Went to the 43rd District Democratic Caucus in Seattle on Sunday. It was a zoo! There were about 1300 people there trying to fit into a 1000 seat high school auditorium. I am pretty sure the fire codes were not observed :). But boy, was it great! Hundreds of people of all shapes, sizes, colors and persuasions. People in wheelchairs, people with babies, people with buttons of all kinds. Old people with canes, new people with binkies. The Hillary delegates were LOUD and PROUD. The Obama delegates were LOUDER ... but I gotta say, proportional to headcount, the Hillary delegates were amazingly scrappy. We heard speeches from each candidate's surrogate -- and the Obama and Kucinich surrogates were local people, but the Clinton campaign sent Sean Astin, a.k.a. Sam Gamgee, to plug Hillary. It was an interesting choice; I'm not sure he's cut out for public speaking, but he basically hit the "experience" and "strength" notes as required. At 1:00 (I'd been there since 9 and the caucus officially opened at 10:07) they announced, "The hot dog stand outside is down to its last 150 dogs," and there was a small stampede. Since my delegate vote had already been counted, I decided to bail at that point, since next up was delegate selection to the next convention, and that was going to take forever. There were dozens of would-be delegates, each of whom had thirty seconds to make their bid! So I don't know who went on to the next level, but I really enjoyed having been there. (And I would have enjoyed it far less without Matt's Kindle to play with during the parliamentary-procedures stuff...yay!)

One of the best things about Marcus is his laugh. He still laughs like a child, with a completely unconscious, utterly contagious hilarity. He giggles and chortles. The first time he saw the Stay-Puff Marshmallow Man in "Ghostbusters" he laughed and laughed and laughed, tears streaming, clutching his stomach, the whole thing.

The other day he came across the word "Scheisse!" in something he was reading in the car and asked Matt what it meant and Matt said it meant "poop." Marcus cracked up. Then Matt, being Matt, pointed out that it is fun to swear in German because it sounds so good, and another good swear would might be "Scheinhund!" Marcus cracked up again. He came home yelling from the top of the stairs, "Rabbit! Rabbit! Scheisse! Schweinhund! Shleisshun! Scheinsche! Poop! Pig-dog!" amid gales of laughter, staggering around drunkenly. He had just managed to calm down by the time he was half way through his snack about ten minutes later when Matt walked up behind him, leaned over and (in falsetto) yelled "Schweinhund!!!" Marcus promptly snorted milk out his nose and all over the floor.

Here are a couple of recent portraits. "Rachel" is an oil painting from Beginning Figure Painting. I don't recall exactly but I think she sat for 4 sessions, or 12 hours. I think she is my most successful painting so far, at least in terms of getting the colors and the composition close to real life and aesthetically pleasing.


"Caroline" is a pastel painting. We were supposed to emphasize the very light hues, and the contrast with her hair and the dark trim on her dress, in imitation of the Klimt and other early modern work (posted previously). To my mind, she seems a bit insipid, but that goes with the style a bit. I was very happy with the bouquet of flowers, as flowers are not my strong suit.

As a followup to the Klimt white painting master copy, we were supposed to do a self-portrait "in the style of" the white paintings. Here is mine. I call it "My Grandmother, My Self." I don't know that I can really envision myself sitting for a portrait with my hair up and a white high-collared blouse on (I used a turtleneck), but perhaps a turn-of-the-century Japanese immigrant bride did. I'm channeling her.

I'm taking two classes at the moment: the second part of Foundation Figure Painting, and a class in Pastel Portraits. For the first one, the homework was to paint a self portrait in oil. Here's the second layer. It's still in progress, obviously. I started with a pink and green (red/green complementary color) base, and decided my face was way too pink and not yellow enough, so for the second layer I took the dark pink paint, added a bunch of cadmium yellow, and then added in more white to lighten it up again. The chin needs more green still, that'll be layer 3, and the background needs to be dulled (the sheet behind me was white, with kind of light umber shadows) and the shirt needs work but I hate drapery :)



For Pastel Portraits, we're currently working on a portrait of a model named Caroline who has dark brown hair and pale olive skin -- sort of Mediterranean coloring -- in a light colored dress against light pastel backgrounds. There's a whole bunch of turn-of-the-century work in a similar vein -- you can look up "white portraits" of Whistler, Sargent, Klimt and others -- so homework was to copy one of the master works. I picked a Klimt (yes, it's Klimt, even though it looks like a cross between Toulouse-Lautrec and Mucha) to copy. Here it is. Some hat, eh?
Here is the original Klimt.

