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Debbie Ridpath Ohi reads, writes and illustrates for young people.

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Every once in a while, Debbie shares new art, writing and resources; subscribe below. Browse the archives here.

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Entries in Life (75)

Wednesday
Nov302005

It Takes Two

Sharon Jennings and my sister


HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my friend Luisa today. :-)

I dare anyone to name a fouler-tasting liquid meant for human consumption than Buckley's Cough Syrup. For those of you who haven't yet had this unforgettable experience, imagine dumping a bottle of Vicks Vaporub into a bowl. Add a dozen pine-scented car fresheners, Muskol, some cold rubber cement, and a pint of nail polish remover.

Try to imagine how this might taste, and you have not yet come close to the vile and soul-gagging horror that is Buckley's.

It Takes Two calendar


And this is the part where I'm supposed to say but HEY, it worked, so it was worth it! The truth is that I'm still coughing. But at least I can tell myself that I'd be coughing a lot more if I hadn't taken Buckley's.

I guess.

Saw my doctor last night. She says I have a mild viral infection that's been going around, but that I'm not contagious right now. I'm glad to hear this, since I'm going to see my friends Beckett, Tom and Dave this weekend.

Yay, my It Takes Two literacy calendar arrived! The calendar features twelve children's picture book author-illustrator partnerships, including my sister and Sharon Jennings (they're on the October page).

I have such a cool sister. :-)

It Takes Two calendar



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Monday
Nov282005

NeoCitran daze

Bleh


Today's the first day I've felt half-human since my cold began. Still veryvery tired, like a Star Trek redshirt whose life essence has been sucked out by a hungry alien, leaving only a dry whimpering husk behind. I've spent most of my time sleeping or lying half-comatose on the couch watching rented movies and borrowed tv shows, living on NeoCitran and tv dinners.

Lovely image, I know.

Viewing update:



Finished Season 5 of SG-1. Because of what happened in the 2nd last episode of the season, I suspect I won't enjoy later episodes as much, but we'll see.

All That Jazz. Andy was right...it's not really a comfort movie. I'm going to finish watching this some other time. :-)

Old woman


My Fair Lady. This is THE perfect comfort movie.

The Ghost and Mrs. Muir. Okay, but I liked the book much better. Gene Tierney seemed a bit spaced-out to me. Rex Harrison, playing a much different character than he did in My Fair Lady, was quite hunky-looking in this flick.

The Door in the Floor. Interesting and sometimes compelling, but too depressing to be a comfort movie of any sort.

Girl in pastels


Thanks to those who have added themselves to my Frappr! map so far! So far I've had posts from users in Toronto, Aberdeen (Scotland), Milwauke (WI), Cincinnati (OH), Sevenoaks (UK), Kawasaki (Japan), Keyser (WV), Peterborough (UK), Gloucester (UK), Altadena (CA), Phoenixville (PA), London (UK), Berlin (Germany), New York (NY), Le Mars (IA), New Milford (CT), Nevada City (CA), Dayton (OH), Canandaigua (NY), Hamilton, Ontario, Berkeley (CA), Victoria, BC (Canada), Vancouver, BC (Canada), Rochester (NY), Sydney, New South Wales (Australia), Omaha (NE), Rockville (MD), Buffalo (NY), Worthing (UK), Manchester (UK), and Northfield (MN), Liechtenstein (Germany).

Feel free to add yourself (no registration required). If you feel uncomfortable about using your real name, a nickname will do. I've added my map link to the navigation bar on the left.

(Update: It seems that Frappr doesn't work in all browsers...apologies for this! Hopefully they'll update their software sooner than later.)

Where are YOU?


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Saturday
Nov262005

Kevin Bacon, fried green tomatoes and thermometers

Illustration Friday: Small


The doodle above was created for for Illustration Friday. This week's topic: "small."



Happy birthday to my dear friend Dave Clement today! Dave is a member of Dandelion Wine (Web site by Beckett); he and Tom are Guests of Honor at GAfilk this January. Here are some things I love about Dave.

