Farm Fresh!

We're trying something new at home. It's a service called Farm Fresh Delivery. It seems like a pretty cool idea. They deliver fresh organic produce directly to your door. They offer a number of different packages on either a weekly or bi-weekly plan. And there's no contract to sign...it's just a standing order you can cancel anytime. You can even make substitutions if there's something on your delivery that you don't like.

This really isn't a sales pitch...

Anyway, we signed up to have produce delivered every other week. Our first green tub of fruits and vegetables arrived this past Tuesday. In two weeks, I believe we simply set the old tub out on the porch and Farm Fresh Delivery swaps it out for another one with our new order.

So far, our experience has been very positive. We did make a couple substitutions in our delivery. I think we requested grapes instead of Brussels sprouts. Seems like we opted out of something else but I can't recall. What we did get included oranges, apples (2 kinds), pears, onions, potatoes, garlic, lettuce, and kiwi. We've tried a good deal of it. I know the the apples, oranges, and pears have been really good.

With no contract, we figured we didn't have much to lose by trying it out. We'll see after a couple months if it still makes sense for us. Will we use the food we get? Will it be enough? What's the budgetary difference between this an buying food at the supermarket?

Has anyone else tried it (or something similar) out? What was your experience?

Sketchy Schemes

For those of you that may not be keeping track on your own (well...first...shame on you), I did post my most recent drawing to my Shady Dealin's Etsy shop. Still no sales on the shop but I'm encouraged by the fact that there are actually a couple Etsy users that marked my shop as a favorite.

I do have plans for some additional monster drawings but I think I'm going to take a couple weeks off from that project. I'm not taking the time off from drawing so much as a break from that specific set of drawings. I've rekindled my love of comics over the last few weeks mostly through reading some Bone by Jeff Smith and various works by Mike Mignola. That reading prompted me to revisit some of the comic book ideas I shelved a long time ago. I began putting some character drawings together. That went...ok. I couldn't put a finger on it but something was missing. So, I went through some published comics and it didn't take long for it to be clear. My drawings were lacking life. They seemed stiff and awkward. Oh, technically, they were decent drawings. They had nice proportion, the shading was good, and even the hands were well drawn. The problem was they felt like you were looking at a drawing. Reading Jeff Smith and Mike Mignola feels like you're looking at action, motion, and life (yes, even with drawings of the zombies feel alive). I needed to capture that life...the fluidity that the eye wants to see.

I'm not exactly sure how to fix that but I do have a couple ideas to get me started:

1. Relax. Ease up on the technical side and work from the imagination. As previously proven, correct isn't always right when it comes to drawing.
2. Practice. I can't expect perfection right off the bat. Ok, I can (and do)...but I need to realize that's not realistic. I also can't expect change without effort.

These are a lot easier said than done. How do I put it into action. I just started a new Sketchy Scheme. Instead of trying to put together a whole, I'm spending my time putting together parts. I'm working on a lot of quick drawings that may or may not go together. So far, I've filled several pages with these drawings and each sketch has more life in it than a lot of the other stuff I've done. Really, it reminds me of a lot of the sketches I did during various lectures in school. Much easier and fluid.

As a side benefit, the sketches are a lot of fun...both to work on and to look at. This was also missing in those first drawings.

Anyway, I plan to follow this for a week or so. I've got a few days off of work at Christmas which should offer some good opportunity for either this assignment or whatever this assignment leads to.

Popular Science-ing

I just found out that Google has digital copies of old magazines available for free view. Maybe I'm behind the times. Anyway, while I may not be interested in their issues of New York magazine, I am ecstatic about their offering many, many, many issues of Popular Science. It's a step back in time. Now I can read the February 1981 article about new import cars getting 40 mpg! I can read intelligent articles about the Chevrolet Corvair (not just sensationalized garbage). I can see the September 1951 issue about the new Sports Cars (looks like a Jaguar XK120 on the cover).

And it's not just the articles, either. You get the almost-as-fascinating advertisements, too. Seagrams. Camel. The Atari 600. A solar watch. The gang is all here. And that's just the January 1980 issue.

I'm a geek. Not a geek in the I have a family room full of servers kind of way. No, I'm the guy the wants to take things apart. Sometimes, I even put them back together. I buy into Make Magazine's mantra of "If you can't open it, you don't own it". So, for me, this find is like...it's like...Christmas morning.

This also might be just the thing to force my internet service hand. Maybe it's time to look at something other than [gulp] dial-up. It's a big step.

Where was I...