Thursday, October 26, 2006

Where is that woo-woo feeling?


Well...........one of them is still red anyway....although it reminds me a of tornado on red ground. One is untouched, still with the first coat of red.......... and one is no where near red. I'll take a picture so I can "get away" from them and see what I think. These babies may end up with several layers.

The red doesn't have much value change....way too much like the same ole, same ole for the other one.

I'm feeling a deep dissatisfaction with a lot of my work lately............why is that? Does it mean growth? Well, if it does, then I'm ready to get past the growth cycle for a change and fall in love with something I'm doing. I want to feel the "woo-woo.....that is right on, way to go" feeling.

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

"....if you can't make it big, make it red


..........."if you can't make it big, make it red"............a part of a quote attributable to several artists....therefore, anonymous.

That's what has happened to these 16 x 16" weird pieces I started at colony. At colony I wanted to use colors and design that I don't usually start with.......well, wouldn't you know, these scoundrels have been haunting my dreams ever since. They just don't work for me so, finally, this morning I into the studio to just wipe them out. And wipe them out with what??.......RED, that favorite of colors, of course.

While not finished by a long shot, there is a beginning here. Off to the studio to think some more on what comes next.

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

Finally


Hopefully, I can give some of the computer stuff a break for a few days. I finally got the images of the three new small paintings done and up on my website. I still don't have the individual pages for them yet.......or the other three new larger ones, but I'll get to it before long.

It has just taken TOO long to clean up my website a little. I had a lot of old links that no longer worked to other art sites and just general accumulations of stuff kinda like my closet and cupboards get over time.

Here's one of the images............the others are on my website.

Sunday, October 15, 2006

Quotes, I love quotes.

Quotes......I love quotes, but all of mine have just gone swoosh off my computer. I went looking for the file but it's gone........and I had some doozies in that file.

But on to the reason I'm thinking of this...I receive a lot of newsletters and subscribe to lots of lists and blogs. Today I got one in the in-box that I love to read through in my spare time. I seem to have lots of spare time. Anyway, this one is called Creativity Portal and comes to you if you sign up at creativity-portal .

One of the first articles I clicked on represented what I've been doing a lot of recently....or more correctly, for the past year......THE LULL. The article can be found here.

Actually, it's called Romancing the Lull: Creativity's Pause Button written by Jill Badonsky. I saw a couple of quotes in the article I can certainly identify with.......
"To do great work a man must be very idle as well as very industrious"._ Samuel Butler. And the other... "It takes a lot of time to be a genius, you have to sit around so much doing nothing, really doing nothing."_ Gertrude Stein

Well, if those quotes can be relied on as a marker for genius, then you can count on me to come up with something wonderful soon. It's getting pretty awful when you dust furniture or write in your journal/blog instead of paint on the three little paintings that are just waiting for their finishing touches. And finishing touches are all they need........that is, unless I make a major goof and it makes me start over again.....with another layer.

Anyway, I encourage those of you planning on becoming geniuses, to sign up for the creativity portal newsletter............ andit will help you come up with validation for all those times you stare at a painting for hours on end.

Saturday, October 14, 2006

Pulling hair

Pulling hair.......or that's the way you feel after trying to figure out how to fix over 102 pages on a website. I've worked off and on for days trying to get the backgrounds and both shared borders of all pages the same. Seems like I just got darker and darker over the past year or so for the background color making new pages, too. Now, it might be very light on some monitors but lighter is better than too much a middle value khaki. I, also was ready to hurl this keyboard trying to figure out why I couldn't get the changes to my page links moved from the top to the side on all pages.........finally figured it out but it had to be done one at a time although you are SUPPOSED to be able to click change for all pages. I still am not able to get the colored text on the top to show on the internet....but maybe later. A little ho-hum maybe, but if it gets too colorful or busy it takes away from the art....or worse, clashes with the colors in the art as I change them out.

Wish I could comprehend CSS so I could have side navigation with no underlines but such is my muddled brain........not to be.
Heck I even saw 3-4 collages with no page of their own....and I have several new paintings that aren't up either so ...........more pages to add. After I recover from the basic re-do. Most people won't even notice that I've changed anything. But take it from me, lots of stuff has been deleted and some links page info deleted, etc. I still plan to do a little more of that on the main links page............but those three little paintings on the wall easel are calling to me first.

Saturday, October 7, 2006

Urge squelched....

An urge has been brewing for some time...........to re-design my web site. About a year or so ago, I bought the upgraded Office 2003 and it came with an upgrade to FrontPage as well......so dummy me, I loaded the whole thing up and as luck would have it, that program had changed a LOT since I last upgraded. I had a real tough time finding just the usual stuff....like automatic thumbnail images at first. Now I'm even more off my rocker as I downloaded another new page editor to try out. Heck, I can't even figure out how to layer the different colors I wanted for the template. And, I have over 100 pages on my website so............this is never gonna happen.

I know...they tell you not to put everything on the site.....and I don't. But, I do have to keep SOME old work on pages as archives. How else am I going to show someone what I've done in the past so they can see I might do something similar again in different sizes, etc.???

People might say that FrontPage doesn't have clean code, but I think I'm stuck with it as my brain just isn't in the mood to learn too many new things at one time.......besides that, I have to paint. What good will it do me to have a clean, spiffy new site if I don't have anything to put on it? And ....what if google and yahoo can't find me if I change it too much? Lots to think of and my mind is buzzing.

Thursday, October 5, 2006

More paintings


Well leave it to me......I finally got back to the studio yesterday to put the finishing touches on a couple more paintings started at Colony. I was putting away pint jars of paint, etc. and just used my foot to push a carton out of the way. I promise, it was not that heavy...but I immediately felt something strange and I had a pulled something in the left upper hip. Now I ask you, have you ever pulled anything THERE? Not I. I'm still kinda moving around like an old lady (no comments on that) getting up and down. And the Aleve commercials on TV ...I remember it being such a miracle. Let me tell you it doesn't work on pulled muscles in the upper hip.

Today the plan is to take a couple of photos of two more paintings I think are finished.....wish I could think of some titles that would show some variety, but so far...nothing. I'm getting tired of the same ole, same ole. Any ideas?

If I get them done early, I'll post with this blog entry.

Well...I hauled them out to the fence with the appropriate black felt background. I took slides and digitals and then came in to work on them for the blog. The high-res images look great on my monitor but the re-sized for the web ones are "pixelated" looking. I even decided to use less sharpening but that didn't help either. I don't know why as it should be the other way around on pixelation. I'm posting the two anyway....the horizontal one (30 x 40) also has the cobalt blue under-painting but in this one, it hardly shows. The other (48 x 36) has a quinacridone gold under-painting. Golden no longer makes this color so I might as well use it up...one more pint jar to go.

Sunday, October 1, 2006

New Painting Posted


I haven't been back long from the art retreat in Mississippi. During the time there we had a wireless connection....BUT, it never seemed to want to connect during any time I could sit down to make a blog entry. We're always painting, talking, or eating anyway so when could I gather a thought to write??

This is one of the first paintings I started during the time there....30 x 30" acrylic on canvas....this one, with a cobalt blue underpainting. I don't think I've ever used cobalt blue as tone for under-painting and I needed to do something different so this was it. The second one didn't turn out to be a companion to this one after all so I'll post it along later. And wait until you see the weird combination of lavender, red, black and white...or Hum....you may never see it. I'll decide later.

We had wonderful cool mornings and sun most days so the weather was really pleasant this trip.