01.16.09
Posted in Being Better, Fun, Home Life, art at 7:29 pm by Beau
wash draft of a current sketch
It only took six weeks of “The Shining”-like isolation upstate to not only get me off my ass and start running and eating right again but actually getting over myself and picking up a pencil and watercolors again. I have a whole drawer of supplies that have been languishing and only being slightly molested at various times. I’d finger the paints and stroke the brushes and then “a-hmm” myself and slide the drawer shut again. What finally did it for me this time was the sheer volume of pictures I’ve been cutting out, downloading, and organizing. I can only tell myself “oh, I should paint that” so many times before it is time to shit or get off the pot.
These options are never the ones I’m aggressive towards.
And yet, for whatever reason, I’ve done it. I’ve worked on two pretty solid sketches and started putting on washes. Neither of which I think are anything other than just nice pieces of practice for me to learn the tools and try to understand how the medium works. Anything that is even remotely recognizable is nothing more than a happy accident.
True to my nature, I like neither of them. I like the idea of them and I like that I’ve actually shat as it were, but I see so much wrong and so much left to do which is typically discouraging for me. But I’m still moving forward with them and then I’ll move onto others and keep the dull roar of all that I have yet to learn to myself. And yet…I do like the idea of them. It makes me feel…attached.
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06.18.08
Posted in Being Better, Books, City Life, art at 8:42 am by Beau
As it’s Gay Pride coming up this weekend in New York, I decided to celebrate my diversity by a quick swing through Borders. These ended up being my actual purchases. Believe me, I’m as surprised as the next person. Jeff was actually rendered speechless.
The McKinsey Way
Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats
Craft Magazine: June 2008
Bear’s Life Magazine: June 2008
Martha Stewart: Weddings, June 2008
American Artist Series: Watercolor, Summer 2008
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05.27.08
Posted in Being Better, Home Life, The days, The garden, Word for the day, art, traveling for work at 8:12 am by Beau
I spent the weekend on my knees getting dirty. That can be taken anyway anyone sees fit and it would be true…or true enough, as it were.
Mark my words that come mid-August, it is best believed there will be some exhausted rantings about how fucking stupid it was to put out 20 Kirby cucumber plants, all for the love of pickles. I’ve warned Jeff already that him crying and whining about spending most of the weekends in August and part of September in the kitchen, over a hot stove sterilizing jars and boiling pickling brine will fall on very deaf ears. I just grow ‘em and do what I’m told. Seriously, mark it on your calendars.
The first summer naps of which I’m so fond was had on Sunday. Jeff’s mom spent the weekend with us and while we’d planned to do some shoping on Sunday and catch the new Indiana Jones flick, but by our 2pm departure, all three of us were cast in what probably looked like a fine funeral repose. All of us stretched out on the big new Pottery Barn couch/sectional thing we bought for the new screened in deck, snoozing away. I love the fact that I roused myself in the middle of it to find I’d stuffed my hand down Jeff’s pants right next to his mom. That’s how we roll with Charlotte. I would say this was a vast improvement over my normal routine where I’ve stuffed my hands so far into my armpits and clamped down with such force as to render both hands numb from a lack of circulation. At least in Jeff’s pants, I still had sensations…both in my hands and my pants.
So things grow. I put in a ton of periennials that I’d been meaning to do, trying to make the back flower bed off our porch into a butterfly and humming bird garden. Lots of cone flowers and black-eyed susans with a smattering of some different daisy varieties and a returning bed of bright red pom-pom’ed Mondara. I’m fearful that there is no good design in how I planted things but I think as long as they grow I’m content. I’m trying to slowly but surely kill my constant need for good design in everything because it renders me completely incapable of moving forward on any project.
I spent some time this weekend staring at the pig mural I painted on the side of our workshop. I’d link to the picture but it has once again escaped me to actually put the picture on some accessible media I could actually use. The closest I have is the pre-picture so imaginations will have to be used. I have visions and have actually researched on how to silk screen using a home-grown system. I think the mural would make a fine and spiffy t-shirt. Fine and Spiffy being my current direction in personal growth and flair.
Now I’m on that Tuesday-Feels-Like-Monday-After-A-Holiday schedule, riding the train back down to Philadelphia for work. All of which is still Fine and Spiffy with me, dirty or not.
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05.16.08
Posted in art at 10:36 pm by Beau
Having a coworker and friend who likes to dabble in music send me a demo song that I now have in rotation on my iPod. LowFi, melancholy, and simply perfect. I told him I want to make a movie just so I can use the song as part of the soundtrack. I love having friends like that.
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Posted in City Life, Uncategorized, art at 8:52 am by Beau
This is an amazing demonstration of how good art can be. It combines some of my favorite things about art: innovation, stop animation, and use of public spaces. I would have loved to watch this getting made.
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