Skip to content

notes art

explorations in iphone notes

  • Blog
  • About

building

2023/10/24

October 24, 2023
A huge asteroid-like rock hangs suspended in a dark blue starry sky. Built on the top of a rock is a small concrete house that looks a bit slipshod in construction: uneven walls, uneven windows. In the back is a porch with a roof. Hanging from the bottom of the asteroid are what looks like weeds or Spanish moss. In the top right of the sky is a bright, full moon, the white light reflecting off the roof and sides of the house. The house has several windows, most of which are dark, but one of which is lit with bright yellow light. No living things are visible.

2023/10/19

October 19, 2023
It's night: a clear sky, and a bright full moon. A figure is standing in front of a large, abandoned-looking building, shining a flashlight beam on an arched doorway. Above the doorway is an ornate metal arm from which hangs a sign, sort of like what you'd see on a tavern in an old city. The sign has the word "exit" on it. There is an arched window above the doorway, completely black, except for a sinister figure looking out of it. The figure looks like it is wearing a coat and tie; the face, dimly illuminated by the moon, looks like a skull or mask.

2023/10/18

October 18, 2023
A small, church-like building with a tall tower and steeple. The tower has an arched doorway in it with a small winding path leading out of it, and a round window near the top. Next to the building are some overgrown trees and weeds. The building seems to be set in some remote natural area. Behind the building, in the sky, is a huge, blazing sun.

2023/10/16

October 16, 2023
A huge structure that looks like it's made of stone. It has a cylindrical trunk, two turretlike extensions upward, and a short diagonal stump extending right. Placed on the left upper turret are a cluster of conifer trees; on the right is a small building with a pointed top, like a church. In the background is a blurry shape that looks like a similar structure, but off in the distance. The sun blazes above.

2023/10/02

October 2, 2023
A large stone archway with a small cylindrical turret built on one side of it. The turret has a glowing window on the side. A full moon is shining in a clear, starry sky. Inside the archway is built what looks like a decrepit wooden platform. Sitting on the platform is an oddly large humanoid creature smoking a pipe.

2023/09/29

September 29, 2023
A small figure sits on the edge of what could be a giant cube or a building. The roof is deep blue; the left face of the cube is bright green, and the right face is bright red. The left face has a window in it, in which a cat is sitting. The strange part is that while the edge that the figure sits on looks like the outer wall of the building, the perspective applied to the window makes it look as if the window is set on the inner wall. The figure and the cat are looking at each other across the gap of two perspectives that don't match. Behind the figure is a dark night sky with a moon and some slight fog.

2023/09/17

September 17, 2023
The crumbling shell of an abandoned castle sits on a mountaintop under a blazing sunset. Clouds cover the sky in waves of fire. Hovering above the ruins is a zeppelin.

2023/09/16

September 16, 2023
A clear night, the deep blue sky dominated by a blazing white moon. Reaching into the sky are two tall, thin buildings: imagine very thin skyscrapers without the rest of a city. They're planted in the middle of nowhere. There's something eerily non-human about them; almost like some natural construction—wasp nests, termite mounds—rather than buildings. The ground around them is barren, reflecting the moonlight, and could even be snow-covered. In both structures, only one window is illuminated. In the one closest to the viewer, a silhouette is visible. The drawing style uses a texture comprised of rough, heavy brushstrokes.

2023/09/11

September 11, 2023
A person stands in a blank, featureless room, starkly silhouetted by the bright white light from a nearby window. The person is holding a cup of something and staring at a television in front of them. The television is one of those bulky big-screen devices from the late 90s/early 2000s. On screen is something that anyone who saw it will never forget: shaky video footage of two New York City skyscrapers with smoke pouring out of them, bright red banners and alerts framing the screen.

2023/09/09

September 9, 2023
The stump of a thick tree, with a birdhouse mounted at the top of it. The front of the birdhouse looks like a face: the circular entrance is the mouth, with a nose and two round holes placed above it. The birdhouse also has two devil horns and, behind the stump at the base of it, something sticking up from the ground that looks a lot like a pointed tail. In the background is a flat plain, with mountains in the distance. A bird is flying off in the sky.

