"Inverse-Square Law #4" by Richard F. Yates

Trip Collage! This inversion was created as a reminder of that time my family and I went to Long Beach, Washington, for the annual Jake the Alligator Man Birthday Celebration! It was a fun trip---I wrote a lengthy post about it on my Steemit blog, with lots of pictures!!!---and as a final kicker to the festivities, my younger daughter got ENGAGED to her long-time boyfriend after we'd all had so much fun running around the city during the day. (They went for a walk around sunset and came back all smiley!)

The "Drawing in Ridiculously High Wind" was actually drawn, BY ME, while I was sitting on the beach and something like 40 mile per hour winds slashed all around me. The cardboard I was drawing on was actually ripped out of my hand by a particularly persistent gust at one point, and I had to chase it down the beach and dive on it just so I could finish the picture! The bottom right image is the finished artwork (digitally enhanced and colored).

The other two digital doodles were the images I used when I posted short updates about the trip on Steemit. (I like to post every day on my Steemit blog---the only time I've missed a day in the last seven or eight months is when the blockchain FROZE for a day after Hardfork 21---but things are back running smoothly now, so we're all cool.) I love making little doodles on my phone, and I often use them as the artwork for my various posts.

Anyway, this piece is a reminder to me of the fun we had. It's also a PROCESS college, showing the "before" and "after" of my digital coloring technique (usually done with a free app on my phone). And this piece comes with a couple of bonus doodles. What a bargain! Like buying a set of Ginsu knives and getting a couple of free can openers just for ORDERING NOW!)

And, by the way, if you're ever anywhere near Washington State, I highly recommend checking out Marsh's Free Museum in Long Beach, WA, USA. It's chock FULL of weirdo human creativity, novelty items, old penny arcade games, peep show machines, and (of course) the brilliant and strange Jake the Alligator Man (a creepy gaff, in the style of a Fiji Mermaid, but with an alligator body stuck to a yucky looking, vaguely humanoid torso and head. Wonderful stuff!)

---Richard F. Yates (Holy Fool)