Motley Moose – Archive

Welcome to Sunday All Day Brunch. This is an open topic thread so help yourself to the goodies and sit a spell and let us know what is new in your life. One of the things I inherited from my Mom was her love of refrigerator magnets. My fridge is loaded with them. Sometimes I even use them to hold up notes but for the most part they are decorations. I got some from my Mom and one from my Dad. I gravitate towards unicorns and cats but I have some other types too.

(Cross posted from Street Prophets)

Welcome to Thursday Coffee Hour. This is an open topic thread so help yourself to the goodies and sit a spell and let us know what is going on in your life. Today I am really happy about some art that I’ve done.

On July 31, 2003 I did a picture I called Morning Has Broken. It turned out to be my favorite picture. As the models and textures improved over the years I wanted to go back and revisit the picture and fix the ring around the planet and the tree. The tree models available in 2003 were pretty primitive. They have greatly improved over the years. The problem was that my computer would crash every time I tried to bring the picture up. I figured I would just have to leave it the way it was. I was looking for a different picture on the computer and realized it had never been transferred over from my old workhorse computer. While transferring it onto a CD I decided on the off chance that it might work if I transferred the Bryce file for Morning Has Broken. Much to my delight I was able to pull the file up on the new machine and fix my planet and tree.

I can’t say for sure what makes this picture so special to me. It does have some of my favorite things in it though. I love mountains and water and pine trees and ringed planets. I think that the sense of peace that this picture conveys may be what I love the most about it. It is a place where I would definitely love to live.

(Cross Posted from Street Prophets)

Welcome to Sunday All Day Brunch. This is an open topic thread so help yourself to the goodies and sit a spell and let us know what is new in you life. Today I thought I’d show how music sometimes influences my art. Often there will be lyrics in a song that causes a picture to pop into my mind. Here are three songs that came about because of music.

I Dreamed A Dream from Les Miserables

There was a time when men were kind

When their voices were soft

And their words inviting

There was a time when love was blind

And the world was a song

And the song was exciting

There was a time

Then it all went wrong

I dreamed a dream in time gone by

When hope was high

And life worth living

I dreamed that love would never die

I dreamed that God would be forgiving

Then I was young and unafraid

And dreams were made and used and wasted

There was no ransom to be paid

No song unsung, no wine untasted

But the tigers come at night

With their voices soft as thunder

As they tear your hope apart

As they turn your dream to shame

He slept a summer by my side

He filled my days with endless wonder

He took my childhood in his stride

But he was gone when autumn came

And still I dream he’ll come to me

That we will live the years together

But there are dreams that cannot be

And there are storms we cannot weather

I had a dream my life would be

So different from this hell I’m living

So different now from what it seemed

Now life has killed the dream I dreamed.

The Moons A Harsh Mistress

By Jimmy Webb

See her how she flies

Golden sails across the sky

Close enough to touch

But careful if you try

Though she looks as warm as gold

The moon’s a harsh mistress

The moon can be so cold

Once the sun did shine

Lord, it felt so fine

The moon a phantom rose

Through the mountains and the pines

And then the darkness fell

And the moon’s a harsh mistress

It’s so hard to love her well

I fell out of her eyes

I fell out of her heart

I fell down on my face

Yes, I did, and I — I tripped and I missed my star

God, I fell and I fell alone, I fell alone

And the moon’s a harsh mistress

And the sky is made of stone

The moon’s a harsh mistress

She’s hard to call your own.

Brave

Josh Groban

Wake up, wake up, the sun cannot wait for long.

Reach out, reach out before it fades away.

You will find the warmth when you surrender.

Smile into the fear and let it play.

You wanna run away, run away and you say that it can’t be so.

You wanna look away, look away but you stay cause’ it’s all so close.

When you stand up and hold out your hand.

In the face of what I don’t understand.

My reason to be brave.

Hold on, hold on, so strong, time just carries on.

And all that you thought was wrong is pure again.

You can’t hide forever from the thunder.