Still sick, ugh. Watched "Footloose" yesterday and regretted it; I think you had to see this movie at the right time to appreciate it. I also have trouble taking Kevin Bacon seriously. :-) Liked "Fried Green Tomatoes" much better and yes, I did bawl at the end. I also have a terrible craving for fried green tomatoes. Where does one get green tomatoes? Are they just unripe tomatoes? I'm suddenly hungry.

I also rented the first few episodes of Alias, Season 3. Still enjoying it, but I'm getting a wee bit tired of Sydney (sp?) bursting into tears at the drop of a hat, especially at the office.

I hate being sick. I don't make a very good sick person. I'm generally good about resting lots the first day or so, but then I get restless and feel like I'm wasting time, especially when there's a lot to do.

When I was back in grade school, I remember being overjoyed when I got stay home because I was sick. If I wasn't feeling well, my mom would take my temperature and, if it was high enough, say I should stay home. When I got old enough to know what this threshold was, I used to check the thermometer myself before Mom came back.

If it wasn't high enough, I'd sometimes hold the thermometer up to the lightbulb in my bedside table to crank it up a few degrees. The trick was not to hold the thermometer TOO close to the bulb, or the mercury shot up way too high...Mom would know I was faking it. Then I'd try shaking it down, but then sometimes it would go way too low. It was an art, really.

Kids, don't try this at home.

Thanks to those who have added their locations to my map! If you haven't already, feel free to add yourself (no registration required). If you feel uncomfortable about using your real name, a nickname will do. I've added my map link to the navigation bar on the left.

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Sunday
Nov202005

comfort zones

Avocado ice cream


Still haven't seen the new Harry Potter movie. Today I decided to go to the Santa Claus parade with one of my nieces instead. Tomorrow, I have a whistle lesson with Karen Light; because of a longer commute now that we've moved, I've opted to do one lesson a month instead of biweekly.

Going back to Irish music sessions at the Tranzac this week. Looking back at my first session at the Tranzac, I'm reminded of how I felt going into the NCS Christmas party Friday.

Stepping out of one's comfort zone


I try to step outside of my comfort zone on a regular basis, doing something despite my personal fears and insecurities. Sometimes it doesn't turn out so well, but most times it does.

The fear of failure is usually a big stumbling block for many people. Sometimes it's a career-breaking one. Unless they're unusually lucky, for example, most freelance writers and artists have to get used to the sting of rejections and the occasional bad review, else they won't survive in their career longterm.

Stepping out of one's comfort zone also means being open to change, an uncomfortable notion to some people. Change usually means effort of some kind, even the mere effort of adjusting, and that's also a turn-off for many who would far rather have things continue the way they always have been.

So here's a survey question, for those willing to answer:

What's the last thing you did that forced you to step out of your comfort zone? (even a small step)

Trio


More squirrels and artsy/tech hybrids:



Thanks to Harald for sharing this memorable squirrel picture (warning! not for the weak-hearted!!)

And from my sibling-in-spirit, Scott Snyder:

"Arts / Tech Hybrid. That's me. :-)

My degree is in Theatre/ Sound Design. That's technical theatre - nearly the definition of artsy/hybrid all by itself. I spent a decade making noises for computer games, and now am Marketing VP for a large audio computer chip company, where I get to design products and generally be hip around the adults.

My entire career has been with one foot solidly in the arts (I was graphic artist for AFKN Television in South Korea at one time) and one foot in technology (I did that graphic art on a Quantel Paintbox, a very advanced graphics computer for it's time).

You are my sister. :-)"

Candid



More search engine skimpering



I've been sporadically continuing my search engine experiments. My Skimper page has dropped from #2 to #3 position because of a plug for Skimper.com. As of today, I'm removing the Skimper link from my left-hand navigation bar and seeing if that knocks me out of the #3 slot in Google results.

Hm, interesting. Just noticed that my Livejournal entry on Skimper is #5 because of content in the LJ comments section. Is this the result of some of Blatherings Google juice leaking into my LJ, or has my LJ generated its own small measure of juice?

