Writing Projects, Bringing Old Sketches to Life, and Other Things

 The past week for me has been a blur.  For one thing, I got an offer for a substitute teaching job (on-call, so not full-time yet) at St. Francis Academy in Triangle, VA, which is close by Quantico.  There are a few logistics to work out - the commute being the biggest - but I am happy about this overall.  Also, I have been turning some long-sitting projects into reality this past week.  As of yesterday, I published the second of my fiction books, and for those of you who have been with me from the beginning here, it's going to look familiar.  Let's talk about it.

In August of 2012, just shy of two years into doing these blogs, I published a story on there called "Appointed to Consecration."  I had originally written this back in 2001, and it was a sort of Catholic apocalyptic novel inspired somewhat by my own interest in both Frank Peretti's This Present Darkness, and the LaHaye/Jenkins series Left Behind.  However, this was to be something different.  In it, there are no Rapture scenes or theology, no Tribulation with the Antichrist, or an millenarianism.  My story took its imspiration from three pivotal Catholic eschatological themes - the Three Days of Darkness, the Great Schism in the Church, and the Great Catholic Monarch.  I decided that since I have some time to do it now, I would finish the project, and I did.  The book kept the title, Appointed for Consecration, but it greatly expanded it to include even some recent personal references (one of the antagonists, as a matter of fact, is modeled upon the vile man who served as campus minister at the last school I worked at - that guy disgusted me, and I was able to create a character based on him).  The book ended up being 119 pages, and it comprises 12 chapters.  Later, I am going to do a deep dive as I have a discussion curricula planned, and I may turn it into something on here.  The book just went to press yesterday, and is currently available on Amazon if anyone would be interested in getting one.  I ended up being quite impressed with it myself in all honesty.   The first fiction book I did prior to that the earlier week, however, is not going to be available publicly, as it is basically a fictional story that serves as a love letter for my fiancée Azi, so for now that one is for her and my eyes only.  Besides writing though, I discovered something fascinating with Google Gemini - you can actually turn a drawing into a realistic picture.  That is the second thing I was working on this week, so let me share some of that here.  

At around the same time I published a story that would evolve into the first chapter of Appointed for Consecration, I also had decided to create a post at around the same time called "The Thrower Art Gallery."  It featured a bunch of my original sketches that I had done over the years, and what I am going to do here today is share a few of the realistic pictures I was able to create based on those sketches.  So, let's begin. 

This first picture was of a church I sketched in my early 20s.  The re-creation as a realistic drawing did not come out exactly as I planned it, but it doesn't look bad either.  

This second picture was made much earlier, I believe when I was in high school.  I really like the way this one came to life in all honesty.

This next sketch was one I drew during my early college years, around 1990 or so.  I was wanting to be a new type of Pentecostal then, a high Churchman who was liturgical.  This type of architecture also reflected the influence I drew from the Christian East as well. 

This is one of the last sketches I drew.  I made this one in 2013 on a Post-it note, and I decided to do it two different ways to bring it to life.  The first is a plain, rustic building, and the second is a more up-to-date version that has been painted.  It symbolized my nostalgia for home at the time when I lived in Florida, and looks like many old stores I recall on the highways during my childhood in West Virginia.

This one was one I drew about 20 years ago, and represents an ancient baptistry constructed in a Syriac Christian tradition.  It was part of the larger church pictures I had made, as I was more or less trying to draw a panoramic portfolio of how I would construct my dream church.  Fr. Aidan Kavanaugh's story about a first-century baptism was also a point of inspiration for this.

My love of vintage big bands inspired these next two.  The one above was scaled down from the 40-piece orchestra I made in the sketch, but it still captures the spirit of it. 

And this one represents an empty bandstand. 

I really loved how this one rendered - it is my rendition of a coastal Lebanese village. 

My rendering of a south Georgia village, with a giant Holiness church dominating it.  I liked how this turned out too - rustic, but with its own charm. 

This one turned out to be one of my favorites - it was inspired by the little mountain towns I grew up when I was a kid in West Virginia.  This one has potential for other projects.

The sketch is reversed here from the picture that was made from it, but it represents probably one of my grandest church models.  I am really proud of this one. 

Since I kind of like Florida Cracker culture, this was my interpretation of a classic Florida Cracker cottage, and looking at it one can envision it being in the remote Everglades somewhere. 

The final one I want to show here (it is not the last one I did, but for time and space considerations, I just picked out some of my best work) is the entrance to that large church I dreamed up.  This was a miniature drawing, sketched out on a small notepad that was maybe 3"x2" in size.  I did a lot of those too back in the day, and the way this one turned out was phenomenal. 

As you saw the outside of the church, this is my envisioning of the inside brought to life.  It wasn't exactly as I planned, but the realistic depiction actually looks better.  

So, there you have it, some of my artwork brought to life, thanks to the magic of Google Gemini.  I am not always happy with Gemini though, as at times I have yelled at it for trying to turn something into what looks like a totally different concept.  Even on a couple of these I battled with it, but the end result was pleasing.  Was it perfect?  Not always, but I like them for the most part.  This is the sequel then to the 2012 "Art Gallery."

All in all, this has been a busy year for me - a lot of publishing (including 5 books) and also some other new things.  It is actually quite satisfying to get a lot of these old "bucket list" things caught up, and I am glad I did.  I probably will have new stuff brewing later, so we'll see what happens.  This month, however, is the cutting and pasting of all these blogs into the manuscript for the annual "Blog Book," which will be massive this year too.   When you write books, the editing and formatting can be two of the biggest pains in the butt I have personally experienced, but the finished product is ultimately what counts. 

That catches everything up for the week, so will see you soon!