Look into the storm and feel the rain.

You wanna run away, run away and you say that it can’t be so.

You wanna look away, look away but you stay cause’ it’s all so close.

When you stand up and hold out your hand.

In the face of what I don’t understand.

My reason to be brave.

Whoa (x 4)

Go on, go on…

You wanna run away, run away and you say that it can’t be so.

You wanna look away, look away but you stay cause’ it’s all so close.

When you stand up and hold out your hand.

In the face of what I don’t understand.

My reason to be brave.

Welcome to Sunday All Day Brunch. This is an open topic thread so help yourself to the goodies and pull up a chair and sit a spell and let us know what is new in your life. I thought today we could take a quick tour around our solar system.

I am a huge space buff and one of the reason I got into art was so I could do space art. So sit back and relax and enjoy the tour of our little corner of the Milky Way.

We start with our sun a normal main-sequence G2 star that contains 99.8% of the mass of our solar system.

The closest planet to the sun is Mercury. Recently Messenger discovered that ice-water lies underneath dark, seemingly organic compounds on the surface of Mercury.

Venus is one of the most beautiful sights in our sky but you don’t want to live there. It is the hottest world in our solar system reaching temperatures of 847°F, which is hot enough to melt lead.

We are the third planet from the sun and have the first moon as we make our way out from the sun. The leading theory on the moon’s formation was that it was formed when a giant impact knocked off a chunk of the forming earth. Because it takes 27.3 days both to rotate on its axis and to orbit Earth, the Moon always shows us the same face.

Mars has always fascinated mankind. It is the home of Marvin the Martian. Its two moons, Phobos and Deimos, however don’t look like other moons in the solar system and may be captured asteroids. Mars is a desert planet and is half the diameter of Earth but it has the same amount of dry land as we do.

The asteroid belt orbits between Mars and Jupiter. It is believed that Jupiter’s strong gravitational force kept the asteroids from coming together to form a planet. Either that or there was a planet there that was obstructing Marvin’s view of Jupiter and he used his Illudium PU-36 Explosive Space Modulator on it.

Jupiter is the most massive planet in the solar system. If it had been 80 times more massive it would have been a star rather than a planet.

Jupiter’s moon Io is the most volcanically active body in our solar system.

Jupiter’s moon Europa may actually contain life. Europa is covered with a thick layer of ice but has a liquid ocean underneath. The late science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke had that as his premise for his 2001 A Space Odyssey book series.

Saturn is the crown jewel of our solar system with her gorgeous rings. You could fit 760 Earths in the planet but it is so lightweight that if you had a big enough bathtub it would float.

Saturn’s moon Enceladus has water and geysers. The water vapor actually feeds Saturn’s E Ring. With its water and organic compounds Enceladus is another place in our solar system that might harbor life.

 

Saturn’s moon Titan is the only moon in the solar system with clouds and a dense atmosphere.

Sometime is its history Uranus got knocked over on its side. It is the only planet whose magnetic poles are East/West instead of North/South.

Neptune has a thick, slushy fluid mix of water, ammonia and methane ices under its atmosphere.

Neptune’s moon Triton has a very thin atmosphere and has been shown to actually have seasons although at -391°F you might not want to get those swimsuits out.

Pluto is officially a dwarf planet now however as any good Lord of the Rings fan knows dwarfs are very fierce. Charon is one of Pluto’s moons.

So that’s our solar system. I’ll leave you with a poem I wrote to celebrate our little corner of the Universe.

Celestial Dance

They danced with the moon.

They danced with the stars.

They danced the night away.

The dreams that they dreamed

Encircled the world

And greeted the new day.

They danced with Venus

The beautiful planet of love.

They danced as the clouds

Swirled in time up above.

Then they danced with Mercury

And played tag with the sun.

They danced with Mars

And underneath the red sky,

They greeted the Martians

As they floated by.

Then they danced in time

To the comet that went by.

They danced with Jupiter

The giant of the skies,

And its moons circled above

As they spun and danced by.