I've also started to investigate how people find me in Google and other search engines. Here are just a few, as of Sunday morning:

talking edna doll: I'm in the #1 position in Google
Ginzu knives: #1 in AOL Search
BIKINI NIGHTMARES: #1 in Yahoo! search
limpy: #1 in AOL Search


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Friday
Nov182005

artsy/tech hybrids (part 2)

IMG_0754.JPG


Today's pics are from my Flickr archives. Feel free to click on any image to see a bigger version.

Looking forward to going to the National Cartoonist Society's Christmas party this afternoon! Possibly also the new Harry Potter movie tonight, though I might wait until I can get someone to go see it with me. Not sure if I want to risk hearing spoilers before then, however.

A few days ago, I posted a short Blathering about artsy/tech hybrids, and asked if there were any others out there.

Butter fly sculpture


Holy toledo, I was overwhelmed by the response in my Livejournal and Blatherchat discussion boards. There are a LOT of you hybrids out there. :-)

Though I suppose I shouldn't be so surprised. Unless you're utterly and happily devoted to your career path and have no other strong interests OR are a hermit-type who spends all of his/her time at home watching television outside of work hours, most people tend to be drawn to multiple disciplines.

Blatherings: handwritten entry


But I was surprised by the number of people who, like me, are now working in a career completely unconnected to their original educational path. And I also enjoyed finding out more about some of my friends who had interests of which I wasn't aware before. AND I learned about Tunisian crocheting. :-D

Anyway, here are excerpts from some of the responses:

---------------

From Chris Conway:

"My degree at university was Chemistry - which hasn't been of great use to me as a musician.
My Chemistry prof was pretty sure I wasn't a scientist..."

---------------

From surrdave:

"I have found that keeping the techie day job helps feed the creative spirit. Partly it's the general motion, motivation and momentum. Partly it's having things to say because I hear a lot. Partly it's just keeping the mind a bit jumbled.

(I spent a year majoring in music, then gave it up and got degrees in Physics and Geology. Now I work in computers and do a lot of music.)"

----------------

030110writersblock2


From keristor:

"Well, most sorts of engineer are a combination. So are a lot of musicians, there's a big overlap between music, mathematics and the sciences (allegedly some of the best musicians are found in physics labs!), and a lot of chemists and biologists are very visually oriented. So I don't think that the fabled art/science split actually exists (any more than the religion/science split does), most people partake of both.

(I'm not into visual art, really, because I have almost no visual memory, but programming correlates well with both music and literature. Including the common "I don't know who wrote this, but I don't like it!" "Er, it was you!"...)"

----------------

From aunt_marion:

"I trained as a linguist. And now I bully databases into submission for a living... Though more often than not they bully me."

-----------------

030124smokealarm


From ally_in_canada:

"I guess I am...but my artsy and my tech are relatively far apart! I'm techy in some of my jobs (AS400 drudge/desktop publisher/computer consultant) but my artsy side is very important, and I recently got another job as an instructor at Michaels, and spent the entire last weekend doing demos of the Knifty Knitter. Like many things nowadays, artsy and tech merge when it gets to the web. I may have been spending most of least weekend teaching people how to "knit without needles!" but I also referred many of them to web pages and groups where they could get help and patterns. I've recently learned and entirely new yarn craft, tunisian crochet, which I would have never heard of except for the web."

---------------

From Martin GK:

"My strong school subjects were the sciences, my degree is Engineering, my job is computer consultancy - but I enjoy it when I can use some of those skills on the music side, be it in running a sound desk (where some basic phyics knowledge on waves/frequencies is extremely useful, and engineering even more so) or, more recently, in setting up and running the FilkArchive site at http://filkarchive.scrumpy.org - which I coded from scratch as an exercise in teaching myself perl website design that has come in very useful in other areas (more work-based) since!"

----------------

Mr. Grumpypants tile coaster


From jhayman:

"Fascinating topic.

I consider myself educated on the science side: two degrees in sciences might support that (BSc and BScN). But... But... I'm pretty certain I have a strong artsy side as evidence by that songwriting, beading, [insert multiple other needlearts], sewing, cartooning (by the dark of the moon), designing, um...

Work is science oriented, though all the healing arts have an interplay of science and art. I couldn't function without a strong grounding in anatomy, physiology, chemistry, pathophysiology, statistics, etc.

