Inktober Day 2: Spiders
Blog Written with a loving hand by kitt some time around 21:52 on 2 October 2023Okay, there is a Spider Mountain in Washington state. I looked at a number of range / peak profile images, but the only one that really inspired me was John W Porter's Final ridge traverse on Spider Mountain, so that's what I tried to paint. I really struggled with this one, not having any browns in my watercolors. So, I cheated and used the colors already in my mixed paint wells.
At first, I didn't like this painting. The more I see it, however, the more I like it. If you view from a bit back, the ridge actually looks a bit three dimensional.
Inktober Day 1: Dream
Blog Yeah, kitt finished writing this at 20:45 on 1 October 2023Today's prompt is dream. This was an easy choice. The Pyramid, which is a nunatak that looks like a pyramid and dominates one's view when moving from High Camp to Low Camp of Mt Vinson. My caption was, "I am dreaming of Mt Vinson, and the nunatak that dominates our view on the way down from High Camp."
My interpretation:
Original:
I realized only after I posted the painting that I totally put the light source on the wrong side.
Inktober begins
Blog Written with a loving hand by kitt some time around 10:43 on 1 October 2023Inktober is a month (October) long nominally inked drawing challenge that's been going for like 14 years. The process is
1) Make a drawing in ink (you can do a pencil under-drawing if you want).
2) Post it
3) Hashtag it with #inktober and #inktober2023
4) Repeat to the end of the month.
My plan is to complete the challenge with watercolors, and to have the whole process mountain themed. I plan not to buy any more watercolor supplies, and paint small: 2.5" x 3.75" paper.
Let's see how I do.
Capturing Much
Blog kitt decided around 13:41 on 26 August 2023 to publish this:I like how I can capture so much of Jonathan in one photo. I have, in this photo, his smile, his goofiness, his love of food, his stress as shown in how he's holding his arm, his love of traveling as show by where we are. I don't know, it captures so much in this moment.
Context with al-Zahrawi
Commentary Posted by kitt at 19:14 on 19 September 2023This is a rant.
But first, context.
Jonathan and I play Redactle on a regular basis. There's a play together option, where multiple players can play on the same board, guessing independently of each other, in an attempt to guess the Wikipedia article. I enjoy this game a lot. I enjoy reading the Wikipedia articles after we guess the article title. The game is an opportunity to learn something new, often many something news. There's a daily game, with a "new random game" option. We will often play 3-4 games in a social setting. It's fun.
One of today's redactles was al-Zahrawi, a physician, surgeon and chemist from al-Andalus, considered one of the greatest surgeons of the Middle Ages (and, let's be real, all time). His pioneering contributions to the field of surgical procedures are still applied today. Like, the man was amazing.
Here comes the rant.
The article reads:
Okay, a slave girl tries to commit suicide, and fails. There is a reason she tried to commit suicide, and let's be real, it wasn't from boredom or a feeling of ennui. A slave girl in the middle ages is nothing more than chattel. She was likey abused, probably raped or otherwise tortured daily, by who knows by how many people. Her "bellowing like a sacrifice that has had its throat cut" was probably not from pain but from the realization that she was unable to escape the unbearable torment that drove her to choose death over the life she had in the first place. No, more harm than "a hoarseness in the voice" was happening, and she was not "restored to the best of health" after healing from an attempted suicide. I would even venture to guess she was sent back to where she tried to escape from and likely had a worse life as a result. She wasn't saved and paraded around as a success story, she likely continued the hell that was her life.
Context matters so much, and sending someone back to hell because, hey, you managed a successful tracheotomy is f'ing horrible. Again, context matters, and her life wasn't worth much during his life time. And that sucks so much. F that.