And their laughter and dancing

Brightened the dark spot’s eye.

They danced with Saturn

Skipping along its rings,

And with gay abandon

They made the rings sing.

And Saturn’s rings kept time

As the dancers waltzed by.

They danced and they danced

Under celestial skies,

And the stars and the planets

Saluted as they passed by;

And bright as the sun

Was the love they shared with the sky.

(Republished from the sane Street Prophets area of the orange fainting couch.)

Welcome to Thursday Coffee Hour this is an open topic thread so help yourself to the goodies and sit a spell and let us know what is going on in your life. I just finished an art piece the other night and I have to say it really resonates with what is going on in my life at the moment.

I am still trying to get all of my brothers finances cleared up. Still trying to get the house sold. Still trying to get through to Social Security to get Medicare drug help. Sometimes it feels like I am battling huge dragons with a nothing but a feather. Bureaucracy is just horrendous. Rarely do you get the help you need. Once in a while though someone actually believes that Customer Service means just that. Last Friday I got a letter from Social Security saying they were denying my application for help with the Medicare Drug Costs because they didn’t get back everything they asked for. The first time I got a letter saying they needed something back that I had already sent I called and was assured that our letters got crossed in the mail. I got a man named Jeffrey this time who actually went the extra mile. He looked up my record, said I was qualified for the help, and filed the appeal. He gave me the phone number to call for the appeals people. I left a message yesterday, got a call back today from someone whom I could barely understand, and then got a second call back from a lady telling me the appeal was in process and they didn’t need anything else from me. Yeah Jeffrey!

Yesterday I was trying to get through the confusing telephone prompt menu of the Department of Defense to get some answers on what paperwork they needed to get any unpaid Army pay to my brother Mike’s daughter. I got the wrong department and the man who answered took the time to find out what I needed. He asked to put me on hold for a few minutes saying he understood the phone system and would get the information for me. He came back a few minutes later with the exact information I needed.

So thanks to my two dragon fighters for taking the time to help me out. It is nice to know that their are people in this world who care and will help.

I have a massive headache so I’m just messing around with art programs. The weather is going wonky and that always inflames my sinuses. Looking at some art I’ve been working on recently I thought I’d go ahead and share.

Call of the Wild

Caregiver’s Rainbow (That is Pixie and I.)

Churchyard

Daydreaming

Golden Dragon (In Chinese mythology dragons are good creatures and protectors.)

Io (Why you may not want to vacation on this moon of Jupiter.)

Moon Petal Musk (Inspired by one of my favorite bath product fragrances.)

Peace (Something we all need in our lives. Picture inspired by my late Dad.)

River of Dreams

Stormy Weather

“Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere. ”

Carl Sagan

Welcome to Sunday All Day Brunch. This is an open topic thread so help yourself to the goodies and sit a spell and let us know what is going on in your life. I’ve been thinking about my Dad today. Dad always said that he was a dreamer. My Mom was very practical and she told me more then once I was a dreamer like my Dad.

Sometimes as a graphic artist things come out even better then you possibly imagined they could. Like this one for example that I just finished called “The Night Sky.”

Reposted from Street Prophets: Faith and Politics

Welcome to Thursday Coffee Hour. This is an open topic thread so help yourself to the goodies and sit a spell and let us know what is going on in your life. Lately I have had to try and incorporate elements from my parent’s home into my own. My place is a small two-bedroom apartment with a definite lack of closet space so I had to try and work around the lack of places to store things. I wanted to honor both of my parents who are deceased and my older brother who recently passed away. I also needed to be mindful of my own tastes and things I like. One of the things I have been interested in is using feng shui, yin-yang, and the Tao Te Ching to try and reach a balance. For someone who was brought up Irish Catholic that is quite a new experience. Follow me below the orange squiggly-de-do for one women’s quirky attempt at balance.

I am a space buff. I discovered science fiction when I was eight years old. I have been convinced since then that we are not alone.