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November 12th, 2009
05:31 pm - Augh!
So, when I moved into this apartment, I carefully stored my matboard and cutter in my closet, behind my dresser trunk and everything else. I put the cutting heads into a bag with their blades, so they wouldn't get lost. I currently haven't the faintest idea where that bag is. I've been searching for it all day, and have been through pretty much all parts of the apartment. Without packing up, I'm not sure I can find them.
This causes some real problems for doing a show tomorrow. After all, as much as I hate mat cutting, it's a world less expensive than buying precuts. And most of the pieces I wanted to take aren't standard, either. Even the standard ones want a margin just a tiny bit smaller than the one on a standard mat. There's a Dick Blick five miles from the con, which could provide precuts, but it'd be expensive and the end result would be suboptimal. Argh!
I am trying to decide what to do, now. I may give one more search for the heads, though the only place I can think to look involves moving furniture and a lot of other things. I may be stuck taking old art, which is disappointing. I can see huge numbers of things wrong with all my older pieces, and the brain monkeys are convinced that no one will want to buy them. After all, they've been passed up for this long, no?
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) samadi brought me chocolate, which makes her a goddess. I'm also trying to figure out what I'm going to wear. I could go in everyday stuff, but that's kinda dull, though brightly colored. This is an excuse to wear my victoriana, after all. If only it didn't take so much effort.
Geh.
- Also, I'm unlikely to be able to finish the Pygmalion. If I'd been able to find the mat cutter and cut everything while there was still daylight, yeah, I probably could have speed painted until I fell over. But there's another big shiny thing what won't be going. I spose I could take it and work on it there. However, it's big and has boobies, and the con crowd, like the SCA, has recently gotten much more "Think of the children!"
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/growf/pengies/annoyed.gif) frustrated
Current Music: Gorathorn - Der Ietzte Ritt der Rohirrim
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November 11th, 2009
10:34 pm - Art and mood charting
Working on a piece that's a little too hard for me again. We'll see if I can accomplish what I'd like, or if I mess it up halfway through. It's like juggling rats. So far, so good, but they're so -squirmy-! And I know I'm going to drop one any minute now.
Sleep schedule is rotating back - I'm going to bed anywhere between 9 and 11 most nights, though I was up till 11:30 last night. This seems absurdly early, but it's enabling wakeup times around 8 to 8:30, so it's worth it. The extra sunlight is making a difference.
Of course, after dark I'm prone to lunatic beliefs, severe self doubt and big, dramatic cases of the hacks. So far I've not done too much that I oughtn't. Tonight hasn't been bad. I'm trying to get this painting done before the con, and I had a brief manic period that allowed for a lot of painting. Perhaps I must simply keep myself busy. Having time to kill seems to be a real problem.
Must do laundry before the con and hopefully tidy a bit. Housework has been terrible, and I've been eating so much boxed stuff. There's breakfast cereal in my house now. How bizarre is that? Daily monitoring is now required to make sure I eat a non-starchy, non-allium vegetable instead of living on shredded wheat, bagels and potatoes with egg. Caffeine intake is unnecessarily high. But - writing work is getting done and I've done more art in the past month and a half than I did in most of the previous year, so it's not entirely a loss.
Progress art up on the other journal again.
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/growf/pengies/sad.gif) drained
Current Music: Corvus Corax - Fortuna
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November 10th, 2009
11:26 pm - Putting art where it goes
There's a progress pic up over at http://gracedpalmer.livejournal.com , where it ought to be for once, for those of you who are interested but don't yet have that journal friended.
Current Mood: tired
Current Music: Depeche Mode - Agent Orange [*]
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November 6th, 2009
12:07 pm - Rats Plus Angst!
Don't worry, the two aren't related. I completed a minor project last night, which had been waiting around for about six months, since the first time I flaked on it. So, of course, I hate most of it and went into the Art Angst Spiral. I've pulled out of the despair section (mostly) and have entered the grim "guess you'd better get to work" portion instead.