My personal life is increasingly arts oriented. I really mean that. Over the years, the arts have become much more an important part of my life, both in how I choose to spend time and in how I consider time to be well-spent.

And some activities blend both: like building web sites. Making them (from scratch) requires both the technical and the creative. But then, really, so do ALL the arts.

Ah, we are of one mind..."

----------------

Illustration Friday:


From phillip2637:

"When I finished high school, my best subjects were English and Math. I had days when I figured on following one of those into chemistry or the other into journalism. Making no specific decision, I then studied Radio & Television Arts, did nothing with it career-wise, and took night courses in psychology and statistical analysis. All of which combined to turn me into a software designer, sometime photographer, and now, a weekend songwriter...to mention only a few of many semi-serious interests. Since the software hasn't been a regular paying gig in some time, it's hard to tell which are work and which are hobbies.

I blame it on a drunken guidance counselor. :-)"

------------------

From Peter Alway:

"I'm kind of artsy-science, but not so much tech, at least as tech has been narrowly defined in the last 20 years (computers and digital electronics).

My degrees are in physics (BA and MS) and I teach astronomy, but my other job is publishing, and my drawings and historical writing are central to my publishing business. Of course the drawings are more like technical illustrations, and the history is the history of rocketry and space exploration.

I've only gotten serious about music in the last two or three years, and I don't make money from that, but it is becoming more important to me.

Illustration Friday:


Funny, just yesterday, I was talking about spectroscopy in class, and I was making a point about how our eyes have lousy spectral range and resolution compared to our ears, and illustrated it with the dulcimer in class. I've done that for a few years, now, but this time I also played a little tune on the dulcimer before the on-topic demonstrations, simply because if you see a musical instrument, you expect and want to hear music from it or it's just Not Right.

I actually feel that my scientific and artsy sides are very much integrated with each other."

-----------------

From D'Glenn:

"Well I identify pretty strongly as a geek, and that's where I earned my living before I got sick, the social environment in which I'm most comfortable, the direction a lot of my spare-time thinking has always gone (not just "my field"; science/tech in general) ...
... but if you catch me unawares and ask out of the blue, "What are you?", my gut-level answer is, "A guitarist." I'll probably pause to think (the censor-circuit in my brain is pretty quick) and try to guess a context and choose a "more suitable" answer for whatever context I guess to say aloud, but the gut says "guitarist" before "human", "techie", "Christian", "transgendered person", or anything else. "Poet" comes pretty close behind "guitarist".

Which way do I think I lean? I have no clue, thinking about it. But some low-level part of me identifies more strongly as an artist.

Funny thing, I never really thought that much about how creating art is like programming, but I've often contemplated how programming is like creating art. Perhaps that's another clue as to which way I skew."

------------------

Justin and the Penguin


From Beckett: (whom I get to see in two weeks, yay!!)

"Hmm. Started out in hard sciences (really!), quickly realized I didn't have the right brain for it, went into animal science/animal behavior, managed to get a BS degree in that. All while supporting myself at a myriad of jobs, but the art jobs I found kind of kept taking over. Got out of UC Davis, looked around and decided to seriously pursue arts, illustration as a career. Got told by a fathead male art director that I'd never make it as an illustrator and to give up and go raise a family or something. Got mad, researched art schools and went to the Academy of Art in San Fran. And the rest is history, really. But I will say the scientific training has come in handy for a number of reasons:
-analytical thinking
-learning how to study and teach oneself new skills and disciplines
-pragmatism and skepticism
-being able to self-identify as more than just my profession(s)- very handy for switching jobs as needed
-life experience that there's always someone out there better, and getting a swelled head does no good for one's art.
-um, and probably more, but I have two hungry boys to feed right now... (so the comment of 'give up and go raise a family or something' has kind of come full circle, I guess, but I _can_ do the art; just now I choose to raise the kids, right?)"

------------------

The red balloon


From bitpixie:

"I don't know if I'm more artsy or techy because I wouldn't want to pick just one. I'm not really happy unless I'm combining everything.

