Humbling

This is my new desktop background.

The thing I was experimenting with earlier looks really great, although now I’m going to have a hard time looking at it critically after finding my desktop wallpaper.

Long Breaks and Flakes

I finally was able to get back to some painting today. I should know better than to strike out on a new endeavor right before summer begins, because summer means whole lot of things going on. My mother visited, other friends visited, I had a huge amount of weekends where I had to work, etc.

But now I finally have a weekend to myself, and I can catch up with other stuff wot makes the soul happy. I am currently waiting for an experiment in water color to dry. I laid in a lot of water and just let dots of color bled together as it likes. This causes an excess of water to build up on the paper, but I’m hoping the way the colors swirled together is the way it’ll dry. It looks amazing.

The technique also makes me wish I had a great deal more colors. I bought a basic set with the three pure colors I needed, plus white, black, and green (it was part of a basic set). Now I’m realizing that the colors aren’t so pure, except maybe for the yellow. The red is more of an orangey crimson. The blue falls to the purple end of the spectrum. I will have to remember to pick up two more tubes of paint when I’m in the neighborhood of the supply store.

I haven’t been able to acquire a scanner. If someone offers you a scanner, punch them in the head. Scanner = Idiot. At least that’s what I’m surmising due to my experience with trying to get a scanner.

I got in contact with the gentleman I mentioned before a couple more times after I wrote. Each time we made a date, each time he had to bail or just disappeared. The final email I received from him was the day my mother landed for her visit, which was two weeks after our initial conversation. I ended up replying back that with my mother in town for two weeks, I would not have the time to pick up the scanner (especially after the two weeks I’d had wasting time playing cat and mouse with him).  I haven’t heard from him since.

I contacted another gentleman from Craigslist about a scanner that would be compatible with my laptop. The morning I was supposed to pick it up, he emailed me that he couldn’t find the scanner. Apparently he is having some work done to his house, so he’s moved things around, and there is a chance the laborers are stealing from him. He says he’ll contact me again if he can find it. After two more rounds of “I can’t find it” and me replying “fair enough,” he says that he’s more than likely hidden it so well that he can’t find it, and that if he does end up finding it, it’s mine free of charge.

I’m torn right now. I’m way too lazy to go hunting a third time for a scanner on Craigslist. The kind I want is rare enough in the lists (flatbed, not a combo with printer, fax, toaster, egg poacher…, and compatible with Mac), and I am now wary of unwittingly coming across the same idiot again, or going through the same song and dance a third time. I could possibly just go to Fry’s and buy a scanner, but Fry’s is starting to really annoy me and I’m not sure I want to spend as much money as scanners sometimes can cost (the good ones) when it’s a piece of technology I might not use that often.

There is also the point that I haven’t painted that much quite yet, and what I have to show so far isn’t that interesting because I’m just putzing with technique. So I could conceivably wait until the end of September to hear from dude #2. That’s only next month, and if I’m frothing at the mouth that much about putting something I’ve done online, there’s always Kinko’s.

Blog satisfaction

For the most part anyway. I’m not the best when it comes to computer graphic design, but the tweaks I’ve done on the graphics on this blog make me quite happy. I’ve also activated Akismet, which is an anti-spam plugin for WordPress that works pretty well. My time as a system administrator has taught me that even the most unknown blogs get comment and trackback spam. Because spammers are bastards. I’ll worry about wp-cache if this blog ever gets popular, although I’m not holding my breath. I’ve blocked Google and other engines because crawlers beat the hell out of servers when they try to index PHP-based sites.

I’ve begun playing around with watercolors. I spent an amount of money at the art supply store yesterday that still makes me hurt a bit, although not too badly. But I bought good paper, paints, and brushes. When I started experimenting with forms, light and techniques today, the amount I spent paid off. It’s silly crap, but it was fun and I like some of the forms I came up with. I will upload a scan once I actually get a scanner. I’ve been playing tag with a man with a scanner.

Currently, he’s it.

Aurora Borealis from space

Sometimes the most beautiful art is not created by humans.

Moving forward

There’s not much point to this blog if I don’t post my progress, as in visuals. Before I moved last year, I was very stupid and just tossed my scanner. So I’m meeting a man this morning who is selling his scanner for $20 (via Craigslist, of course). Thankfully you can get these things secondhand and in good condition for very cheap.

He lives near an area that has all sorts of Japanese shops, so I might even get a boba out of it this morning too.

Still working on the blog

So far so good, although there’s some design aspects I’m not entirely happy about. The side menu headers need to be altered.

I’m wishing I hadn’t moved so far away from the art stores, but my best friend still lives there and we visit every Friday night. I’m going to pay a visit for some watercolors before I go to his house tonight.

New Blog

Trying to develop that old artistic ability again. I had an idea, and the title of the blog is part of that.