Let's see if it'll last through this day's quota of nonfic writing to become either fiction or visual art. At the moment, yanno, I'm a failure, and merely mediocre at everything, and I ought to have specialized and become really good at something, so as to be marketable. Also, I should be less of a flake. (No, I don't need anyone to come talk me down off anything. This is just a case of the hacks. They happen, usually immediately following completion of a project).
In rat news, I adopted a baby from the shelter about a week ago. He's my dominant-gene rat - standard coat agouti top-eared, or about as wild-type as a domestic rat can be. He's also half the sizeof my biggest older boy, shiny, friendly, and incredibly hyperactive. I have named him Aeneas, as he's a later, unrelated addition to Paris and Hector. Right now I have all three of them out, and have discovered that three rats constitutes a swarm. I have Lap: the Scampering. Photos if I ever remember to take and upload them.
Back to work!
Current Mood: twitchy
Current Music: Schandmaul - Drachentoter
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October 27th, 2009
10:03 pm - For Posterity
Depression charting under cut. ( Read more... )
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/growf/pengies/blank.gif) blah
Current Music: Abney Park - Child King
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October 26th, 2009
12:34 am - The inking, the inking!
It's late and I'm covered in paint, but it's done. Did you know that right around the five to seven hour mark is when you start staring at the painting and thinking "are we there yet?"
( The Imperial Exams Frown On Innovation )
Current Mood: exhausted
Current Music: turkish pop
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October 23rd, 2009
07:41 pm - Jiang Yun and his fabulous mechanical dragon
Partially finished
( More steampunk stuff )
Current Mood: weird
Current Music: Blind Guardian - Nightfall
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October 19th, 2009
01:01 am - And then another one happened
Still working on stuff that's pretty easy for me - small pieces, ink linework, watercolor, etc. However, they're fun, and it's nice to have done two things in one day, when I usually finish nothing. Of course, I've stayed up too late for someone who's not slept much this weekend, and am very groggy. But here's more art.
( Brass Wings II )
Current Mood: exanimate
Current Music: Leonard Cohen - Humbled in Love
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October 18th, 2009
08:57 pm - Well within my comfort zone
Actually painted something today. It's been a long time, no? And yes, I'm being lazy and posting it in this journal and not the other one, because more of you read this one anyhow.
( Brass Wings )
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/growf/pengies/yawn.gif) exhausted
Current Music: Leonard Cohen - Winter Lady
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September 18th, 2009
05:19 pm - Day 2
Alright, time to move away from the comfort zone. Not too far, though - if I jump right into really difficult things, I'll just wander off. So, still with a head shot and still with linework only. But it's a guy, which I'm less good at, and there are three colors this time. Plus the terrifying prospect of dealing with neck anatomy.
( 9-18-09 )
Current Mood: tired
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September 17th, 2009
10:03 pm - I finished something and I don't completely hate it
Theoretically I ought to upload this to the other journal, but I'm feeling lazy. This is the first thing I've managed to get far enough to finish in a long time.
Paint Tool Sai, using the limited palette I posted a few days ago. Background toned with yellow ochre. Linework in red ochre and lead white. Time to finish - 2ish hours?
( Random 16th cen style 'chalk' drawing )
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/growf/pengies/wideeyed.gif) anxious
Current Music: Steeleye Span - Child Owlet
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September 14th, 2009
12:21 am - In Which I Engage In Very Strange Behavior - Color Palette
Part the first: I have problems with color. I'm bad at picking colors for painting, and often end up with serious mismatchedness. This only gets worse when it comes to digital stuff, because that little palette with millions of colors makes it hard to even see what I'm getting. I always err too far toward the saturated.
Part the second: I've been painting a bit more, and doing some illustration work this week. The illustration is in my nice, safe friends black and white, so there's no worry there. The painting is an egg tempera piece I pick up from time to time (tomorrow I'm going to get some walnut or other drying oil at the market and it'll be tempera grassa, mwahaha) and since I make my own tempera, I'm limited to a small range of colors. This is particularly so given that there are pigments I consider too toxic to use (orpiment, vermilion, realgar) and I'm limiting myself to pigments used before 1600 (no chromes (not great for you), cadmiums (still pretty toxic anyhow), Prussian blue, modern organics, etc). The end result is a much better painting. I'm discovering that I can put together a decent pale European skin tone with green earth, burnt umber, red ochre and a little lead white (toxic but not actually that bad for grownups, and I never eat or touch my face while I'm using it.)