This is from Suzanne Brooker's workshop, Drawing Portraits of Trees, from August 2007. We sat on the grass in the Seattle Arboretum and drew trees for a week. It was lovely. Suzanne is very exacting, and she definitely had a lot of critiques for all of us. This tree is one that I worked on in the early morning when the sun was right for about four mornings.

Here's the final project from fall's Foundation Painting class. We worked on this painting for four sessions of 3 hours each. I think the most successful part is the frontmost foot and shin crossing over the rear foot; it looks very 3-D and realistic. I'm pretty happy with the red glow on the left torso from light bouncing off the cloth onto the model, and with the colors in the breasts and torso, and with the way the curtain in the backdrop disappears into the dark upper left corner. Things I don't like: the right arm is too orange, the drapery is awkward, the face is VERY awkward, and I never managed to finish the floor.

Here are three charcoal drawings from the recent workshop I attended with Juliette Aristides. She teaches the classical atelier at Gage, which is a 4 year (!!) full-time drawing and painting program from which you emerge painting like, I don't know, Caravaggio or someone. I can't manage that commitment, but I CAN do a weeklong workshop, so I did.

This is a two day study of Sarah, the female model. Total hours worked is probably about 4-5. Natural lighting (limited because it was January).

This is a two day study of Richard, the male model. Again, natural lighting and total hours worked around 4-5.

Finally, this is a three or four day study of Sarah; I can't remember exactly, but total hours worked around 8-10 maybe. It's much more contrasty than the others because in addition to using vine charcoal I also used compressed charcoal, which makes a much blacker mark, in order to get the heavy shadows around her figure. She is leaning on an invisible cushion, in case you were wondering ;-p

Matt got me one of those turntables with a USB port that can convert all my old records which have been stored in the closet for 15 years into MP3 files! I am so happy! I'm sitting here listening to a recording of Malcolm Dalglish playing hammer dulcimer with Grey Larsen, circa 1977, which is just awesome! Yayayayaya!

I also got a truly kick-butt bumper sticker to add to my collection, courtesy of Lauri: TAILGATE ME AND ROLL FOR DAMAGE. Bwahahaha! She also loaded me down with tons of cool Fimo art and mosaic books for inspiration.

The kids, as usual, got too much stuff and lost interest several times; the cats enjoyed the tissue paper; much leftover turkey was consumed; a good time was had by all.

I've been having problems with my right arm since about mid October, probably related to overuse. It varies between a forearm pain at the insertion of the extensor digitorum comunis (upper back forearm, just below the lower elbow) to an upper arm pain which is accompanied by a pop when I rotate my shoulder. So I think it's some combination of biceps tendonitis and forearm/hand overuse injury. The latter is probably related to mousing and too much computer use; the former, which began first, is probably related to the painting and pastel classes I've been taking this fall. I'm loath to stop art classes, but I've been resting the arm as much as possible the last month and am now also stopping computer gaming (and switching to a lefthanded mousing style for a while).

I'm also a klutz. I decided one day to ice the forearm to reduce the pain, and I got an icepack out of the fridge and put it on with an Ace bandage to hold it snug. It felt so good I left it there for about forty-five minutes. When I took it off -- wow! I'd frostbitten my forearm! So now I'm also recovering from that (there's really no treatment for a light frostbite other than to not re-injure it). Silly me. Anyway, that's the state of my arm for now ... sore, a little swollen, kind of red where it got frostbite, and slightly tingly.

The kids are downstairs doing their computer games and I can't play. I made cookies yesterday and need to make more today. Matt's going to roast a turkey for dinner and Lauri's staying over to open presents in the morning. I guess I'll go find something to read. Happy holidays all :)

http://miraulam.multiply.com/video/item/38

This is awesome. I note the absence of Vermeer, Degas and Rossetti, plus a slight overemphasis on Leonardo, but other than that I'm pretty impressed.

Today, volunteering in Alex's class, I was teaching the kids a pair at a time to make different words by swapping out consonants.

Ellen: "First, write SHE. Now, what do you have to do to turn that into HE?"
Matthew: "Erase the S."
Ellen: "Right! And now, how do you change HE into WE?"
Alex: "We is spelled W-I-I."

It was fun!

I need to read a Michael Chabon novel called the Yiddish Policemen's Association, or something like that. Also a nonfiction book called Paradise Rex, which is about sexual reproduction having evolved as a defense against parasites.

Look up Maslo's Hierarchy.

