New background?
I am hoping to use this background. Some images photoshoped together.
Blue Screen of Death
Do you ever get really strange ideas that suddenly demand a visual explanation? I had two ideas today. My second idea (first one not done yet) was this image of Death sitting in upon his throne (very generic) where he is waiting patiently. This is not new until you imagine him having a face of a blue screen! Ha ha! Lol. I had a blue screen of Death today already which set me back about a half hour or more. Go figure. I had a third idea later as well, but again, I’ll illustrate it before I tell you 
So look for a second post on this subject….well, I hope. Since I have lagged on getting a solution together for selling my art online….well, doing art and not selling art eventually leads to doing less art- a lot less art! There is a month or more in between my semesters in school, so often it gets really tight. On that note, I hope you enjoy the little stuff like this one. Best of luck to all our imaginations. Beware your dreams that their satisfaction does not exact all the energy you need for reality…Neither of them can live without the other. Especially for those of us who are inevitably creative at our core. 
From here to there
Here is a quick sketch I was able to eek out during the holidays.
I left the year with an excruciating trip out to visit family for Christmas. Fortunately the weather was good most of the 1300 miles. And the weather was a strange 40 degrees or more. This plummeted later with Christmas snow that no one can argue with… Well except that the locals there didn’t know how to drive in snow and they don’t have a polished plowing system. Nobody died during the crazy holiday with all of the cramped living space and home comings after long years past. Even the kids didn’t get seriously hurt, although my son did ask when we were going home about 4 days before we did. The food was good and even in these meager times all of us had the chance to give a gift to everyone. The kids made a pretty good sum of candy and toys which only added to the pandemonium. New years eve was visited with an unusually difficult and funny game called “the wrong game”. Go get it. It’s a blast. By this time however I was in no mood to once again challenge my aging ability to traverse nearly half the continent with three children of ages 1, 4, and 5 also with my wife who can get motion sickness and who is just at the third part of her pregnancy with number 4. Whew. It’s enough of A drain just to say that. But we made good time and fair weather most of the way through even though a serious snow storm chased us. We left later so that the kids could sleep through the night while I drove. We stopped for dinner that night for ….. Yes, when asking a child what their choice would be for dinner…. Pizza is on a very short list. Godfathers pizza and a good hour and a half later and we were on the road again. Unlike previous trips with one less child we drove strait through and didn’t have any car sick children. We stopped at grandma and grandpas for a little 4 hour nap before the last 300 miles which was really nice. It was good to see them too. Finally Home. Yes we made it. Upon arrival in the cold homeland I sent the family to the other grandparents just down the street while I commenced shoveling the two weeks of snowfall. Two feet at the front of the house where it fell off the roof and 10 or 8 inches along the rest. It’s amazing how different it is to shovel a massive amount of snow like that after a 22 hour drive than to do so from a fresh start in the middle of a leisurely day. But to pull into a clean driveway for the next week is priceless. School will start a month later than I anticipated and so will financial aid. A few side jobs on the table but with so short of a time to the start of school and literally thousands of students flooding into town at another school swooping up the job market….. This will be a tough month for sure. Wishing I could sell prints of my work but I don’t have anything set up nor do I have an inventory. So the year is new and the circumstances are old and similar. Goals are just a continuation of past goals unfinished or unaccomplished. This year will see tremendous change in global and local attitudes with respect to events that are inevitable. Strange that the year ends with Christ and begins too often with a resolve that doesn’t have his spirit in it… He having been left in the holiday past. Gifts have been received, coffers emptied, travels experienced, family remembered then left behind with promises to keep in touch more often, and we all return to the hum drum of what we were so enthusiastic to leave when the holiday began. I then. Can only say that we all be grateful we survived our adventure. That we be grateful we saw our loved ones and that we shared our wishes and fair share of emotional ups and downs. Work hard. Find time to play. And as for me…spring cleaning has already begun . Take care everyone. Remember Christ, and help someone out this week. Just because.
- Post using Blog Press from my iPod touch
Halloween pictures arrived!
Well, today Taylor came home from school with our Halloween pictures that we had taken of us at his elementary carnival. Finally a recent picture of all of us. Taylor wanted to be Optimus Prime again, and Elizabeth wanted to be a princess. We decided to make Shannon a Lady Bug while Nadia and I chose pirate outfits. A happy moment during a difficult Fall and Winter. Shannon turned 1 since this photo.
Hm…
Mr. Mom lately. Not completely, but feeling a little displaced though. Overwhelmed. Behind. Don’t really want to say anything beyond that.
Ubuntu Testing
Shaun is now testing out ubuntu. Shaun is happy.
Well, for now, I am using both blogger and wordpress. We’ll see who wins. But here is some artwork to view. :)
16×20 oil on canvas board. 25 hours at least.
Rainbow socks anyone?
Another late assignment here. It was supposed to be a 6 hour painting, but at a 16×20 canvas and all the oils necessary….I couldn’t live with a mediocre half baked painting. Not that my assignment asked for such, but with the size and restricted time frame…I didn’t think I could do a painting that would do the canvas justice. The specifics of the assignment were to paint patterns, in this case stripes. I figure with all of the interruptions and days of work…it came around to 25 hours roughly. I know, way too long for a 6 hour assignment. And totally non-conducive to catching up on late assignments. Anyway, I really like this painting. I used a one inch brush to get in on the background, and later switched to a half inch brush for everything else other than the hands and signature. For some reason….the hands were really hard. I wanted to make sure they were subordinate to the face and socks. They still look a little big or angular/masculine to a degree, but they’re done! That is what I get for leaving them for last. 7 more late assignments to make up…whilst keeping up with current ones on hand….for only this class. Yup, I may be taking this semester over again…and we are still unpacking in the garage. Boy are we glad to have a garage!!! Now if we could just get the cars in the garage for winter. Happy painting everyone! Enjoy.
Hands
My latest assignment finished is on hands. About 12×16, these are done with carbothello sanguine and white pencils. It’s a progress…well except the white hand on the top in black and white…that was the reference I was to copy from. I had some proportional issues with the pointer finger and the area around the pinky where it goes down into the crease of the palm, but I felt pretty good about it. My biggest let down…it took almost 9 hours. Which is ridiculous honestly. Oh well, it’s done. Enjoy.