So yesterday I added some stripes on a whim, and really like the way it looks. Today, I’m cleaning those up a bit.
The tech support guy was just here and he is an art lover. He just got back from D.C. where he saw some really great exhibits — Cezanne, the Dadaists, and Grant Wood. I think I feel a roadtrip coming on!
He liked my painting, too. 
Yay for positive feedback!
(I didn’t post a Day 8, because you really can’t see much change at this point.)
Yep… more cleaning up of details.
I told you this part takes forever.
Next step: I think I’m going to add some undulating color patterns to the shell.
Not a lot of really visible change right now — this is the point where I spend a lot of time making a lot of small corrections and cleaning up lines. It seems to take forever and the changes aren’t so obvious, but they make a huge difference.
I did add highlights to the ridges, although they’re difficult to see in this digital photo. Tomorrow I hope to spend more time cleaning up shadows.
Everytime we visit my Mother-in-law, a native Charlestonian, we have to take her a huge bag of Mr. Bee potato chips. She can’t get them in South Carolina, and really misses them. I guess there just isn’t anything like them anywhere else — kind of like Hussmann’s potato chips that I used to love when I lived in Cincy!
So we took our requisite bag ‘o chips down I-77, along with a backup (in case we got stranded in orange barrels and didn’t have a thing to eat) only to get there and find that they just didn’t taste the same! We busted open our backup bag (how did it last that long?) and got the same result. A phone call to Bee headquarters gave us the low-down — federal regulations on snack foods require that all trans-fats be removed from the oil.
WHAT?
So you can buy cigarettes, but you can’t buy chips with trans-fats? Okay, I am kind of a health-food nut. I feed my family couscous and organic veggies, but dammit, when I want that occasional bag of Mr. Bee chips, I want them, trans-fats and all!
Oh, well. That’s how it goes. They’re still half-decent — they taste about like Lay’s. They’re just not the same old Mr. Bee chips I’ve known and loved.
I’m signing off until next week, sometime — ROADTRIP!!!!!
(I call shotgun!)
Happy Easter!
I took this picture during the “Thirty Artists Think Yellow” exhibit at the Annex Gallery (Taylor Books) and mirrored it in photoshop. I like the way it turned out.
No painting today, unfortunately. I was hoping to work on it, but I think it’s going to have to wait until we get back from South Carolina in a week.
It was a beautiful day today, again. I got out and walked around downtown and forgot my camera. Actually, I took my camera out of my purse when I took my middle schoolers to the park and forgot to grab it on my way to lunch. Probably better that way… it was nice just sitting back and watching people instead of hiding behind my camera.
The painting is coming along! The colors are a little bit off in this photo, but I don’t have time to adjust them right now. All I have left to do are minor things, but those can be time-consuming and tedious.
I got a lot done today! It must be the Milky Way Blast from Taylor Books. I think those things must contain crack or something like that because they’re so addictive! I’m going to have to spend an extra hour at Curves to work that off, I think.
Anyway, I got the spacing on the 3rd row of the spiral fixed and worked on some more segments at the bottom. I also darkened the background, which I think makes it really pop right off the canvas! It’s really coming along. I have a lot left to do, though. I think the segments look too shallow and need more shading, especially toward the outside of the shell.
So, lots to do, but I’m happy just to be painting again.
I didn’t get as much done today as I wanted to, but I like the contrast I’m getting.
This painting is almost like a mandala. It’s almost meditative, working from the center outward. I wish it wasn’t so cumbersome to carry — I’d take it home every day to work on. Painting is such a wonderful stress-reliever, and the only side effect is losing track of time.
I got a chance to take in the printmaking exhibit at Taylor Books — AWESOME stuff! Two of the artists, Peter Massing and Mary Grassell, were professors I had at Marshall University. I love their work.
My students are going to start printmaking and silk painting when they get back from Spring Break — two of my favorite things to teach. I am looking forward to those projects. I just hope they’ll get the supplies over Spring Break so we don’t have stragglers.
