippenham, Swindon, Didcot Parkway. V-ball. Notebook: Ethel.

I got as far as Didcot Parkway on that then got the I’ll-miss-my-stop-fear, even theough the train was terminating. The connections were really tight as I got a super cheap ticket I had to make everyone.

Managed to take a picture of Yea Olde Saint Pancras as I got to Kings Cross.

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Passing through the London at speed. Not even touching the sides. St. Pancras from the entrance to Kings Cross. #dontforgettolookup
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View across Shaw’s Dike.

Then there I was in the East. It’s quite flat there. We picked up the car somewhere in the middle of the Fens, this is what it is like there.

Mostly sky.

I stayed over night at my folks place. There’s a lot of amazing old photos there. They should write a book.

Here is a picture of my Grandad at a Grasstrack meeting at Bourne in June 1949, less that 4 years after the end of the Second World War. Two Soldiers looking on. (Grandad’s on the left):

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Picture of Grandad (on the left) with fellow rider at a grass track meet. Taken at Bourne, June 1949. Check out the two military looking fellas in the back there.

So the next day I set off as early as I could (which wasn’t that early), this time because I had wheels I could take a picture of the sea, here known as the Wash. It’s quite shallow there so the sea is often very flat compared to the ocean that crashes in on the West coast.

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The Wash from near the Light House, Old Hunstanton.

Wanted to draw on the way back too. But you can’t draw when driving. That is bad. So I took breaks (7 hour drive altogether), and when I took a break I drew the backend of whatever I could see.

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71/365 Back-ends of various vehicles drawn during mildly epic road trip (when stationary and when it was safe to do so, obv) from Hunstanton through Peterborough, A47, M6, M5 etc. 7 hours journey time in total. See images of both #east and #west seas (taken on same day) earlier in this feed. V-ball. Notebook: Ethel.

I got caught in a nasty jam on the M62 so didn’t get back home until late. But just in time to catch the end of the light in this picture of the opposite Sea.

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West coast. Clevedon front.

“*blank*blank*blank*, what's all this then?"

Aside | | Paul Greer

image

There’s nothing like the arrival of a new interesting social media thing to get people talking about talking.
Ello kind of blew open this last week, taking the creators by surprise slightly. I got myself and invite from a dear internet friend, and there’s only one way to find out if you look like something. It could be better than bad.
Turns out I do quite like it.
There’s a lot of speculation and discussion as to whether its the Facebook Killer prophecy speaks off, or just another Diaspora. Google+ was a Facebook Killer for about 2 days and that had Google behind it.
You can’t buy cool though.
Ello’s first inhabitants were the creatives, artists, writers and weirdos (and I mean that in the nicest possible way) we all love and adore, there weeks before anyone else. Then, because of it’s most righteous indie web aspirations it also has provided a landing pad for those fleeing Facebook as a result of its banning accounts without users genuine names (immediately alienating large areas of the LGBT community for one).
And they say they won’t advertise at you or sell your data, which is nice, but has many wondering how it will pay for itself, suggesting the big sell out is inevitable, or has already happened.
I’m hopeful it won’t. But it does have me wondering why we all just don’t post to our own sites all the time anyways, instead of socially mediating and handing all our content to someone elses website.
Makes me think I should be using this more.
Maybe I will.
Or maybe I’ll see you on Ello.

(Something that does work nicely on Ello is gifs, the one above is over 2mb and it went up and played no problem).

