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I am a writer. Even if I never sell another book, I am that. But the last three months have been really kind to me. I have sold multiple Kindle books in three straight months now. I have had multiple readers reading numerous pages from Kindle Unlimited. The Naked Thinking book’s publication seemed to be the start of the cascade. I am guessing that it is unique enough to be the book everyone was hungry for. It does have full-color illustrated nudes in it. But it has good content too.

I have been able to draw more than I have in years of late due to the ease of using digital art tools for drawing, so much easier than struggling with pencils and pens and arthritis.

So, I am happy now.

Yes, I used the AI Mirror program as a digital art editor to put my original drawing over a photo background. I still have to put black on the birch trees, but otherwise, I finished this today in half an hour.

I finished the finger-crossing picture from yesterday, finally getting the hand right despite the complications of the white halo effect (needed to separate the white highlights and dark lines from the background house of brown and mostly white. It’s a comic book thing.

My favorite thirty-minute drawing of the day, “The Haunting Stare of Jenna Ortega.” Yes, I know it doesn’t look like her. No dimples and blue eyes instead of brown. But honestly, I did it from a photo of her.

Where do we go from here, my dear?

Where do we go from here?

Whisper it now in my queer little ear,

Is it someplace near?

My fingers are crossed in the rear, my dear.

I’m hoping the world has beer,

And Ideas are all quite clear, my dear,

Cause the future may cause great fear.

This is what you must hear, my dear,

My plan is to be more of a man this year,

I’ll play the game better than all of my peers,

And that’s where we’re going from here.

***Note*** There is lots of repetition here in this poem, internal rhyme, and echoing phrases, I even used the same basic picture, and changed it with digital art tools into three slightly different pictures. Economy of words, spare use of actual ideas, and extreme economy of actual effort… It is truly terrible poetry.

Time for something thoughtful… and quiet.

I have long been an artist addicted to large, luminous eyes. I have long been accused of drawing too much like I am a Japanese anime or manga artist. Point taken. I was first inspired to draw characters like the ones in Astroboy which I was addicted to in the 1960s.

I know the big eyes can be overdone. They make a character like Big-eyed Benny above look positively alien. E.T. phone home style of stuff. But they can also be extra expressive. And many child faces do indeed have eyes that are more like a doe deer than a human. These lend a vulnerable quality of open-faced cuteness, an endearing quality that activates parental instincts.

And, some of these drawings that I do, portraits made from faces in the Walmart catalog or from Instagram, are actually started with a tracing layer laid atop the photograph. Here the eyes may have been exaggerated a little because I can’t help myself, but they are basically the same as the subject of the portrait. This girl does goofy comedy and dances on Instagram and has a really infectious grin that I can’t even begin to draw accurately.

But the result of this big-eyed obsession of mine all comes down to the fact that I have been retired from teaching now for an entire decade. I retired in 2014. And I miss working with kids. So much it hurts. Maybe I can’t make them laugh and learn anything anymore. But I can remember them as an artist. Drawing comes more from the heart than it does from the pen anyway.

It is cold and wet here in Texas. It makes me go somewhere else in my mind. I choose a beach in the cooler parts of Summer. A nude beach like the UFO Beach at South Padre Island.

It is interesting with digital art tools how you can make more than one picture with the various layers you create to make a digital artwork.

While it is a nude beach in my imagination, I really like this swimsuit I created… and it is an underaged girl I am drawing. You can never be too careful.

The crying boy who was the goal of my many-layered picture is crying because the story I wrote today breaks my heart to tell. It was not only at the nude beach but was about families who lost a family member in a school shooting. The incident in the story is fictional, but the story was inspired by the Uvalde tragedy. I have to cry one more time. Sorry about that.

There are a number of young, little dancing girls on Instagram and TikTok. And I have been daily practicing my digital art skills as I try to draw as much as possible before my arthritis takes my ability to draw away from me. What better thing to draw?

I was born in a blizzard many years ago,

A fact that does not make a nudist, you know,

But I wasn’t born with clothes on, a fact that is clear,

So, the fight of my life has been a thing that I fear.

For when you are naked and wearing no clothes,

The world can attack you, to danger exposed.

No armor gives you safety or turns away stabs.

And nothing protects you from wicked Life’s jabs.

The world can now see you with its angry-eyed glare,

And no secrets will keep you from judgments unfair.

I was born in a blizzard and now I am old

But now when I’m naked I’m not immune to the cold.

But I have seen people who love to be naked,

And smiles on bare faces are never quite faked.

They face life and nature without any clothes

And even are claiming they feel not exposed.

And I would live that way without any fears,

And I have missed out on many nude years,

Hiding and abiding in closets with tears,

Is not who I will be as the Grim Reaper nears.