2023/09/08

September 8, 2023
A tall, oddly, thin building stands in the middle of nowhere. It's a dark, starless night. The building is about three stories high, but only as wide as two ordinary-sized doorways; imagine a three-story walk-in closet with no windows, except one at the very top on the left side of the building. That window is boarded shut, but something is clearly going on inside, judging by the eerie green light filtering between the boards. The door is closed, but the same light is trickling underneath it. The door has some papers stuck to it. The lower left side of the building seems to have a chunk taken out of it. The most distinctive feature of the building, though, is the giant vertical sign bolted onto the right side. The sign is about 2/3 as tall as the building itself and has the word "Diner" on it in glowing, radioactive-green lettering; the same color as the light from inside the building. The light from the sign illuminates the ground under it. Perched on top of the sign is a large bird that looks like a raven. In the background is the blurry suggestion of a treeline.

2023/08/18

August 18, 2023
A tree stands next to a house. The house is a simple, blue, rectangular shape, occupying the lower left quarter of the drawing. The tree is a tall, leafless trunk with sticks for branches; it might be dead. Sitting in the hot yellow sky, positioned in the fork created by two diverging branches, sits a blazing red sun. This is the sun of desert at high noon. The window in the house is dark. Placed inside it is a single candle. The style of the piece looks impressionist: bright colors, lots of strokes.

2023/08/11

August 11, 2023
A sky heavy with red clouds, like those from a forest fire. A worn-looking sun hangs in the middle of them. In the foreground is a large, rectangular structure, like a castle wall. This takes up the lower left quarter of the drawing. In the top right of the wall, at the very edge, is placed a warning sign: an exclamation point in a triangle. Set in the middle of the wall is a rectangular window with a rounded top, like a castle window. Sitting in the window is an unassuming-looking creature with long ears. Normal people would look at it and say something like "oh, a rabbit!" An understandable error, but a dangerous one; for this is a demon rabbit.

2023/08/10

August 10, 2023
A ludicrous, vaguely tree-shaped structure: a narrow, trunklike base supporting a large, misshapen object with circular crimson windows scattered about it. This is a building, if a building looked somewhere between an alien machine part and an asteroid. Dangling and protruding from various points on the structure are vinelike plants and twigs. In the one rectangular window on this thing stands the shadowy silhouette of a person. This building is planted on a grassy hill.

2023/08/01

August 1, 2023
A large, furry, two-legged creature. The creature has no arms. Where the creature's face would be is an open window with a person staring out of it. The person is wearing a suit with a tie. Protruding from the rear of the creature's head, sort of like a horn, is a chimney: one of those pipe chimneys with a little roof over it.

2023/07/20

July 20, 2023
A rectangular building wide enough for only one window; imagine if a closet was an entire building. The building has an arched window with a heavy stone border around it. The window is open: no bars, sash, or glass. in the window sits a person playing a string instrument that looks a little like a guitar. The person has an oddly intense expression and bulging eyes. Grass is growing from the sides of the building: not like growing from between stones or bricks, but giving the impression that the sides of the building are made of grass. On the roof of the building is a large sign, as wide across as the building itself. The sign has "café" on it in large, professionally painted serif lettering. On top of the sign sits a small bird.

2023/07/19

July 19, 2023
A scene through a tall, grimy window with venetian blinds at the top. The window looks out onto two tenement buildings, either next door or across the street. It's night, but not a dark night so much as a dull, cloudy, light-polluted night. The buildings are mostly dark, with no street lights or external illumination visible. There is no moon or stars. A few of the windows in the buildings are dimly lit, suggesting television screens or reading lamps inside. No figures can be seen behind the windows.