Lynda Barry: 2013 National Book Festival

Video | | Paul Greer

“Cartoonist Lynda Barry appears at the 2013 Library of Congress National Book Festival. Speaker Biography: Lynda Barry is a writer and cartoonist who lives in rural Wisconsin. She’s authored 19 books and received numerous awards and honors for her work, including two William Eisner awards, the American Library Association’s Alex award, the Washington State governor’s award, the Wisconsin Library Association’s R.R. Donnelly award and the Museum of Wisconsin Arts Lifetime Achievement Award. Her work has appeared in many publications, including The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Vanity Fair, Esquire, Newsweek, Time, Salon, Mother Jones, Poetry Magazine and Tin House. She is currently assistant professor in interdisciplinary creativity at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a Discovery Fellow at the UW Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery. Her new graphic novel is “The Freddie Stories.” For captions, transcript, and more information visit http://1.usa.gov/1shC4TC “

Silliness

Image | | Paul Greer

image

I appear to be talking myself into making comics again. This could be, and usually is, a terrible idea.
If anyone can stop this silliness please send help.
Biro, fountain pen, montage and general moments of weakness.
Notebook: Amand

I’m also thinking I might start making the posts on this site shorter.

The Running Novelist

Quote | | Paul Greer

“When I think about it, having the kind of body that easily puts on weight is perhaps a blessing in disguise. In other words, if I don’t want to gain weight I have to work out hard every day, watch what I eat, and cut down on indulgences. People who naturally keep the weight off don’t need to exercise or watch their diet. Which is why, in many cases, their physical strength deteriorates as they age. Those of us who have a tendency to gain weight should consider ourselves lucky that the red light is so clearly visible. Of course, it’s not always easy to see things this way. I think this viewpoint applies as well to the job of the novelist. Writers who are blessed with inborn talent can write easily, no matter what they do—or don’t do. Like water from a natural spring, the sentences just well up, and with little or no effort these writers can complete a work. Unfortunately, I don’t fall into that category. I have to pound away at a rock with a chisel and dig out a deep hole before I can locate the source of my creativity. Every time I begin a new novel, I have to dredge out another hole. But, as I’ve sustained this kind of life over many years, I’ve become quite efficient, both technically and physically, at opening those holes in the rock and locating new water veins. As soon as I notice one source drying up, I move on to another. If people who rely on a natural spring of talent suddenly find they’ve exhausted their source, they’re in trouble.”

— Haruki Murakami

A proper go.

Aside | | Paul Greer

I’m taking courage and inspiration from Mary Hamilton’s Blogging Principles and giving this thing a proper go. Just 10 years to late, s’all.

Firstly, my employer BDH has posted a new showreel of our work. It’s less heavy on the natural history this time. There’s a few peaks at the animations we created for the forthcoming BBC documentary “War of the Words: Poets of the Somme” and quick shot of a digital enhancement of my beautiful beautiful face (keep ’em peeled for that).

Friend, fiend and colleague, Tim Willmott started a Facebook page for his zany visual experiments, it’s called The Secret Stuff Laboratory. You should like (follow?) it. Mine too, while you’re at it.

I bought this track of off Bandcamp by The Parlour Trick, a musical collaboration between Meredith Yayanos (aka @Theremina) and Dan Cantrell.  They do fantastic dreamy music, it makes me want to animate stuff to it.

I had a half day at work because the plumber was coming round. He finished early so I had a spare 2 hours, so I bit the daffodils and saw the new Godzilla movie. I was going to wait for the DVD release after the traumatic experienece of 1998, but I couldn’t stand the idea of everyone else seeing it whilst I sat grumpy in the corner. The craft and CG is amazing (obvs). I don’t really want to give it a full review because I don’t like spoilers.

If anyone can do anything half as good as this with the property, then give me a call.

I might give that Pacific Rim a go soon.

Ok, that’s that for now, I clicked all the buttons so this’ll get pinged to all the platforms, that’s what you do these days isn’t it?

 

 

Nüshu

Image | | Paul Greer


Nüshu

reblogging notational:

“Nüshu (literally “women’s writing” in Chinese) is a syllabic script created and used exclusively by women in the Jiangyong County in Hunan province of southern China. Up until the late Qing Dynasty (1644-1912) women were forbidden access to formal education, and so Nüshu was developed in secrecy as a means to communicate. Since its discovery in 1982, Nüshu remains to be the only gender-specific writing system in the world.”

Read more here.