A Model

A Model

Art Journal:

This is the very first fast sketch full face view

that I ever did of a model

charcoal on paper 8.5" x 11"

9/2/07
by JA Stratemeyer

Cat Walk, installment 2

Cat Walk,

installment 2
By Samuel Winterwood

“Well no! I haven’t been out of bed all night, you must’ve left it off and forgotten about it m’baby, you know something like sleepwalking maybe.”
“No!” Sam said, “I know I didn’t,” he sounded more and more aggravated as his mind started to clear from the fogginess of sleep. “It was on when I fell asleep, I know it was and I didn’t turn it off Sarah!”
“So what Sam, what’s the big deal about the television being off?”
“Because the fan never went off.”
“Sam, I’m getting ready to call the white jackets to come and get you!“
“You don’t understand sweetie.”
“That may qualify as the understa … “
“Look” Sam interrupted his wife mid-sentence. “I know I left the TV on, because the light from it brought me into a twilight sort of sleep before it went off. Then I felt something strange, I don’t know what, I started to feel fear for no reason. It was like the instinctive fight or flight thing. Ya’know?” Sarah sat studying him she didn’t remember ever seeing him in a state like this before, he was genuinely scared. “I knew something was wrong and that I had to protect my family. Then it seemed like the electricity went off but in the back of my mind I knew it was strange because the fan was still on. You know that sensation when the sounds and things that you fall asleep to just stop, sometimes you wake up a little. Right?”
“Yeah, go on.”
“Well I woke in a haze and looked over to see the time and hanging over you was this thing that looked like a oversized, spindly, cat-griffin sort of thing. I’ve never seen anything like it before, not in horror movies, not in my nightmares. When it saw me wake it started to change shape or something and move away from you. I leaned over you and took a swing at it but there was nothing there.” Sam sat there in a mild sweat still clearly upset. Sarah reached over and wrapped loving arms around him and started to rock back and forth while patting his muscular shoulders a little and trying to settle him down just like you would do a child who woke from a bad dream. Sam didn’t resist, he just tried to relax and let her sooth him.”
“it sounds to me like you had a bad dream honey” Sarah cooed into Sam’s ear. “Come on, lay back down we have an early day tomorrow.”
“It sure as hell didn’t seem like a dream, I even it heard slither away with its catlike wheezing, laughing hiss, It was really creepy.”
“Come on” she said again “let’s lay back down and try to sleep.” She dabbed beads of perspiration form his forehead with a tissue that she pulled out of a box on the nightstand. “Do you want some water, some Tylenol or a shot of whiskey or something?”
“No” he said, “if I do I’ll get it, you go back to sleep.” So she straightened out their light summer covers a little and laid back down.
“Do you want the light on?” she asked him.
“Nah, go ahead and turn it out”
“Okay honey you get some sleep now” she said as she reached up to off the lamp.
“Yeah, yeah, okay honey maybe your right; maybe it was just a bad dream.” Sam sat there in the quiet darkness watching the curtains gently swaying in the breeze, because the fan was still on.

after Dali'

Art Journal:

One of my first computer generated images

by JAS

Edgar Allen Poe

By a route obscure and lonely,

Haunted by ill angels only ...

from "Dream-Land"

Glimpse Into Shadow & Cat Walk, the beginning

Glimpse Into Shadow

Art Journal:

One of my "darker" works
I figured it would do well placed at the top of a story such as Cat Walk