2023/07/16

July 16, 2023
An overcast night, with no stars and only a hazy moon in the sky. Below is a house; more specifically, the cross-section of a small house. By "small", it appears that the house has only three rooms: a cramped little attic, a living room area, and below, a basement. The interiors of all three rooms are visible, like an open dollhouse. The attic is very dark and mostly empty, except for some boxes, dimly illuminated by the light coming in from a skylight. The living room is empty, except for a glowing television and a person standing in front of it, slightly hunched, hypnotized by the light from the screen. There is no light in the living room other than that which comes from the television screen. There is one indiscernible picture hung on the wall, and no other furnishings. But it's the basement that's most startling. The basement is totally empty, except for an enormous red blob with tufted fur, horns, and no facial features to speak of. The blob has one outstretched, clawed hand, reaching through a hole it has evidently punched in the basement wall. It appears to be digging a tunnel under the small porch of the house. If one is going to harbor monsters, one needs to bury them deep and remain alert.

2023/07/11

July 11, 2023
A mailbox post rises up from a ground covered by thick fog. Placed on the arm of the post where the mailbox would be is a small house-shaped box that does indeed resemble a mailbox. The door on the front is closed. There are suggestions that it is no ordinary mailbox, however, like the glowing, circular window on the side, and the large bell hanging over the door of the mailbox. Below the mailbox, nearly engulfed by the fog, stands a small figure. The size of the figure compared to the mailbox post suggesting that this post is as tall as a multi-story building. The figure is reaching up and grasping a string that dangles from the bell, as though ringing the bell to alert whoever's living inside the mailbox that they have a visitor.

2023/07/09

July 9, 2023
A smartphone rises up from a layer of dense fog. The base of the phone and the ground can't be seen; just an amorphous carpet of clouds. The screen of the phone is very blurry, as though obscured by a layer of vapor. The screen shows glowing colored squares, arranged haphazardly, not in the usual grid of app icons. Silhouettes are visible in the squares, like people looking out of windows. Above the phone, a blurry moon is in the sky. The moonlight reflects off the top of the phone.

2023/07/05

July 5, 2023
Two very tall, very thin, very rickety towers stand side-by-side. They look like skyscrapers, but each has only one window at the very top, and each looks about the width and depth of a closet. In each window sits a person. Farther down, the towers are connected by a small bridge and a slapdash brace of some sort. The towers themselves have flaking plaster and boards fixed to the side, showing serious dilapidation and haphazard attempts at repair. In the background are shadows that suggest there may be other buildings of this sort. In the sky is a hazy sun.

2023/07/02

July 2, 2023
A dark, starless night. A small, barren island in the middle of a large body of water, which is perhaps the ocean, since no other land is visible. Rising straight up from the island is a tall, craggy tower of rock. The bulk of the tower is rough and misshapen, and, while bizarre, still looks naturally formed; the top is an actual, cylindrical turret that appears to be crumbling. There is a dark window on one side of the turret, and a limp flag at the very top. About halfway up the tower, standing on one of the more prominent crags, is a dark figure holding out a blazing white lantern. Far out on the water is another white light from a ship. The figure and the ship seem to be signaling each other. Something is afoot.

2023/06/30

June 30, 2023
A tall, slightly crumbling building on a bright, cloudless day. The building looks like a tenement building with no windows, except for one in the top-right. There is a small, closet-like entrance in the lower left. The building is surrounded by grass, and very tall, wild plants that look sort of like foxtails. The building has a satellite dish and two security cameras fixed to the side of it, as well as a small birdhouse. Halfway up the side of the building is a birdhouse with a few birds around it. In the window at the top, a shadowy figure is seen.

2023/06/28

June 28, 2023
A house stands on a rocky hill at night. Behind the house, the sky is filled with billowing phosphorescent green clouds: could be fog or maybe even the aurora. Fog appears to be hanging low to the ground as well. On the second floor of the house, two windows are lit.