I started college as a Computer Engineering major and after programming several calculators, I got bored and tried taking more courses in art and sociology (I love observing how people interact and how the setting affects that), but it wasn't ever enough. Eventually, I switched to Architecture. I figured it was a good combination of math and art. In my new major, I had a chance to work on my painting, drawing, photography and, of course, building design, but I also had to learn about HVAC systems, material strengths and construction techniques. During the summers, I worked for my dad, a contractor, working up bid estimates and drafting building plans. I still took programming and math courses, but now I was geared toward computer graphics for architectural walk-thrus.

For a year after I graduated, I worked for a small firm that built custom homes. Now, I do special effects, crowd simulation and set design for computer animation. I think my job is perfect for drawing from of all my experiences. Plus, I'm surrounded by people who are also artsy techies and techy artists. I love it so much!

And, of course, part of my spare time is devoted to dabbling on the web :)"

--------------

From missquirt:

"My undergraduate degree was in Arts and Science, with pretty much a 50/50 course split in arts and science courses. I also have a minor in math, but the two upper level courses that completed my minor were "History of Math" and "Selected readings on "Women in math"" because math and I had a fight partway through third year. Most of the women I talked to in math had double majors in music/literature/drama, especially the younger women.

I took one computer science course because my dad wanted me to, and while I did well, and I could see how one could get sucked in to that form of problem solving, it didn't really make me passionate.

Illustration Friday:


Now I'm doing a masters in arts. I'm glad for my science backgroud, because it gives me great insight into how scientists think, but I think I've come to realize that science is something I could do well rather than something I really enjoyed. I'm having great fun deconstructing my worldview (like a good little grad student) so I think I'm in the right place. That said, I think there are huge parallels between, for example, math and history."

--------------

From stevieannie:

"I'm the other way round - my degree is in an arts subject, but I find myself writing webpages...

I'm definitely more of an arts person deep down, though, and at the end of the day, I see what I do as an art, not as a science, whatever my boss might think. Careers are weird and twisted sometimes - Tim started out training as an architect, went into man-management, then became a pricing manager, then a charity director and went back to buildings with a bit of architecture on the side. Weird. How many semi-trained architects do I know that worked on sausage production lines? Not many..."

---------------

From epi_lj:

"Well, my official job title is, "IT Manager and Graphic Designer," soo... :)

I'm definitely more artistic in personal bent and interest, but my job is almost entirely tech, and my degree is tech. I don't think I have real "hybrid" pedigree though, because I don't sell or make money at any of my arty interests. But outside of work, the last thing I want to do is be very very techy. I'd much rather spend my times doing arty things."

--------------

Illustration Friday


From braider:

"I'm something of an artsy/tech hybrid. I love doing a multitude of arts and crafts-type things, as well as music - but some of the bits I love best about my job are supplying front-line tech support when someone has trouble with MS Word, or creating an Access database, or (in the midst of creating a db) learning a bit more coding.

Not a big tech geek, certainly. Mostly one by association. However, it's something I genuinely enjoy."

-------------

From trektone:

"I don't feel I'm either, really. Maybe it's all in the labels. I like trying to be creative, but not particularly artistic. While I'm interested in sciences, my banking day jobs (currently in an IT area) never seemed that science-y."

--------------

The Whistle Player


From folkmew:

"Well for sure arts for me. But comfortable (mostly) with tech.

I'm having great fun exploring watercolors for my "Arts: The Creative Process" class this semester (when you have an "Arts in Education" concentration you get to take all these cool classes!)

I love your illustrations and I hope you will make sure I know of any children's books published with them so I can add them to my children's book collection ok? :)"

--------------

From beige_alert:

"I suppose I might count. I started out studying Computer Engineering, but ended up with a BS in Chemistry. Now I'm something of a biochemist of the instrumental sort, running mass spectrometers and such. Plus some Unix geekery. I also play two musical instruments (flute and guitar), have done just a tiny bit of songwriting, do a little drawing, some photography, and I'm working on that second language (Spanish)."

-------------

From Dave Weingart:

"My degree is in Physics. I spend my days at a computer trying to get programs do do what I want them to do.
I spend my actual TIME daydreaming and singing."





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