It Seems That I’m Not Worthy July 26, 2006
Posted by Mitchell in Home, Politics.comments closed
It’s been a while and I’ve heard nothing from the HOA Board about my offer. It appears that they do not want my services. So, my political career is over before it had scarce begun. Ah, well. It would have cut into my blogging time anyway.
Ew, Ew, EW! July 26, 2006
Posted by Mitchell in Art, Home, Politics.comments closed
Sorry, but more comprehensible words fail me. EW!
***UPDATE***
Corner reader thinks the the sculpture more closely resembles actor Steve Buscemi. HA!
Enas Yorl & The HOA Board July 19, 2006
Posted by Mitchell in Home, Politics.comments closed
I just attended an HOA board meeting. An unfortunately rare occurance for me, as I tend to forget about them or can’t go due to a class. They were appointing another Board Member – the second in as many months. I was rather concerned since if the board doesn’t have enough active members then the State steps in to take over the management of the HOA and VERY BAD THINGS happen when that happens. Also, our gates have been standing open for about 3 weeks now and I wanted to find out what the situation was. Anyway, the new guy was appointed and we went on. Hmm – things aren’t going so well hereabouts. The gates were vandalized, and the HOA doesn’t have the money to fix them at the moment. In fact there’s been a severe, chronic vandalism issues for quite some time and repairs are starting to eat into our reserve funds. Also not good – if the reserve funds aren’t maintained at a certain level then again the board is disolved and the State steps in. So, our monthly dues are going to go up again to try and get those back up, while saving money for repairs. Lots of issues – and solutions are in short supply at the moment. I gave the board President my business card and told him if he needed any help to give me a call. It seems there’s another board position available and he asked me if I was interested. I said that I was and he said he would start e-mailing me stuff tomorrow. Next month I may be a member of my HOA board. It should be interesting.
Art Materials – Brushes July 17, 2006
Posted by Mitchell in Art, Home.comments closed
I mentioned in the post below that I’m shelling out a Benjamin for a set of brushes. Well, $110 for six brushes with the S&H. What I’m buying are a set of these. Sure that seems expensive but if you look at some of the other sets by other manufacturers you’ll see I could have easily paid a great deal more.
During the class I painted with a mixed set of various synthetic and a couple natural bristle brushes. The natural bristle brushes (with one exception) vastly outperformed the synthetic ones. At the beginning of the class I noticed that Alfonso was able to make very long continuous strokes that I had trouble emulating. That was because he was using professional sable brushes, of course.
Towards the middle of the class I picked up a #6 squirrel hair brush. It was more $ than the same size synthetic, but cheaper than the sables. I was disappointed in it really. It holds a lot of paint for its size, but it’s very soft and floppy. I didn’t use it much. I already had a small #4 sable and I loved it. Later I picked up a #10 second tier sable for $38 (top tier was $50+) and that one quickly became one of my favorites too. What is the difference? Sables naturally come to a sharper tip, have better carrying capacities, and more consistent release rates across varied sized brush strokes.
My recent purchase is a good first step to building a nice set of brushes. They should get here soon – I can’t wait! Don’t get me wrong – the synthetics have their place too and are very good at doing some things I wouldn’t want to do with a sable.
Uh oh! Storm’s a comin! I’d better get off before I get a nasty surge hits.
Later!
The Final Project July 13, 2006
Posted by Mitchell in Art, Home.comments closed
Not bad, if I do say so myself. I may add a little more shading on the leading edge of the cornfield and a little texture on the field itself, but it’s essentially done. Later tonight I’ll add a picture of the very first watercolor I did in this class for comparison.
What do y’all think?
***UPDATE*** Unfortunately, I can’t post the very earliest works since the instructor (Alfonso) took them at the start of the class. He intended to give them back at the end to show us how far we’ve come, but I think he forgot about them. Ah well. Needless to say they were a couple of very bad examples of still life. Onward and upward!
Summer July 12, 2006
Posted by Mitchell in Home.comments closed
James Lileks hip-hip hoorayed the firm establishment of the summer season in a recent Quirk column. He hails from colder climes, so he doesn’t know any better. Here in Las Vegas we spend all of our summer days scrambling from one air-conditioned hole to another, desperately trying to avoid getting turned into a crispy critter by old Mr. Sun.
Summers are endured here rather than enjoyed.
Next Week Is the Last Week of Watercolor Class July 7, 2006
Posted by Mitchell in Art, Home.comments closed
We will be focused in on our Final Project. We spent much of last night’s class going through pictures to paint. We had our choice of either each of us choosing our own picture to do, or everyone doing the same one. I would have preferred the former, but the others wanted everyone to do the same. A safer choice for them since everyone can learn from what everyone else is doing. We narrowed down the choices to two: a nice farm landscape and an arched rock-scape. Tonight we did two small paintings of each one to get a feel for the subject. They were 9 by 6 inches:
A half harvested wheat corn field against a back drop of autumn trees. It’s a nice mixture of color and textures.
Strong composition, but a limited range of colors. Very rich detail in this piece though.
These were very small. The final piece is going to be on 300 lb, 20 x 15 inch paper, or four times the size. That’s a BIG difference! Which one would you choose to do?
According to Elzbth July 5, 2006
Posted by Mitchell in Home, Strange & Unusual.comments closed
+ “Nekkid”
+ 
(cowboy boots)
+ 
(cowboy hat)
+ holster
***UPDATE***
+ 
(property destroying beagle)
= crazy delicious hotness.
Uh huh. And y’all think I come up with weird stuff.
I am Podless July 5, 2006
Posted by Mitchell in Home, Strange & Unusual.comments closed
Well, for today at any rate. I left it at home and now I’m at the mercy of the radio. Which is playing Bon Jovi now. Tortures! Tortures of the Damned!!
Low Tide July 3, 2006
Posted by Mitchell in Art, Home.comments closed
I like this one. I’m pleased with my progress in this class and I’m learning a lot. Here, I’ve allowed myself a very loose treatment of minute detail that I usually obsess over. This is where proper placement of the viewer relative to the subject is really important. Too close and it just looks like a bunch of squiggly lines. Farther back they resolve themselves into the irregular, undulating boulders & sand that it represents.
This photo of the painting really doesn’t do justice to the original I’m afraid. I’m struggling with this digital camera. The flash tends to wash out the colors, but if I don’t use it everything comes out a dingy yellow. I adjust the color a bit to try and compensate but other things suffer. The border around the edge in reality is white; here it’s blue. So, when looking at this picture, imagine it with that exact amout of blue extracted from it.
****UPDATE**** Retired Geezer is Da MAN! Pull back and nuke it from orbit – it’s the only way to be sure. I’d completely forgotten about the zoomer option and I had it on the “Close Up” setting before which was probably messing with things too. This picture is very comparable to the original painting.
Compare to the previous one below:
Ick!
The Center of the Anomaly 