Learning

On our recent visit to California we attended the Pacific Grove Good Old Days. I’m not a fan of believing that the old days are somehow better then the ones we’re currently living, but it really didn’t matter because the Pacific Grove Good Old Days are basically a street fair, with arts displays, live music, midway rides for the young, and lot of things for sale including food.

It was a great deal of fun to weave through the various display and sellers booths. Among them we found a real gem–Cotton Crustacean. The booth was manned by Aaron John Gregory and sold T-shirt decorated with beautiful images of sea creatures. If you’re a prog-rock fan you may have heard of Aaron Gregory before. He’s a member of the band Giant Squid. I listen to some progressive rock, but hadn’t heard of Giant Squid before. Give them a listen. They might be just what you’ve been looking for.

Aaron is also an illustrator and designer, and draws the images for the T-shirts himself–hours and hours of night-time stippling. Stippling. I had, of course, heard of it, but it was something I’d never tried. In fact with my high and mighty fine arts degree I probably thought it was beneath me. Phah! I still have a lot to learn.

So, I tried it. Aaron uses pen and ink. His images lingered in my mind and while watching television with my husband I started out drawing a creature, cribbed from William O’Connor’s Dracopedia on my Samsung Tab A with S-pen tablet in Autodesk’s Sketchbook Pro. As you can see, I didn’t get the idea of trying the stippling until I’d already added some colour. I let it stand, though it does nothing for the drawing overall. I think I need a whole lot more carefulness. Some of my dots ended up being little lines, but the process was enjoyable and I plan to do it again.