Friday, August 26, 2011

Got To Admit It's Getting Better; Getting Better All The Time (Can't Get No Worse)

                                                                        BENEDICTION  
                                                                    Acrylic with Gold Leaf
                                                                        26" X 48"

Oh ye-ah....hot off the easel as of 1/2 hr ago. Submission # 2 for the Sidney Fine Arts Show.  AND! Even better than the last one....I think.
On to # 3..........can't stop this......

Thursday, August 18, 2011

New! And IMPROVED! But Still With Original Command Center.....

OK-azy...you may have noticed a brand new 'Header'....that's the title band - so to speak - up there ^. Well, it's taken me about, oh...., 2.5 hours to do that. Give or take.
But I did.
We are smugly congratulating our old dinosaur self right now.....mind you, I still can't fathom how to change the font color ie: how to type in correct code into the following....at least that's what I think it said when I -oh so cleverly- googled 'how to change font color in your Blog'; which told me.......
HTML >h3{margin:10px 0px;color:#777777777;font size:105Ihavenoideawhatsymbolcomesnext;}
Yep, right about there the eyeballs were spinning backwards.......however it necessitated a bit of playing around in Photoshop to reconfigure the colors so the original font of the header would show up and I got the image above. So I left it, feeling pretty smart and ok and I was just going to live with the original font color of white.
Then I posted the 'new' header and I set down this little story feeling all Miss Smarty Pant-ish and THEN......and then....yes, and then, well, I went into the 'layout' page and guess what?
There is that option to change font color already set up 'easy-peasy' style.......which is what I did with a click of the mouse.
Sigh bloody sigh.

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

In The Midst of Dark....Let There Be Light


* ......I've expanded my original post.....
(I paraphrased the titled....you know " in the midst of Death let there be Life....)
Well.....if I have to have some kind of crisis of health or looks or whatever......can I just say "bring it on".....? If it takes going through some kind of crisis to make the creative juice kick up a notch, well, I'll happily suffer some more. I have to admit to even wowing myself with this...FINALLY we can paint faces. I mean, really paint faces. (Ahhhh...faces. My personal nemesis....) I was getting frustrated with the 'blandness' of my previous work.
A decided leap forward.
Isn't it interesting that there are so many examples of adversity bringing leaps in technique or a new more dynamic style into an artist's creative life.....(Frida Khalo painted her strongest work from her dealing with the pain of her horrendous accident; Georgia O'Keeffe took off after the hurt Stiegilitz caused her; Vincent's whole genre came from dealing with depression and being unrecognized) Do we need the stress of a 'fraught' event to halt our complacency with what we are doing to jump into the next tier of accomplishment? Or is it only then that our 'essence' is truly transferred into the medium....?
Food for thought.
"ANNUNCIATION FOR A NEW AGE" Acrylic with Gold Leaf. 26" X 48".
First submission for the Sidney Fine arts Show.

Saturday, August 13, 2011

Crowning Glories



Lately I've been feeling like I've passed my "Best If Used By" date.
Let me recap this odd time.
First, and foremost because it is consuming my attention, my strange and mostly disconcerting happenstance of a 'balding' head.
In our great land of Canada - and I say this without a trace of sarcasm - I mean that - you pop on over to the Doc for whatever ails you, although I often wonder when I sit in a waiting room how seemingly endless the human body's frailties can be, which is what I did. I wonder, again, what my fine Dr thinks when he sees me as my troubles seem to be random hits from the capricious fates of the universe. What with 'twisted' fingers and routine operations gone awry, he gets a veritable feast from yours truly. Anyoffagainintothewildblueyonderway, this is where I went over a week ago to have the receding hairline checked into and was slightly alarmed when his remark was "What is that....no, why are you.....?" in a kind of sotto voice way and did not finish his statement other than to tell me to come to the clinic for blood work Tues am. I am now in the limbo land of 'wait and see'. I understand that I live in a far away place where things must go 'out-to-the-big-city' but, and herein lies the trouble, with all this time around before I know what's up, I compulsively research the topic on the Internet. Yes, yes, forewarned is forearmed, but in my case that imagination (I may have mentioned?) - takes me to places that may not be.....optimum.
So far I've checked out 'Rogain' (side effects are somewhat alarming), radical hair cuts (considering 'Punk' as a new statement), hair extensions (except your hair will break after the extensions are removed thereby bringing you back to square one) and wigs.
Ah great goddess of female vanity I appeal to thee......indeed.
Wigs are winning out I admit. Because you get to have all these different looks - and by all the Gemini artist in me do I EVER like that! It is immeasurably appealing to me to be able to change the 'canvas' whenever......although, it will be a dead give away about what is going on after the first few times. Do I care what folks may think? Not particularly. I've been telling some folks about going bald anyway and in this small place that about guarantees the whole town knows.  
So here I sit, stewing about stuff that hasn't happened and wondering if I should just shave it all off and wear wigs and researching wig places and wig choices and wig costs (!!!) Bla de bla.....etc. The thing is :  my 40th high school reunion.
O-h Y-E-A-H.
That particular bugaboo is looming up and I'm right in the thick of planning it with another old chum. (one other reason I've been away from this blog because I answer/sendout about 6 to 10 emails each day - I spend wa-a-a-ay too much time on this infernal machine!)  I've been responsible for gathering the troops - so to speak - and it's been grand being in touch with all these people who were such a big part of my world some 40 yrs ago.
But that means exactly what you think.
High School man. Where some of the harshest judgements and ratings-due-to-looks were handed down and I don't care who you are, you know it colors how you think to this day. I'm fairly certain some of these old school contemporaries will not attend just for that reason alone. And I will be front and center because I've put myself there by helping organize.
So this whole hair thing is becoming some 'King Kong' of a deal to me. Oh, stress and worry cause hair loss as well, apparently........sigh. Like 'will the wig fall off.....' etc....Quel Horreur!!
Meanwhile back at the studio - we are armpit deep into what is proving to be a leap forward in painting. I know I say that every time I do a 'new' series but really this is just making my fingers twitch excitedly. I am hoping to have it done next week so we'll leave you with the anticipation on seeing the result.......oh, and finding out the head decision......never dull folks!

The painting is "Hypertrichosis - Self Portrait" by Jazz-mihn Moore. (Hypertrichosis is 'excessive growth of hair') This young artist does some very fine work.
And we only wish that was the problem......although sporting a beard and mustache would not be optimim either. But it would be easier to deal with. Maybe.