Art and friends...

Busy day yesterday. I'll go backwards chronologically and first say I met up with an old friend last night (oops, not old, not old, I didn't mean old, bad choice of words.... I mean "longtime friend", haha).

I've known Erika since the 5th grade, but haven't seen her in about 5 years. Don't ask me why, but I guess I'm pretty lousy about keeping in touch with folks. But she called last night and said she and her son Hayden were at Cabela's Sporting Goods, so I went there to hang out with them.

You know with some friends it seems like things have never changed. We sat and talked and laughed our asses off right in the middle of the store. It was great, I haven't laughed that hard in a long time. So we sat on the display furniture and talked and next thing we knew they announced the store was closing! Time flies when you're having fun. We definitely need to get together more often. I think it keeps our sanity intact by going crazy every once in a while with the right person.

Now about earlier in the day...

I had to write a paper about a trip to a museum for my Art Appreciation class. Back when I was in that art contest I had received free VIP tickets to the Nasher Sculpture Center in downtown Dallas, so I figured it was a good time to go there. I had 2 tickets, but lord knows I can't manage to find anyone else who could bear to visit an art gallery, so I went by myself. That's okay, I'll give the other ticket to somebody in my class who still needs to write their paper. Anyway, I took a few photos of some pieces I liked. If ya don't like art, ya may as well go on to the next website, because I'm about to ramble about it. And these are just my own thoughts on these works, just my humble opinion of what I find interesting about them. It may or may not be what the artist originally intended.





First, here's the artist Willem de Kooning with a piece known as "Untitled IX", an oil on canvas. This painting has quick gestural brush strokes that hint at shapes. At first glance your eyes try to make sense of the lines... it's human physiology that if your eyes see something your brain tries to identify the shape. In this painting you instantly see the head and chest of a woman, and you almost feel like legs are there too, but if you look closer and try to follow the lines the legs disappear as if they don't really exist. The body is an illusion made up of lines.






This next piece is by David Smith and titled "Two Circles on Yellow and Green". The story behind his paintings: Smith was a sculptor that would spray paint onto pieces of sheet metal to construct into his sculptures. As he sprayed each piece on the floor, when he moved the piece of metal away of course the silhouette from the overspray remained on the floor. He realized these sprayed forms were artistic in their own right. When World War II diminished his supply of metal he decided to start painting instead, using these spray techniques.

So, on this painting the white "objects" are unpainted areas of exposed canvas. What I found interesting was the indication of perspective- the sharp edges made some shapes appear closer, and also floating in space, and other shapes seem further back due to the blurred edges and dull colors. It may sound elementary, I know. But I liked how this artist made it look like a painting of sculpted objects.



And of course you can't talk about museum pieces without showing a Picasso... this is his "Nude Man and Woman".

I'm not going to try to critique this one, I don't know where to begin. And I couldn't paint a Cubist style picture like this just the same that I couldn't draw a caricature. Heck I can't even draw a cartoon. Just not in my mindset, a different type of mind paints styles like this. I don't have an abstract mind, I'm more of a realist. But, I do find them interesting nonetheless.

And this concludes my art rambling. Go out and enjoy a museum sometime.

Oscar, the grim reaper...

I couldn't help but follow the link to this story:

Cat Predicts Deaths in Nursing Home

The gist of it is, 25 times now Oscar the cat has predicted a person's death by lying on their bed for like 4 hours before they pass away.

My first thought was, the residents there must say "Keep that damn cat outta MY room!"

My second thought was, how sneaky this cat is... nobody suspects him... he's just a sweet little kitty getting national attention from these gullible humans, all the while he coolly lies on the beds waiting for everyone to turn their backs so he can snuff them out one by one. Aye, he's a crafty one.

This brought me to thinking about how my own cats are good at making predictions too. For example:

My cats can predict exactly what time my alarm clock is going to go off... and then wake me up 30 minutes earlier! My alarm can be set for all different times from early in the morning to late, and they still manage to do this accurately. Beats the heck out of me how they do it.

My cats predict the exact moment I cross over the threshhold of blissful sleep, and then MEOW loudly. Just once, but loud enough to wake the dead. Usually announcing they want to be let out of the room.

My cats predict when I am about to open the fridge to pour a glass of milk. They show up and hover like Snoopy's vulture pose, waiting for me to turn away so they can stick their whole head in the glass and put kitty slobber in my milk. Blech.

My cats predict which story in the newspaper I am about to read and lay on top of it.

My cats predict I am opening a slice of processed cheese. Okay, this is only one of my cats... but she can be outside, high up in the tree... and if I am inside the house... I unwrap the plastic off the cheese... and she comes running! She's a processed cheese freak with supersonic hearing. She can even tell different types of plastic wrap, she only comes if you unwrap cheese plastic.