Steve Barnes on teaching old dogs new tricks (e.g., southern whites and learning to be colorblind): "Just because we like sugar doesn't mean we can't put it off until the end of the meal. Adults can learn to do that."

Vonda says I need to read a short story called "The Cool Equations," by Deborah Wessel. Apparently a reply to the infamous "The Cold Equations."

The filkers sang "There's a Hole in the Middle of it All," "Have You Got Any News of the Iceberg?" (a song about the Titanic from the point of view of a polar bear), and a capstan shanty called "Paddy Lay Back."

I got a couple of good ideas for drawings/paintings which I am not a good enough artist to render. Yet. But the art show was disappointingly, um, typical. Fairies and rocket ships. SF authors write books about more than fairies and rocket ships ... how long will the artists continue to be purely derivative? Sigh.

Great panels on global warming, cloning and genetic engineering. Lousy panel on reconciling science and religion ... stacked in favor of the religious. Say what?

Ctein has a book out on digital photo retouching that might be fun to get for Matt. As if he didn't have enough to do with his time.

I had a good time, and was welcomed by the filkers and complimented on my ST uniform and Matrix coat. Kudos to Lauri for the latter. Yay!

Got more color in. Hat needs more work, and the shadows are getting muddy. I will probably have to brush off the pigment and rework them if I want them to not be so brownish. Terry made some small corrections to the likeness. More work this week. Also, more successfully, Tim, a model in Pastel Portraits class. The idea was to recreate the colors and pose of a famous work by Vermeer of a young man in blue-grey and black. I am much happier with the colors in the shadows on his neck.

Alex: "Marcus says there's a guy in the Guinness record book who can squirt milk out of his eyes. Isn't that disgusting?"

Rabbit: "That's not only disgusting, I don't think it's possible."

Alex: "I think it is..."

*thoughtful pause*

"...after special surgery."

Going well so far! Matt says it's his favorite of my self-portraits, and I agree. I really like the hat. I'm starting to lose control of the edge of the right side of the face, and the mouth is a little funky, but the large shapes are still good overall. I am a little unsure how to handle the highlights on the left shoulder and arm, and I haven't touched the background. But still, fingers are crossed.

It's been a lovely weekend. Alex had a great seventh birthday party at his gymnastics gym, and then both kids had a Halloween overnight party, so we had an evening off. Then I had a great time playing dulcimer and guitar tonight for the first time in ages with annathepiper and her pals in Kenmore. My fingers have long since lost their calluses, alas!

Oliver jumps! Popcorn watches admiringly. (Bad picture taken at night, oh well.)

Self portrait with hat, layer 2 This is a continuation of my self portrait homework with local color added -- red hat, yellow ochre and green on skin, brown easel, green curtain. Changed hairstyle to a bun but I think I will change it back again later. On advice of teacher, made the portrait a bit longer as well. Need to fix and continue adding color layers.

... a dream in which I was cursed. The curse entailed having my hair plastered immovably in front of my face, making it difficult to breathe, much less see. I kept flipping my hair up, and it kept re-appearing on my face again.

I woke up to find a certain orange kitten plastered to my face.

Sigh.

Project of the day: put art online. This necessitates consultation with Geekboy. There will be gnashing of teeth (mine), probably.

I am working on several assignments at the moment. For Botanicals class, we are doing a study of fallen leaves, and we are supposed to start with a grisaille underpainting. I spent last night pasting the leaves onto a sheet of paper and then sketching the result on a gessoed board, and then I mixed 5 tones of ivory black/raw umber/titanium white and painted the grisaille. It's now drying.

For Portraits, homework was to start on a self-portrait. This will be a work in progress for 5 weeks, and is to be brought in and critiqued each Tuesday night. I settled on a pose and lighting, smushed my easel into a corner of the studio, put my red hat on, and drew the contour and shadow shapes in charcoal. Then went over the lines in Mars violet pastel. Then added in the darks, again in Mars violet. Next is to add local color. I guess that means I have to look for a warm and cold of each local color in the Nupastel set.

Also, I want to put my tarot cards online and look into getting some prints of them so that I can actually sell them and not lose the originals. This would additionally make colored prints more likely.  Wonder who to ask about that.

Marcus to Kanga this morning, about the computer: "How come it works when you do it, but not when I do it?" Vindication at last!

Oliver is sleeping between the monitor and the keyboard. I am so happy with my orange kitten.

Half way thru The Sons of Heaven. What will I do when Dr Zeus has finally been destroyed? Go back to Crusade, I suppose :)