Hindsight

This is actually from that same night that I saw Shakespeare on the Common, but I had to put a little more color on it to get it looking right.

I delivered my first round of layouts on Monday (yay! 240 pages!!). So yesterday I took the day off to relax. I got over to Mt. Auburn for a bit in the afternoon, and did these, plus another piece that needs more love before I post it.

Incidentally, these were done using a cool new toy I picked up called a Niji Waterbrush. It’s a nylon brush with a water reservoir in the handle, which means you can do watercolor without carrying a separate water container. It’s awesomely handy, though the drawback is that you don’t have as much control of the loading & flow as you would with a regular brush.

Sorry, I haven’t been posting much because I have a nasty deadline looming. I have to deliver the Odyssey layouts to my editor next week so I can get feedback before she goes on (an inconveniently long) vacation.

I tried to record myself working on it, to show how my new layout process works. But I haven’t found the right software yet to capture video from the screen. It seems to be a tricky problem to record what I’m doing, because I draw very quickly with a very thin line, yet I don’t want the video to be enormous. The freeware I’ve tried yields too low a framerate, too big a file, and loses all detail if I downsample. Anyone have any experience with this? I suppose I may have to try zooming in on a small section and using a thicker line in order to get something that looks decent.

Actors’ Shakespeare Project, my favorite Boston Shakespeare ensemble, did a reprise of their great Love’s Labours Lost production out in Harvard Square this weekend. It was just as good the second time, although a lot more distracting (ambulances, thunderstorms, smokers, etc). I also happened to meet several of the cast as well as the woman who is directing their Merchant of Venice in the fall.

I also did my first “animated” play drawing. It’s a brave new world (to quote the bard).

I wasn’t terribly impressed this year. It was lighthearted and had some very funny bits, but I found myself bored more often than I should have. Oh well, it’s a huge challenge to perform a play outdoors — or then again, maybe the problem was just me.