The inevitable conclusion: I should start limiting my palette elsewhere, including on the comp. Since the historical pigments have been working so well, and my head's currently in the 16th century, clearly I should limit myself to these colors. That makes perfect sense, right? So tonight I spent far too much time putting together a palette file. ( witness my lunacy - uncompressed JPG for your enjoyment )
I have no idea if this'll actually make my art better, but anything's worth trying. I'd feel bad about wasting time, but I did the base lineart for three full illustrations, had a nice sitdown with one of the boythings, sewed one vertical seam on my skirt, went shopping and walked almost two miles today. So it's ok to do something braindead and useless. Tomorrow, it's back to the wordmines!
Current Mood: strange
Current Music: something called Pink Turns Blue on Last.fm
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August 2nd, 2009
11:41 pm - MIscellaney
Today I made a skirt from start to finish - about four yards of eggplant linen, nearly a full circle. This was possible only by dint of using my machine on the long seams. I feel rather as though this is cheating, but on the other hand - skirt! Still 200+" of hemming, plus pleating, buttons and buttonholes, etc. Fingers are sore now. It's mostly for day to day use, but will made a decent underskirt for event wear as well. More skirts is always better, after all.
I've been doing too little, otherwise. Apartment is tornadoed and some tolerable art remains unfinished (I am still not at a point where I can like anything I make, but at least finishing it would be wise). Was doing okay, but someone important to me has recently been a bit of an ass in a way that remains unresolved, so that's pretty much torpedoed the productivity. Cryptic Grace is cryptic. I've been reading a lot of books, so as to pretend everything is ok.
Finished the Gormenghast trilogy tonight. I'd heretofore only ever read the first book. The second is equally impenetrable, and the third is outright surrealism, with minimal continuity (Titus is in it, and some things happen to him. The significance of these things is anybody's guess.) Also read Inventing the Victorians, which is lovely (telegraph spam!) and have been craving some of barbara_hambly's older stuff (the Antryg stuff and the Sun Wolf books are both childhood favorites). Of course, I have exactly two books of this, and neither are in the same series. I used to have more, but a move ate them sometime along the way. There may need to be a bookstore trip.
The CSA has finally begun to get going, though it seems to be a bad year or a less generous farm. I remember being buried alive in green beans by this time last year, and the spoils just aren't as good, even if last Friday did yield a mighty borscht. Also, I need to give in and eat some more salad before the lettuce colonizes my refrigerator. Broke down a couple of weeks back and bought some regular yeast for days when I feel lazy or haven't planned properly. Bread in a mere two hours seems almost like cheating now.
Haven't managed to put the rest of the stripes on the Bumblebee Dress. I need to dig out the yellow linen again, and I'm not sure where I put it, or the remainder of my giant Ebay thread collection. There are far too many projects in progress! I've figured out how to get more wear out of my combat boots, as well. I wear them all crooked, and cutting them even again with my coping saw takes a long time, but it keeps me from turning my ankles.
Must make more things before the summer is out. Winter will turn me into a ball of useless once more, and I want to have gotten enough done before it comes. Argh!
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/growf/pengies/cool.gif) quixotic
Current Music: Jethro Tull - A Christmas Song
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July 24th, 2009
01:07 pm - Hellas Is Up For An Ennie
A game I did the interiors for, Hellas, has been nominated for the Ennies in the Best Interior Art and Best Production Values sections. The book is truly gorgeous, if you have not seen it in person. Should you care to, please throw in a vote.
http://www.ennie-awards.com/voting/ballot.asp
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April 16th, 2009
01:06 pm - Doing a bit better today
It's warm and sunny and I can have the windows open. Art angst has subsided to some degree, and I even managed to do a bit of linework last night. Not going to push it, though.