by JAS April 2007

pastel & crayon on 4"x 6" card

Cat Walk, the beginning

by Samuel Winterwood, installment 1

By the time Sam went to bed Sarah was already asleep, he was so tired that he left the TV flickering on in the background, with the volume so quiet that the low drone of the window fan was all that could be heard.. It was a cool beautiful early summer night and the breeze being blown into the room was so relaxing that Sam drifted off before he knew it.
Hours later, Sam didn’t know how long, he sensed that the TV turned off but oddly the fan was still on. He lifted his head to look past Sarah and he couldn’t believe his first take as he tried to discern the LCD readout on the alarm clock. A long spindly figure seemed to be hovering somewhere in the darkness between Sarah and the night stand.
He caught a glimpse of a malevolent form silhouetted against the city lights coming in through the bedroom shades. The form moved away and almost disappeared or maybe it changed shape he couldn’t tell which.
He heard what seemed like a laugh or a strange meow. He noticed that the television and the clock had gone off, and he couldn’t tell the time, but the window fan was still on, the streets outside seemed eerily quiet.
“What the Hell?” he reached over Sarah in a combined effort to pull her toward him and away from perceived danger and tried to get to the clock to find out what was wrong with it.
He knew somewhere in the back of his mind that if there was a momentary power outage and the power flicked quickly off then back on, that would account for the fan still running and the TV being off, but if that was what happened then alarm clock readout should be flicking on and off. And if the power hadn’t come back on, the clock would be dark but the fan shouldn’t be on either.
He yanked Sarah toward him to protect her.
“Get the Hell away from her!” he screamed and swung his strong right arm blindly at the illusory figure.
“Jesus, Mary & Joseph! Sam what in Heaven’s name are you doing?!” yelled Sally as she was startled into consciousness.
“There is someone in here!” Sam screamed again and in a panic he started to jump over Sally to place himself between her and whatever it was that he saw and heard in the darkness.They bumped heads painfully as she sat up instinctively to turn on the light as he was moving toward, … toward what?
"Ouch!" Sally said as she turned the switch of the lamp nothing happened, still in darkness “What are you talking about there is no one here?!”
“Yes there is!”
Sally turned the switch again, again nothing.
“Look at the clock Sally!”
“Yeah, so what?”
“Well, it’s not flashing!”
“Yeah, again so what?”
“But the fan is still on!”
“Sam!” Sally screamed growing more impatient and confused by the second. She turned the light switch a third time, the light came on, they both looked at the clock at the exact same instant and it was on, the LCD indicating that it was 3:36 in the morning. It was working fine like nothing had ever happened and the room was empty and quiet except for the sound of the trash truck out in the alley. The TV was off? Sam knew that he had fallen asleep with it on.
“Did you get up and turn the television off sometime during the night?” Sam asked his voice still quivering and his breathing still rapid. With the light on they could see the somewhat ridiculous position into which the two of them had woven their bodies in the excitement of the moment. It looked like they were playing Twister. Sarah was turned awkwardly around with her protruding, pregnant belly hanging precariously over the side of the bed and Sam’s long leg was wrapped atop her as if he was stepping out of Sally’s side of the bed right over top of her in a Harpo Marx fashion. The absurdity of their contorted entanglement dawned on and they both eased the tension with an uncertain chuckle. “Are you alright?” he asked.
“I think so” Sally giggled like a teasing teenager “are You?”
“I’m not sure” Sam murmured, shifting his not yet awake eyes between the fan, the window, his wife, and the clock and lamp on the nightstand, and back again. Both of them were unconsciously trying to untangle their bodies from one another.

Maryland Blackeyed Susans in Perrier (vase?)

Art Journal:

This is that surrealistic image of

Maryland Blackeyed Susans

of which I speak in the former posting.

I drew this on impulse, in the Summer 2006,

after not drawing anything for over 30 years.

I would post the drawing of my teacher

which I did several months later

but it scanned poorly and the image is not clear

plus I know that he would never give me his permission

to display it

Rossetti's "Lilith" after Nicoliades

Interpretation of Rossetti's "Lilith"

Art Journal:
using Nicoliades' technique

Charcoal & pencil. approx. 8"x 8"

by J. A. Stratemeyer

This is a technique I had used for sometime to acchieve fast basic form.

It is a technique I remember from the mid 1970's just before I stopped doing art.

I never took art, drawing or painting classes but I lived with an artist during that time

and I took some serious mechanical drawing courses in high school.

Regardless I set all art down and stuck only to writing for thirty years or so.

Then, during the Summer of 2006 our friend gave us some
Maryland Blackeyed Susan's (our State Flower).

My wife put them in a Perrier bottle until they started to wilt.

They stayed fresh in that bottle for an amazing amount of time.

My memory is pathetic and I check everything with my wife beause my memory went for the canoe ride under the brdge a long time ago.

But she verifies it, and that settles it in my mind.
Anyway, I was looking at them one day and something clicked

and I wondered if I could do it, I was compelled to try.

It worked, people liked it.

Several months went by then one night after supper at my teachers home.

Something said draw him he was sitting in a rocker watching television.

And that really workered, everyone likes it except my teacher.

Couple months later my wife started her 2nd series of chemo therapy and radiation treatments in two years.

Something started in my Soul, I started drawing everything!

I started using color, 1st with colored pencils then the pastels now the painting.

And the writing is still going strong.

And the therapy seems to be working, even if the side effects are brutal.

Oh I know I'm not going down in history as a great artist or author but maybe God will give me enough time to leave a legacy of work that my children's children will be strenghtened by in a time of need.

Thank You God!

IN THE RAIN

In The Rain

4/01/07

by J.A.Stratemeyer
Art Journal
colored pencil, charcoal & crayon
on 4"x6" card

One of my playful first experiments in abstract color

Desk (unfinished, detail)

Desk

(unfinished, detail)
by J.A.Stratemeyer
Art Journal:
This is my very first attempt at using watercolor. Infact it is my first attempt using any color mediun other than colored pencil, pastels or crayon. I still don't consider it finished, but finished enough to post.