I decided that I will use pencil to illustrate the fiction books, or at least the first one. Aside from painting the final cover with my airbrush. There is something very magical about pencil art, and the multitude of gradients and densities you can employ with just a turn of the wrist, a flutter of the hand.

And as I drew the image above (to help inspire myself as I wrote further, I just needed a different image on the top of the manuscript), I realized how much I missed hand-drawing. I've been using the computer to render my art, and while it is a lot of fun, and while you still need to understand form and light to create on it, there is nothing like your hand moving the pen or pencil or brush.

So much less interface. The more I have to negotiate the medium, the less readily I can flow. Same with when I'm recording music. To paraphrase the American mainstream media, when the wires start becoming the song, then it is time to change something. Well, using the computer for art brings some advantages (the "Undo" feature springs immediately to mind), but it sure makes the tool obtrusive. I dislike having to translate to my tool what my brain knows instinctively. Even if it only slows me one tenth of a second or causes me one extra movement. It's not that I don't believe in the investiture of energy. I hope that shows. I think of it more that I want strong, clear sound coming out of my speakers. The very strongest and the clearest I am able to manage. And every single splice in every single wire compromises that power and clarity, even if only by miniscule amounts. (At the same time, I must allow for that bit of translation and area of the learning curve that is inherent in the execution of every craft, and part of every struggle to master one's craft. Sometimes there is struggle, and discomfort, and there should be.)

As I moved the pencil I thought to myself how nice it was to want less pressure on the stroke and simply apply less pressure. To not have to reach up and smack the keys over and over to make it happen. How nice to simply move my hand, to slow down, to press harder. No need to adjust opacity slider. Such minimal conversation between my brain and the machine helping me make my art. For I am a tool I know so well. The hand turns, glides, backs up, repeats a see-saw motion 18 times rapidly, and then lightly traces a spiral forward and back. The brush size is adjusted by leaning my pencil, or at worst, shaving pieces off of the tip with an ex-acto knife, but still, how nice—to watch the shavings fall, to touch the tip of the pencil to test it. To inwardly adjust the sensitivity of the pencil pressure in such tiny increments you wouldn't be able to see them on your LCD screen to attempt them.

And mostly, how sweet it is to just visualize something on the page and skirt my hand over to to that area, speedily and surely, to rest the heel of my hand, slowly lower the point, and begin to sketch an arc—all without hesitation nor deliberation. How satisfying to shade where I like, to erase just where I like, to move around in space and ask no permission from a digital kinetic arbiter.

And, I think, these illustrations will have to serve to answer my belly everytime my Mac teases me because people think the art I make digitally somehow doesn't still need to be drawn. I caught my G5 dialing into the local paper's offices yesterday, demanding equal billing. Trying to tell the reporters that I have a "SCARY" button on my computer that I just press to come up with new Horris expressions and positions and story ideas. Clearly, I have to put an end to this kind of speculation. And maybe I should dust off the old Olivetti, while I'm at it.