Had a long, long talk with Nghi about what to do on the art front, since things feel so dry. May go back and update some old good ideas with a better skill level. Feels like cheating, but it's at least a contribution to all those bad lines I need to draw before I get to the good ones. Trying to figure out what I like anymore, instead of asking if it's marketable. I have mostly forgotten.
Have dropped two of those pesky winter pounds. Remains to see if the rest can be invited to leave, or if they'll stay like uninvited guests. Will have to take all the corsets in again regardless, due to shape changes.
There is much to do and little time, and I'd rather be sewing, but rent still needs paid, so I'm off to write some more pizza recipes for other people's websites.
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/growf/pengies/hyper.gif) hyper
Current Music: a lot of Bad Religion
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April 9th, 2009
05:16 pm - Writing - I should do it!
So, we have an approximation of spring here in the land of cheese. It is now mostly above freezing at night, and in the 40s and 50s during the day. There are colored things coming from the ground, which my sources refer to as flowers. And I have been greatly remiss in writing here.
My mood has still not quite settled out completely from winter, but at the moment, I'm merely having bad tendencies to catwax (clean the kitchen? do my writing? Why not work on my sewing instead?) with occasional mood drops. This is better than before. I still have not gotten up the energy to blitzkrieg clean the apartment, but spot cleaning is making this more of a habitation and less of a clutter factory.
I am so thankful to have such a small space to deal with. I am also very pleased that at no point did the winter blahs get so bad that I had to purchase bread from the store. While I skipped a week or so at a time, I made all of it using the yeast colony living in a yogurt container in my fridge. That yeast is now six months old. Happy birthday, yeast!
The rats are big and fuzzy, and like me, they have colds. I am hoping this will pass, because I'm far better at telling the severity of an illness in me than I am in them. Currently, it just looks like a spring cold, however.
( Reenactment dribble )
In art news, I got most of the way through a piece I was very fond of, then corrupted the file wholly. I had not, of course, made any backups. That's put me off it for a bit, but I'll see if I can jumpstart that again. Things were going very well, for a bit.
On a day to day basis, I'm afraid I'm quite dull. I write articles, doodle, sew, and wax poetic about food. That's really about it.
Current Mood: sore
Current Music: Inkubus Sukkubus on last.fm
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October 5th, 2008
10:11 am - The Time Has Come
Looks like Elfwood's overzealous ERB found my gallery. They've slated a bunch of stuff for automatic removal on extremely foolish bases. I knew it was probably coming, but it still feels a bit like a betrayal. I loved Elfwood very much, once upon a time, and maintained my gallery there long after many people stopped paying attention to theirs. I'll dispute the pieces individually, but I don't expect anything. Perhaps it's time to take the gallery down entirely, because a group of people who believe a man in semi-historical dress riding a giant fish with legs isn't fantasy aren't likely to listen to reason.
Current Mood: annoyed
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May 7th, 2008
12:48 pm - Phone sheep
This is awfully cool: http://www.cualquiera.com.ar/notas/arte.html
Judging by the way they have cables running to them, I think they're even live. You could make a call from a sheep.
Current Mood: depressed
Current Music: Pink Floyd - Your Possible Pasts
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February 12th, 2008
10:57 pm - Birds have nine sides!
I bought some photo paper last night. About 100 sheets.
It has vaporized.
Current Mood: starfish are pointy!
Current Music: Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds - All Tommorows Parties
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December 22nd, 2007
12:34 pm - Neuroses: 1 Me: 1/2
For whatever reason, looking at open calls and discussions about self-promotion make my stomach turn. This has been going on for a bit. I think I ought to step down the art for a bit, see if I can actually paint more. I'll still be taking commissions quite happily. I just won't go looking for the forseeable future.
Also, having a stick of RAM die on you when you've been working on a 9x12 at 600 dpi? Is a real pain in the rear. Slug, Photoshop, slug!
Current Mood: crazy
Current Music: Jethro Tull - Ring Out, Solstice Bells
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