Author Archives: davidstong
canned memories
This was on a shelf in my kitchen: An off brand, several years past the best by date, with touches of corrosion on the top. It used to sit on my counter with a wine glass standing on top of it, and now, I can’t throw it out. When my daughter came to pick up …
seven year anniversary
On November 30, today, I’ve been retired for seven years. Small problems, inevitable new problems, and obsolescence have me considering using fairly dear savings for a new 16″ Macbook Pro. It looks really good, but do I need it? Digital work is a lot of fun, sometimes I get to help friends, but looking at …
rubbish bin
What do I do with piles of sketches? In books, in folders, laying loose. When I moved to Bellefonte six years ago, I cleared out what I thought was most of it, but I keep turning up more. flickr does an interesting job of aggregating the stuff- sizing the images I uploaded so they fit …
Harriet Tubman
The Library of Congress just received a photograph of Harriet Tubman. Since her biopic is coming out, it’s appearing in a few places on the internet. Since it comes with no restrictions and the Library provides a large TIFF download (seriously large, 160 megs) I had to grab it so I could stare into her …
mccloud reading (old)
This re-post of my November 2010 Penn State blog features some of Scott McCloud’s work, just in case anyone misses the nature of the post. It’s a reaction to the NMR reading featuring a chapter of McCloud’s book, Understanding Comics. I took the first page from McCloud’s chapter “Time Frames” and inserted a two page …
blew it
This was a tough one. It started a year ago with an old friend asking if I’d be interested in contract work. Likely as much an attempt to throw me a bone as use grant money. The needs started with a decision tree, but that felt wrong to me. At the time, I couldn’t say …
old drawings for the Bellefonte balloon story
A friend visited recently and asked for some of the cards I had printed with balloon sketches on them. I’m just about out- it was only an experiment to see how they’d print. So I could be more up-to-date, I had to take out my sketchbook to show him some of the more recent (five …
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Five
I figured her mom would have a real cake with candles and singing. I wanted to do something different so I did an alaska. It’s been years, but it’s all pretty standard technique. Genoise in the morning, simple syrup, apricot glaze, and cherry syrup later that day. I compiled everything with three kinds of ice …
Half my age
Well, this was kind of the birthday card. This year the kid was half my age- I’m 66. I did the card, had it printed, gave it to her, and everything was good. My granddaughter, however, seemed a bit “uncomfortable.” When I showed her the digital version, she was visibly uncomfortable, then said, “I should …