Change in Timbre

For a couple of years (in that other life I mention occasionally) my job was to make karyotypes, the short definition of which is to create a photograph of an individual's chromosomes. Cool, huh? Actually, it sort of was. I'd stain the slides before photographing to make the individual bands of the chromosomes show up. That way I could identify them and put them in pairs, in order. Sometimes, after a long day of karyotyping, I'd leave the lab only to see chromosome bands everywhere I looked. The stripes on my tabby's tail, the pattern in a towel, markings on the pavement or fence posts were like chromosome afterimages on my brain.

Today I got the same sort of effect. It's still too hot to even attempt to cool the studio enough to work, so I worked instead on the illustration for next year's Nebula Award ceremony. I enjoyed working with pencils again. It's a good thing too, because I have some grueling two-dimensional work coming up soon and need to get my 'pencil fingers' back in shape. This time it was a drawing (which will become a painting) with a couple hundred puzzle pieces in it. Now they're everywhere.
Yikes.

Well, at least they're not in groups of three...

My right hand hurts up to my shoulder. Drawing does use different muscles than sculpting, though probably I'm working harder due to lack of practice.

So, I shall have a swim in the dark and look for puzzle pieces out there, else they'll show up in my dreams.

Gurtie update: I left the room for a bit and came back to find her sprawled out over the pages I was working on, doing her best to edge them off the table and onto the floor. Gee, I think she's beginning to like me.

G'night