Artists Have Layers

Like onions, or parfaits. I was thinking about this last night as I downloaded my camera for the first time since last week, and realized that as an artist, I sort of have a split personality. Or maybe it's just that I'm a butterfly who won't stay on one subject for more than about 10 nanoseconds before I get bored. For whatever reason, my photos were all over the place. There was one unifying theme: Everything I'd captured was ephemeral.

The art I do for work is fleeting, it's there for a few moments, or on the older and more careful people, a few hours. I've had folks tell me they took home a balloon animal and put it on a shelf, where it slowly shrank for a month until it was gone. Even without popping, a balloon won't last forever.

The First Reader agreed to model for me... and then had me in stitches with his antics.

I'd learned the new design from a Hungarian twister, Gergo Csatai, and if you want to try it, you can go here.

Someone pointed out I ought to photoshop the laser tip coming out his other ear!

The faces I paint last even less than the balloons do. I tend not to paint on the mouth and chin, or the child is right back to 'have it fixed' after the eat and drink. Besides, masks work well.

Monster Mask

But the other thing I took pictures of yesterday was something I really wasn't happy to see. I was hoping, on my first real day of Spring Break, to take a walk and find flowers. Instead, I heard the tickety-tick of ice on my window. I was fascinated when I ran out to take pictures, it was spherical, with little bubbles inside the iceballs.

Tiny iceballs, with bubbles inside. I wonder how that happens?

Some were round, others not quite.