Art: Dune’s Fremen & Sandworm

*Front cover of card with close-up of one of the fremen warriors of Dune*

A couple of the reviews I’ve read of the new film version of ‘Dune’ by Frank Herbert, have said how much better it was having read the book first. So ordered my near-and-dear co-SF reader a copy that would not make it in time for his birthday, supply chain troubles and so forth.

Decided to paint him a birthday card as a teaser, and whispered a promise to our four-year-old descendant–in a fit of over-the-top confidence–to make it a ‘pop-out scary-monster’ card.

Luckily, I had Youtube to help me. Pop-out cards are a favorite subject for craft and I soon found more than I needed.

Since this is the first pop-out I’ve ever made, I managed to stretch a four stage process into about ten steps.

But feel reasonably pleased with the result. {Had to make the sandworm more recognizably a monster … I know the maw is different in the movie.}

A *Fremen on one of Dune’s Sandworms, hooking open its maw* to stop it diving under the sand

Intertwined: 3

When I get news of a project that, if it can get up, will help resolve some of the global problems our society has got us into, I get my hopes up that we can scrabble back from the brink.

But only if most of us support the few who have it in them to think up, design, test their concept and then finance it. That’s where the majority of us can help.

So there’s this one, Moonrise Seaweed Company. A promising initiative by two ocean lovers that will help save kelp and other seaweeds, help fix carbon dioxide in a natural way and will pay for itself with the products being developed.

Have a look at the products already offered as rewards for the different pledges. Now imagine a doubling and tripling of output. Have a look at the campaign. Break into the piggy bank that you keep to help negate climate change and help this project get up and running.

Short link: http://kck.st/3qUsbEk

Favourite Reads: Dog Boy

For a long time the novel-version of The Incredible Journey (1963) was my favourite ‘read’ about dogs. Then, 2009 or there abouts, I was at The Writers Festival in Byron Bay. Heard, or heard about Eva Hornung’s then new book, Dog Boy. Bought it after the segment to leaf through it while taking time out, and lunch, in my car.

I’m not a fan of events with 45+/- thousand people … probably not that many … but enough that I didn’t meet any friends or acquaintances] Read about 60 pages, kissed the Festival goodbye, drove home and read the rest.

It’s worth all the accolades. Every hyped up adjective. It’s “confronting”. “Highly descriptive, confident and thought-provoking.” “Completely believable. Unrelenting.” “Meticulous research.” “Pared-down, non-sentimental writing.” “A tour-de-force of imaginative empathy.”

In my opinion, it’s the most moving, frightening, heart-breaking story of how a child, to survive, becomes a dog. It’s writing from the soul.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6667541-dog-boy

Intertwined?

Days 4-7 of Inktober 2021, a cultural practice by Rita de Heer

Just how intertwined are we, with Nature?

Here, in this cultural practice of applying pigments to paper, pasting scraps to paper bound in book-form, and drawing over the top with an ink pen made of petrol-based polymer filled with petrol-based ink?

Not much at all. Because cultural practices are part of what we do in the World, right?

Pigments are powdered clays, lichens and mosses, madders and goldenrods, rust, verdigris, pewter and gold. Some of Nature’s bounty.

Bound with gums, latex, and oils.

En-tubed, slopped into pots, or dried in patties.

[Sold, which is a whole other story.]

Livened with water … the best is straight from the deep ground, unadulterated with unnatural chemicals such as chlorine and fluorides.

Applied to papers linens, canvas, parchments; wood panels, bone, and teeth; applied to stone.

Using brushes made of bunching the tail hairs of a myriad of different furry animals, as well as threads drawn from petroleum products such as nylon, rayon, polyesters: all of them products of the sun’s action on eon-old vegetation when you go right to the origin.

Air drying is preferable but takes a long time, so people who can’t wait use hair-dryers that often use a variation on the theme, electricity stoked with coal.

[If framed, that’s another story]

We are intertwined.

Inktober, 2021

Inspiration is everywhere but I like to start with a scrap of painted watercolor exercise, of which I have many. Tearing and cutting, I lay them out in a collage and hope I remember to glue them down before I start the drawing and sketching.

This page done with a uniball ink pen, which behaves very well on thickly coated mixed media paper. On the unpainted craftbook pages the ink sinks in and often wants to spread.

#inktober2021

Hong Kong Krazy! Original by Melanie Reim of sketchbookseduction.blogspot.com, traced over and copied by Rita de Heer

#inktober2021
Thought I would have a go at this with all the varieties of ink and ways of applying it to paper, I happen to have on hand.

It’s also re-training in fine motor co-ordination and for that reason I began with an ordinary ball point pen tracing an old postcard on Oct 1, and trying to replicate it on Oct 2.

Of course I researched the #Inktober scene after I already began. In the real competition there are topics. The first day was ‘crystal’ and the second day ‘suit’.

Lol, I’m out of it already. Just making it up as I go. If I produce something for the whole 31 days, that will be amazing enough.

Formatting Problem

Digital Illustration of a Cyborg, a cut from an iStock image

I haven’t forgotten my usual Fiction post.

WordPress is in a mode where it continually rephrases and in some cases just wipes whole sentences off the map.

So far, I’ve discovered that it’s because I’m using certain letters and signs to denote computer-speak, that are normally used in coding. WordPress thinks I’m coding? Cue, me laughing.

I’m merely off-setting computer-speak with < and > and when that didn’t work, << and >> and everything between the thingies disappears?

Interesting to see what happens when I ‘publish’ this …

It worked. So now I need to go over it all again to see what I did different.