Sunday redux

Check out Stephen's version of events.

Catching up

Spent the weekend catching up with people. After Matt and Victor had finished verbally dissecting my work on Saturday, Paul came round to drink beer in the sun and smoke a lot.

On Sunday, Sandra, Paul, and I went to see Dutch Light at the doco film fest. I really enjoyed the film, despite some people in it saying some annoyingly stupid things. It was good to see an artistic subject being treated seriously. I won't be going to anything else at the fest but.

We hooked up with Stephen afterwards. He should've come to the film with us, and would've too if I'd knocked on his door when I was standing right outside it. But I'm stupid, so I didn't, so he missed it. We drank beer in a couple of different dives around town before heading back to Paul's (and hopefully soon to be my) studio to make plans for laying out the space to maximise usable wall area, usable bench area, and viewing distances. Sweet mate. I can feel it in my bones. It's going to be good.

Of course yesterday was the first day of daylight saving, so getting up this morning was grim, especially as it was raining to boot.

Quote of the day:

Painting, n.: The art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather, and exposing them to the critic. - Ambrose Bierce

Studio fun

I've just had a couple of friends come round to check out what I've been up to in the garage. They both had useful and constructive comments to make. Story.

Saturday morning

I'm about to head up to the garage to put some more layers of underpainting on. I'm taking these ones pretty slowly - just getting used to oils again.

At 11 am this morning we will apparently have the official final election results. That will be interesting.

Update after 11: Ironically enough, the Nats lost a seat to the Maori Party (they don't get an extra seat though - because the Maori Party's share of the party vote went up, the overhang is reduced at the Nats' expense). The Greens' position seems unchanged.

Comment spam

I've disabled anonymous comments because of the amount of comment spam I've been getting. I hate anonymous comments anyway. As a general principle, I reckon that if you don't have enough courage in your convictions to put your name to your opinion then that opinion's pretty worthless.

In other news, I've surprised myself by really enjoying my new job. I'm also really getting into the old oil painting. I think the trick is not caring about having a finished art work at the end of it but just playing around for playing around's sake. Ironically, I've flicked out the pingers for some flash materials for it.

I've been a bit down recently, and am feeling a whole lot better now. There's one thing still on my mind that's somewhat distracting, but I'm trying not to worry about that now and will deal with it in a wee while. I need to concentrate on work (in both senses of the word) at the moment.

Leonardo

The Guardian has a thing on the underdrawing of Leonardo's unfinished Adoration. Ignore the stupid bollocks about that stupid book. If you took that at face value you'd end up with a very weird stunted and misshapen view. It's important to put it into an actual historical context and make associations from that, not from a made up one.

Three days in

I've started the new job. The first couple of days were pretty full on, getting my head round a new place and new culture, but today was easier. I'm still not sure how I'll go. I think it'll be pretty sweet though - formal language and the past unreal.

I started painting in oils again for the first time in years again on Saturday. I'm just playing around, getting the Skeleton Guy out of the studio and into the landscape. It's been really good, except my garage cum studio is not exactly well ventilated and I've ended up making myself quite sick. I'm about to head up there for some more now.

Full on

Back from our crazy driving up and down the South Island trip. Too much driving in too little time. I'm only beginning to recover now, and I was a passenger. I may blither on about it when I'm more compos mentis, but for now I've added a completely unrelated new link to the right there to check out. If you're really keen you could always have a gander at the Christchurch art scene - of which we had a bizarre experience at the dinner after Matt's opening. And of course a selection of touristy photos is a must.

The Kaikoura coast (including seals):






Looking towards Portobello on the Otago Peninsula from above Port Chalmers:



And towards the heads, plus a couple of things from Oamaru and Portobello:

Two more days

I should've been up in the studio slapping the gesso on, but I haven't been. Tonight I've just been watching stupid crap on the telly. Last night I watched Cul-de-sac - the last of three Roman Polanski films we got out over the weekend. They make a pretty bloody good trilogy actually.

For some reason I haven't been reading much for yonks now, which is very uncharacteristic. I usually have two or three books on the go at any time, but not at the moment. I blame the old job.

The old job should've been a really good one, but for various reasons I really can't be bothered going into wasn't. I'm really not looking forward to the new one. Pretty much the only reason I took it is because I need one.

Painting

I'm going to go through the pile of canvases leaning against the wall over there and paint over all the crap ones with burnt sienna before gessoing 'em up and starting over again.

I've got another week of the old job to get through, then we're off down south for five days, then I start the new job the week after that. It'd be good to come back from Chch and Dunners with a whole lot of stuff ready to go.