U F O

This is a cool, digitally altered photo I found online to go with the following bit of very short flash fiction I recently wrote (below) for a prompt shared with my writing group.

UFO

     They hold hands, staring at the ceiling as sweat evaporates from their bodies. They’ve been married 27 years and have never made love with such ferocity, nor at the same time, with so much tenderness that both of them had cried.
     At last she speaks. “What have you heard?”
     He answers as though in a trance. “Everything is in chaos.”
     “But, what did you hear?”
     He turns on his side to face her.
     “I saw the president speak. He gave a prayer.”
     “I saw that too! I nearly came unglued when he cried.”
     “What?! He cried?”
     “Right after his prayer.”
     “I didn’t get that far. Several of us at the office were hovering around one computer. I was crowded out, but I’d seen and heard enough. I just wanted to get home to you.” He brushes her hair out of her eyes and pulls her closer. “Have you spoken to the kids?”
     She shakes her head. “Everything went off after the speech. There’s no television, no phone, no internet.” She shudders and her breath accelerates. She’s falling apart and nothing can stop it from happening.
     “I can’t reach my babies!” she wails.
     “Shhhhh.” Her husband holds her, rocks her, tries to maintain his own sanity for both their sakes.
     She eventually rolls away from him and reaches for an old tissue on the nightstand. “What do you think they want?”
     “I’ve no idea, my love.”
     He moves until he’s behind her. He wraps his arms around her middle, her back to his chest, her warmth against a terrible coldness closing in on him. Two people alone in a world of seven billion people, who are also alone.

   
     I read this to my group last week and as I neared the end I heard my friend Brenda catch her breath. As he "moved behind her" she thought he was going to wrap his multiple arms around her!!!  Haha! That would have been a great way to end it!

   

Willow House

  As I mentioned in my last post, I recently finished writing a manuscript for a middle grade novel. I wanted to a have a book cover design in my portfolio so why not my own book?! This is a mixture of an acrylic painting (below), with a little digital help, including the addition of the paint pour from my last post.

  The next image is the first rough draft I did on my iPad. I'm going to set it all aside for a while because I think the best result lies somewhere between, and like the manuscript, it needs time to simmer.

Paint Pour

 This is a paint pour - acrylic paint mixed with Floetrol, poured in various color layers into a plastic cup and dumped over a canvas. There's a bit more to it than that, but that's the gist. If you're interested in learning more, there are a lot of online tutorials or you can check out this book Paint Pouring: Mastering Fluid Art by Rick Cheadle. I did a few experiments on small inexpensive canvases and below is how one of them turned out:

 I uploaded this photo to Procreate on my iPad and played with it, adding a bit more black and a few highlights, etc. to get the image at the top. I'm wanting to experiment with more and possibly incorporate these beautiful designs into my illustrations! 

 This is the kind of messy project I want to do in my studio, not the dining room table. I've been waiting for my basement studio to dry out from all the rain, but it's been damp with rain puddles down there for months. I may have to go get myself a pair of rain boots and just do it.

 One more thing before I go, something I want to put out into the universe - I finished a manuscript yesterday for a middle grade novel!!!! I don't have co-worker authors to give me a high five. My phone didn't automatically ring with publishers and agents begging my attention. No big check appeared in my mailbox. But, I did it! Yay!!! 

They're not bad. They're just drawn that way.

     A sly look over the shoulder, an evil grin, or an imposing angle can be intimidating on even the most adorable child.

     This month I've returned to doing more writing but I start my days with sketchbook practice. The expressions this week would fit nicely into a Stephen King story.

School Days

Oh, the memories!

I only rode the school bus from kindergarten through second grade and a very short time my freshman year of high school, but what an experience!

This piece was a challenge, but so much fun! It was mostly drawn in the Procreate App on my iPad. A few of the faces I scanned from recent sketchbook pages, (children's expressions I've been practicing) popped them in and colored them. I'm going to set the image aside for a while and come back to it in a few months when I can look at it with fresh eyes and see adjustments that need to be made. This piece will most likely be the month of AUGUST on my calendar.

Below is the piece I did for MAY. I'm not sure it fits with my other images so I may end up changing this one completely.

"July" (titled "Summer" three previous times)

Hi! I'm Tracy Oñoz - an artist who does the same thing a hundred times.

There is a good reason, however. First, I'm working on a project that calls for a square format and not many of my older pieces can simply be cropped. Second, each year my illustration skills improve. I look at my so-called finished pieces with a more critical eye. I've picked up new digital techniques, figured out how to do things better and more efficiently and I've gotten closer to being able to achieve what I envisioned in the first place.

This is how "Summer" looked in  2014, done with watercolor and acrylic paints. It has, in my humble opinion, a lot of good stuff - bright colors, energy. etc. It's a pretty doggone happy piece. Maybe the fact that I've liked it so much has something to do with why I keep going back. I'm hoping, though, that you agree the revisit was worth it.

You can link HERE to a couple of my other "Summers" that brought me to this last one.  Really.  The one at the top is my last one.  Really . . .  For now.