2023/06/27

June 27, 2023
A tall chunk of wall, standing by itself, surrounded by weeds. This is not the wall of a house or garden so much like a wall you'd find on the border of a country: nearly three stories in height, and you get the impression that it's thick. It's not a simple, smooth wall, either; looks like it's comprised of several other large slabs of concrete or stone haphazardly cemented together. At the base of the wall is an arched doorway in which is tentatively placed a collapsing iron gate. There is, bizarrely, a very neat circular window with crossbars about halfway up the right side of the wall. At the top of the wall is a gap formed by the intersection of several different slabs. All are unevenly sized and missing corners, leaving a person-sized gap in the wall. And for purposes of comparison, there is also a person in the gap, peering out, totally silhouetted—a dark shape, except for the eyes which are eerily visible.

2023/06/24

June 24, 2023
A small railroad station—just a covered platform and signal—sits by a single track, far out in the middle of nowhere. A locomotive is visible in the distance, the headlamps lit. The blurry surroundings suggest fog. Above are a few wispy clouds, and either the sun or the moon.

2023/06/21

June 21, 2023
A large, asteroid-like chunk of soil-covered rock hangs in space as though it's floating. The space it hangs in is not black, like night; more a deep blue, like early morning or late evening. Weeds and grass sprout from the asteroid; sand and debris crumble from the sides, falling downwards. The asteroid has a door and a window in it. Both are illuminated, as if the interior is inhabited, or at least inhabitable. A cable has been run out the door and dangles into the emptiness, the end of it unseen. Hanging from the cable is a person who is either climbing into or out of the asteroid.

2023/06/20

June 20, 2023
A tall, narrow, houselike building made of brick and concrete. The roof has various antennas. The house has a large circular window, right under the roof, and a smaller, arched window to the lower right. There is an arched overhang directly under the house; sort of an open porch. A person paces on the porch, staring at a phone. On a platform in front of it—an extension that looks like a large front porch—stands a small rocket ship.

2023/06/17

June 17, 2023
Imagine a mountain-shaped boulder mixed with a house: a rough chunk of rock with arched windows and roof-points sticking out of it. At the top is a small cupola with a bell; atop the cupola is a vaguely cross-shaped lightning rod. Now imagine that this entire thing has four wheels and a large, spacious windshield up front, like a cargo van. The effect is of a mobile home that's also a mountain, with various architectural enhancements. Visible in the windshield is a driver, shadowy, and indeterminate.

2023/06/15

June 15, 2023
A rickety tower: a shack on top of tall scaffolding that looks like something that might hold up a water tower. The shack has a sloped roof and sits on a platform surrounded by guardrails. It's a dim, foggy day; the fog hangs so heavy in the air that it's hard to tell whether it's day or night. On the side of the platform is an area light casting a dim beam. Standing on top of the shack is a person aiming a flashlight towards the sky. The surrounding area is filled with weeds. The overall effect is that of a mostly abandoned guard tower occupied by one person.

2023/06/12

June 12, 2023
A vast, looming building that looks like a dystopian, amorphous skyscraper: a superstructure from Blade Runner or a similar film. It is mostly windowless, with a few small green lights and lines here and there. At the top of it is a cluster of lines and antennas, some of which have white lights on top of them. In the background are blurry silhouettes of what look like similar buildings. The time of day could be early morning or evening. There are no stars, just a ghost of a greenish cloud overhead.

2023/06/03

June 3, 2023
A tall, very narrow, white building of approximately two or three stories that looks a little like a church. There's a regular door at the base of the building—more like a closet door than what you'd expect the doorway of a church to be—and a fancy arched window at the top. It's a clear, starry night. The building has a crosslike ornament at the pinnacle of the roof, and three abstract figures carved into the front of it. The door has the same crosslike symbol. Fastened to the right side of the building, in the most haphazard way possible, is an extremely crudely-constructed shack: an irregular concoction of boards and scraps with a rope ladder dangling from it. A television aerial sticks out of the roof of the shack. The window is illuminated, suggesting that someone is home, but no one is seen.

Posts navigation

Older posts
Newer posts
  • Mastodon
  • Instagram
  • Glass
  • Pixelfed
  • Link
  • RSS Feed

    All work © Chris Silverman