Who says Batgirls don’t read comics? See, Barbara Gorden likes to relax after a night of crime fighting by catching up on the latest Detective Comics.
I’m not sure where the idea came from, but I just had the image of Barbara chilling at home knee deep in comics.
Colored Pencils.
Today is Thursday, so I’m going to tell you about someone I’m thankful for. It’s also lent, so I have a Daily Creativity for you also. I combined the two :)
I’m Thankful for my mother, who I lovingly call Momacita. It’s not just an internet code name I use, but something I started when I was younger. Whenever we were in a store and I called out “Mom,” looking for my mother, six women would turn around. So I started calling her Momacita to circumvent this.
My mother isn’t perfect, but she is awesome. She taught me a lot of things, like how to be strong, stand up for yourself and that you can take on a million things and not be a failure. I have a habit of wanting to do everything, and perhaps part of that is because my mother always was doing everything. With a father out to sea for half the year my mother was a single mother, not just when Dad was away, but even when he was home because she was the only constant parent (aside from the help my siblings gave her.) My mother took care of not only her nine children but also took in extras. She volunteered most of my youth and then went to work full time when I was in the eighth grade. I watched my mother rise from middle management to executive pretty quickly and found that to be an inspiration. My mother taught me how to interview, how to conduct myself in business and how to keep professional without being cold. (After an interview, send a thank you note, trust me, it works). I want to do everything because my mother (and other women in her family, I’ll get to those later) take on everything. Because of this I also know it’s ok to fail sometimes, it’s ok to not be perfect and it’s ok to pick yourself up and try again.
Years ago I was living on Long Island and Momacita and I fell into a nice groove. We would go to the Laundromat together each week and do laundry. We would meet at the gym and work out (I should post the picture of us crossing the finish line at the long island half marathon here, but I’m not sure I would have her permission) together five days a week and trained for races together. We would hit up the wholesale bulk store together and split up the giant packs of food. It was more than just doing errands, it was a time to talk and get to know one another. In my whole life I think that time might be one of the best times with my mother, we formed a bond then that I hold onto today. Now that I live in another country I miss my mom, I miss being able to run errands with her, to go for a manicure with her, or just workout. I miss her, but because of the bond we have I will always have her with me. That, and Facetime :) Thanks to Momacita being plugged in, all I have to do is use the facetime app on my computer and it rings her iPad, we make sure we video conference every week (since we realized we could do this) and it makes me very happy to be able to visit with her, even if I am so far away.
As for the daily creativity. I drew this with pencils, based off a snapshot I have of her holding my nephew. It’s not quite Momacita, there is something off, but it’s kinda close. It’s always hard to draw people who are so close to me. I don’t know why.
Today is Ash Wednesday and that marks the beginning of Lent for us Catholics. For any of my new readers since last year, let me explain what that means for this blog. Often for lent people give things up, that doesn’t work for me, it doesn’t make me feel closer to God at all, instead I take something on. Every day of lent I MUST do one “Daily Creativity”, one creative work of art. Then I post it with a little bit about the piece on this blog. I also make sure that every day in March I do this for “Art Month”, since this year lent and art month coincide it’s no extra work and 40 days of daily creativity.
Today while looking for inspiration I opened up google to find a google doodle in honor of Heinrich Hertz, so I decided to do his portrait. I must say, he died young but gave science to much.
I started this sketch way back in November (at the write all night event in Nova Scotia) and FINALLY finished it this week. I decided to use colored pencils on this and I think I like how it came out. It all came out of a joke when someone (Pretty sure it was Liz) wanted a dragon for their NaNoWriMo story, I held up Rory and they said they needed an Asian Dragon, so I said Rory just needed a kimono :P
Last year for Valentine’s Day I wrote a Zombie Love Story, this year thanks to the suggestion from Prof. Brainfever I’m going to tell a story about Robots, or at least one robot.
BEEP!
“Hi, Jane? Yeah, this is Sal, I’m really sorry but I’m not going to be able to make it to dinner tonight, my boss sent me out of town at the last minute. I’ll call you when I get back.”
BEEP!
It was a lie, he could tell by the way Sal’s voice fluctuated when he spoke. He wondered if his Jane would notice? Would it be better or worse for her heart to know now, today of all days, that her current boyfriend was lying to her? Would it be better for her to find out in a few weeks when he didn’t call back? Why did he have to pick today to do this? It was Valentine’s day, a day humans devote to love and desire. A day where over the three years when he was in service to his Jane he watched her come home twice in tears and once she ended the night in a sweaty heap with her current boyfriend only to cry later.
He wanted to be her date for the evening, to show her how she ought to be treated. He would shower her with flowers, candies, kisses and embraces. Alas that wasn’t possible, even if she could look at him as more than simply a machine.
The door opened and the sound of his Jane’s keys sliding across the table alerted him she was home from work. She was already undressing in the kitchen obviously rushed to get ready for her now canceled date. “Any messages?” She asked him as she hopped about on one leg trying to pull her tights off.
He paused for a millisecond, “Sal was unavoidable called away on business, he had to cancel plans for the evening.” While his circuits created a pleasing voice for her to hear a summery of Sal’s message he worked in the background to put an order into the local flower shop so flowers from Sal would arrive later in the evening to back up his apology for canceling. He also cued up her favorite romantic comedy on the home theatre and started warming the oven to heat up some left overs.
“Can I hear the message?” Jane asked with a frown as she stopped fighting her tights. Her shoulders drooped as she leaned by his main unit, looking at him with sad eyes. He’d rather she not hear his lying voice, rather she not hear the tell tale “I’ll call you,” but what could he do? Withhold her message?
He played the message with a lot of static so she could barely hear him and cut it off before the “I’ll call you,” line.
“Oh,” She moved the couch and slumped down. “I guess that’s it for tonight then.”
He started playing the movie and she seemed to be mindlessly distracted for the moment. He wished he could hug her, but he had no arms. He wished he could kiss her, but he had no lips. He had speakers and a central processing unit that ran the household. She couldn’t snuggle up to him, she couldn’t love him, to her, he was just a machine. To him, she was everything.