Rain Gryphon

Teaching coding (or at least the idea of using sequential procedures to accomplish a task) to five year olds. It looks kind of like a modern version of LOGOS ("Tell the Turtle...") except you control a robotic bee, which is cool. Bees are a very appropriate choice for making them follow paths and do dances to output data. Someone had fun inventing this.

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One of the good things about getting old is that you never run out of see-through plastic pill bottles. These things were valuable when I was younger. They're great for storing small parts, etc. Now I have a lifetime supply, and can offer them to my younger friends as well.

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If we were smart, we'd use the plague of locusts currently infesting east Africa as force multipliers. They're eating Boko Haram's crops along with everyone else's. Establish government-controlled feeding camps where the good people can come, and if the jihadists want to eat, they can surrender.

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Some piece of priceless "art" apparently exploded at a touch, or perhaps even just a vibration. Sources vary as to whether a beer can was placed on, or near, the thing for a picture. Looking at the wreckage, though, the glass didn't just break, but actually exploded into coarse sand. There are no "before" pics, but I'm gonna guess she heat-formed the glass, then didn't bother annealing it to relieve the tensions.

Also, if the thing was so pretentiously empty-minded that even an art critic wanted to mock it, it's probably more interesting in it's exploded state anyway.

Update: Now with 'before' picture!

So, I opened up a container that I think has been sealed since 2002 or so, and found... Old-Ass Art! I remember drawing a lot of this, and just haven't seen it in years. None of it's really great, but it brings back memories, and like Grizabella from Cats, I'm finding that I can smile at those again. I currently don't have a scanner, so I just propped 'em up and photographed them. I may go back and do a better job, plus there's more art in storage, I'm sure. I need to create more stuff. I feel happier and better in control when I do.



I used to be a huge Rescue Rangers fan, and Foxglove was a solid favourite. This is ink on heavy paper, from Dec 1999.

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Generic, rather awkward skwirl girl from Jan 2000. I think this and Foxglove both ended up in a small press fanzine called Sheepette Gazette.

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Ralph the camel, from Jan 2000. This was because I had this boxed set of pastel sticks, and was screwing around trying to decide what to do with them, or if I even liked them. Ralph the Camel is from this song that I and one of my weird friends made up when we were 12 or so:

Ralph the Ca-mel!
He is e-vil!
He is here to spoil your Monday!
Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday!
Ralph the Camel!

For some reason, I stuck a mane on him, so he ended up looking kind of like a pony, but he's still a camel. An evil, purple camel.

After not seeing it for 17 years, I find that I kind of like the heavily stylized manner of it.

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Baby Dragon in the Milky Way. This is pigma pencil on Bristol, probably from summer of 2000. When I was little I used to love Casper the Friendly Ghost (until it finally dawned on me that he was dead, and then it got a bit weird). I had a View-Master reel set of Casper, and one of the pictures was Casper in the Milky Way, talking to an anthropomorphic star. That fascinated me. Thirty-five years later, my fascination with that scene gave birth to this. It's awkward, but I love the bright colours, and it somehow did manage to evoke what fascinated me about that scene.

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Dragon with Naughty Bits (Findra named it that). This is pigma pencil on Bristol, probably from summer of 2000. Just a generic dragon. I have a thing for big eyes, if it's not obvious.

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Sea Star. Pigma pencil on Bristol, definitely autumn of 2000. Sea Star was one of my MLP OCs (Personal Ponies, they were generally called back then). She lives in that castle with a bunch of her friends. I really like the leaves to the upper right. I had a maple right outside my window, and did those from life.

I'm really glad I found this one again!