Found the Airplane!

Got in a couple of hours' worth of time in tonight. The deep background is finally (finally [finally {finally!}]) nearing completion. Little by little by little.

Some big hops forward have been made, though it doesn't show readily: The sky has been put back in check, the treeline's done, we're closer to the right shade for the side of the hangar, I've started to recover the airplane from the gigantic mess I made, and various other bits have been nudged in the right direction. Some things are obviously in need of fixing, i.e. the warped steel roofing and the split-level roadway on either side of the vert-stab, and we'll just see how many more of them pop up during the rest of the process. But that's what paint is for, after all- to cover up all the mistakes you made with the last layer of paint! The grayscale version below shows the values holding up okay so far.


More to come soon.

Productivity, In Whatever Form

Had an evening of painting and crepes with G and E last night. Below is an unfinished oil sketch I did of the artist at her [humongous] canvas.

The Artist At Work, Oil on foamcore, 6x8"

Turns out it's much more productive for both of us to work with company and so stay tuned for the many adventures and projects to come.

Some More Paint

Spent some quality time with my painting today (though I'm not certain that either of us is any better off for it).

Seems to have gotten a bit out of control again. A new sky is apparent, the third repaint since the last update. Still about three hues too cool. Worse, I've lost the lines of the airplane under the generous beginnings of my rough color overlay. I'll be days fixing this one. Stay tuned, folks.

Three-Gallon Hatchery

Spent the other day cleaning out somebody's shed, so that it can be moved, so that an excavator can get in, so that a leach field can be dug, so that the plumbing works properly, so that, you know. Yeah.

Anyway, the garden pond needed to be drained and dug up as well, and so I find myself in sudden stewardship of a whole lot of goldfish. We spent four or five hours trying to net them all (at least three bright orange, five-inch fish remain at large in the murky eighteen-inch-deep pond), with several dozen fry in several sizes being brought in. The young 'uns currently reside in a well-lit, heavily circulated five-gallon bucket, where they are quite content to swim in circles and munch on protozoans. And anything else they can, actually. Goldfish aren't picky, even when they're this small.

The works

You can see some of the bigger and carotenoidally advantaged ones here.

Most of them are the size of a grain of rice, and brown.

Cool, huh?

Progress In The Unmistakable Form Of Color

Well, I've finally made the decision that has needed making for weeks and broken out of my umber world, having found myself in something of a mire. I've already worked the sky over twice; the first attempt, subject to miscalibrated lighting, produced a moody, oversaturated cloudscape that would look about right over a moonlit ocean but, needless to say, is a bit out of place for the occasion.

So I mixed out the blues a bit and it looked much better but, still lacking proper lighting conditions, it looks as though it may still be a little bit too deep. The plan is, as it stands, to take another look at it tomorrow and, should it actually need the amount of revision I think it does, to turn tail and hide myself behind a wall of art books.

Consumer Warning

As it turns out, I'm allergic to rentals.

No, really. I took my tux back with time to spare and a noticeable bounce in my step but, upon waking up the following morning, found myself covered from the neck down with the ol' red and itchy. Three days of dermatic irritation ensued, complete with oatmeal baths, ice bags, boo-boo kisses and other such ephemerally satisfying but ultimately futile home remedies. At first, of course, I thought I was suffering a bout of poison sumac; by the end of day one, blemished from head to toe with red blotches and pink streaks, moaning pitifully all the while, I could have been fairly mistaken for a calamine zombie (and accordingly dispatched).

This has some pretty tragic implications. I may never be able to wear a chicken suit, for example. And I guess I'll have to buy my wedding dress, instead of that new car that seems perpetually out of reach. Wait, what happens if I ever need to rent a car? The worst case of road rash this world has ever seen, I believe.

A warning to the superhistaminic would-be skinflint: try it, but buy it. Or suffer the consequences. Side effects may include severe itchiness and/or swelling, brief moments of insanity, an overwhelming desire to thrash your best friend for making you wear the stupid tux in the first place, and smelling for days like oatmeal.

The Man In The Creamsicle Suit

Never been a Best Man before. It was quite an experience, and I'm not certain that I've quite fully realized the magnitude of it. But after 14 years of waiting, I finally got to try his grandma's world-famous but notoriously hard-to-come-by lasagne. Was not disappointed. Looking back on this photo, I have to admit that I had a selfish impulse to knock him down and drag him through the grass. Luckily, I stood fast against my mischievous self.