Anyway, luckily they don't predict anything morbid like Oscar does. But I'll keep more of an eye on my cats lying on the bed... crafty creatures...

Continuation...

At least I'm feeling a bit better. Not well, but better. The headaches, fevers and nausea come and go but they're not as bad, although the stiff neck seems to be constant. I considered going to the doctor, Hubby called them but they said it would be around $400 for visit and bloodwork... nevermind, I'm feeling better. Don't you know Murphy's Law would strike again, when I had insurance I never used it for myself, but NOW I get sick and don't have it. Figures.

Update on Mom's husb: Still in ICU, they keep having to give him blood because his knee is still bleeding inside... 2 quarts a day! When he does get out he'll be in a wheelchair of course, so Hubby will be building them a ramp up the steps of their house. Hopefully their Homeowners Assn won't complain.

Found out what happened to Dad's wife: They bought a house down in Granbury that has a canal next to it... about a year ago she went walking into the water barefoot (even though Dad told her not to) and cut her foot. She developed a bacterial infection that never went away. The autopsy showed 3 different strains of bacteria in her blood.

So the things I learned this weekend:

• Wear bug spray
• Wear a helmet (not that you could get me on a motorcycle anyway)
• Wear shoes in water

Some things you learn the hard way.

Life is but a house of cards...

You ever have times in life where it's like, GEEZ, what's going on???

It's bad enough that I'm sick, possibly with something that takes anywhere from a week to a few months to get better from.

It's bad enough that the guy Hubby was doing business with is shutting down his company, so Hubby is looking for a job again. And, the guy owed us $2600 from the last shipment we sent him, money that we're most likely not going to get, putting us in a world of hurt.

But all that pales in comparison to others in my family. Yesterday, my mother's husband was in a motorcycle accident (woman in SUV pulled out in front of him, he crashed right into her and went across hood). The good news is, he was wearing a helmet, which he normally doesn't do. Bad news is, he shattered a leg, broke his back in a couple places, broke a wrist, etc. He went through surgery last night to have a rod put into his leg, and will spend the week in ICU. Mom is on disability so only works part-time, so he was their main source of income.

Then, last night Mom got a call from my Dad... saying his wife died last week. Geez. That's too bad, she was a nice woman, and she took care of Dad. I hate to say it, but I imagine he'll fall apart now. He's not very good at coping with things.

Anyway, I'm afraid to ask "what next?"...
And by the way, yes I know the theologies on life, that if we didn't have difficult times then we wouldn't acknowledge the good times. Still, life can be a pain in the ass sometimes.

Sick sick sick...

I'm sick. I think I have West Nile Fever. That's not a joke. And I'm not a hypochondriac, in fact I'm rarely ever sick. When I am, it's usually involving my sinuses or allergies, but not this time. This is different, I've had this persistant headache and fever for a couple days now, and no amount of Advil etc is making any difference (which is unusual). Internet says the symptoms match. Plus there's a pond/lake next to our house, and since we've been spending a lot of time sitting outside with our neighbors we keep getting bitten by those tiger mosquitoes. Yes, we sometimes use repellent, but not every time we go outside.

Anyway, I feel like hammered shit.
Even if I went to a doc there's nothing they can do to make it go away, you just have to wait it out. Internet says 20% of people who get it actually show symptoms, but less than 1% gets severe, so I'll just tough it out. Ugh.

Ah HA!

I finally put my finger on it... this first drawing I showed you all, I knew there was something it reminded me of. Granted I did it in all of about 4 minutes so it's not that great, but still there was something about it...

then tonight it hit me what it reminds me of...

it's a SLEESTAK!

You know, the hissing lizard people from the 70's show Land of the Lost...

it must be the feet... and the posture... I can hear her now, "ssskkkkssssskkkkkssssssss"

I need to get some sleep.

Yet another one...

This time we had our model, and plus a skeleton next to her that we had to incorporate into the drawing somehow. So this is what resulted on my paper:




Are you tired of this woman yet? I am. Heck, it's only been one week and I know her body better than I know my own.

I'm ready to draw someone else now... anyone...

Except my neighbor... the husband across the street wants me to draw his wife, but I have my limits folks. Friends don't let friends see each other nekkid... I think it's one of the Ten Commandments or something. If not, it should be. Anyway, I told him I'm not going there... I don't mind drawing strangers, but I have no desire to see my friends' buff all sticking out everywhere thank you very much!

I still don't get it...

John from Cincinnati, that is. Luckily, the show is already listed in Wikipedia (I love the Internet!) I copied this off of the site about their viewership, and obviously other people aren't getting it either:

"The pilot for the series was shown directly after the highly anticipated finale of The Sopranos, but it failed to capture an audience. The Sopranos received an audience of 11.9 million people ... The finale led into the John from Cincinnati premiere which had an audience of 3.4 million viewers, less than one third of The Sopranos finale's total audience... The second episode's ratings also slipped. A total of 1.2 million people watched the episode, which is a drop of 2.2 million viewers. The fifth episode averaged 1.3 million viewers..."

That's because people don't know what the frig is going on! Week after week, like tonight we're left scratching our heads going HUH? What just happened?

But after watching several weeks we keep tuning in. I guess we're tied in to the characters now, we've gotten to know them. That or we're just too stubborn to give up trying to figure out what's going on. There must be a point... eventually... somewhere...

More drawing class stuff...

Here's a 30-minute drawing from class today. By the way, this is conte crayon (like a harder compressed chalk pastel) on black paper. And again we were told not to worry about drawing the face, we were working on proportions.

Normally all the art classes take their best work and put them up on the walls between the classrooms to show them off. However, right across from our room is a class of kids for some sort of "college for kids" program. Our instructor was told to go ahead and put our pictures up, but if any parents complain we'll then take them down. So today as he was pinning the first drawing up on the wall (mine) a little boy walking by giggled and asked "why are you putting that up?". My instructor said to him "because it's art". I can just see the kid going home and drawing boobies with his crayolas, and when his parents ask him why he's doing it he'll reply "because it's art!" I can hear the phone calls now from angry parents...

Blogger still having posting problems. FYI

Nekked or nude?...

Okay I warned you all that I'd soon be posting drawings from my "Life Drawing" class that I started this week. As long as nobody finds it offensive and reports me to the Blogger.com site for abuse, I'll post some of my drawings.

These are from our first day of drawing (today). They are "gesture" drawings, meaning they were drawn with quick strokes, the total time was only about 5-10 minutes to draw each one. We were told not to draw details such as faces, just do fast marks to show outline and mass.

Our model is a woman who does this for a living, works for an agent in town and just travels around to campuses modeling for art classes. She's only paid $12/hr... you'd have to pay me a heck of a lot more to do what she does! (But then people would pay me to put my clothes back on, hahaha)

Anyway, when it came time for her to disrobe it didn't seem to bother any of us students... rather than being a naked body she was more like an object for us to draw, same as a still-life. You don't really look at the whole body, you look at the curves and lines and shadows to draw them. The joke our instructor made was that outside the classroom it's "naked" and against the law, but inside the classroom it's "nude" and "art".

School junk...

Well, for the first summer courses I got an "A" in my History class and a "B" in my Psychology class. I've noticed that the 2 "online" courses I've taken since starting school I made Bs in both, but all the other traditional "lecture" classes I've made all As... I attribute this to the fact that in the lecture classes when test time rolls around the instructors give you a pretty good idea about what's going to be asked on the test. In the online classes you sorta had to guess what material you're going to be tested on. Considering for the Psych class I had a huge 500-page textbook, I should be lucky I came out with grades in the 80s!

The history class I enjoyed... the instructor was a 20-something current grad student at TCU that has taught at my school the last couple years in between his own classes. He was a good lecturer, cool to listen to. Only thing that bothered me in that class was when I realized I was the oldest person in the room of 45 (including the instructor), and I swear some of the other students were fresh out of the high school pep rally. They really got annoying at times.

Anyway, boring stuff I know. But I haven't had much else to say since I'm trying not to complain about our A/C compressor going out over the this week, leading to a few sweltering days. I made the joke that we need a little rain to cool things down a bit, but nobody thought that was funny...

Hell has frozen over... oops sorry, just TEXAS...

Unbelievable. They're planning to put a ski resort about 5 minutes away from me here in Fort Worth. Even more unbelievable, this is the first I've heard of it.

My mother sent an e-mail to me tonight about this Bearfire Ski Resort, and I didn't believe it at first. I thought you've GOT to be kidding, some joker is sending these e-mails out to see who falls for it (and figured my mother did as always)... so I hit Snopes.com to see if it was a hoax, and then did the ole Google search. Joke's on me, it's a real project. Here's a video I found about it:





Wow, almost $700 million... we'll see if the project is developed.

By the way, for fun I think since it's next to the Texas Motor Speedway we should see how well those Nascars drive on "ice", haha. Could make the Busch series real interesting...

Keepin up with the Joneses...

I feel like I'm falling behind... most of my old high school friends
on My Space are now on their SECOND marriages
and I'm still on my FIRST...