Watercolours... should be a nice pace. You wet and stretch the paper; let it dry. Use it, letting it dry where necessary. Cut off mount. Repeat. I feel this is a contemplative and soothing occupation. Which explains why I'm champing at the bit.
Anyway, this is the last of the immortality suit pictures, unless something occurs. Wonder if I can sell them to pharmaceuticals?
Nope, no good. Cute idea far far too laborious. Even doing a doll sized one fills me with dread. That's off the agenda (and where oh where would I store it??)
Good day out in the countryside and Beaux Arts yesterday, I'm not getting something right I feel.
Caught up with the emails, nearly, and now to clean studio after abortive immortality suits... whatever next.
Its raining and cool.
Immortality suit coming on but laboriously and I'm not sure its worth the effort. Cute idea, hey ho. Off to the Beaux Arts in Carcassonne today, maybe clear the mind.
Staples no good so sticking with no-nails glue - perfect - and plaster board bandage which I like for the little motif that runs along it...
May have to stuff the x-rays once they are in shape. Can't think with what. Will then panel with blister packs. Origamiesque, trying to get the nose in :)
An agreeable day slowly pottering in big heat, nothing to show for it but clean brushes and an only slightly grubby palette.
What with admin and stuff I cant see me back in harness until Weds so the rest of today I can finish the cleaning.
Finished with Orpheus and herself.
Going through rock and associated drawings.
Time for a clear-up.
Bashed out the funeral portrait of our little dead bird, but legs so wrong will have to change.
Brother-in-law arriving this morning, having driven all night... next few days will be filled.
as ever, ambivalent about it all. Hope to use her again and focus on her rather than my own directions, sigh.
Bernard is much iller , must be on chemo for the rest of his natural, and last night Loretta died after long chemo intervention. Which on the other hand caused her to live long enough to see her grand daughter. I suppose one just carries on until the time comes to join them. Choices???
Nearly done with Orpheus.
In the meantime some ideas about developing the ancient rocks theme. Off to find model to impose them on.
Prickly eyes, breathless, lala. Might just go back to bed. Very hot here and the forecast is for hotter.
Cooking lunch and doing aperitif stuff as a result. Cooking as therapy.
Ditched the hedgehog :) The re-death of Eurydice due to Orpheus's mis-management of the gaze is coming along nicely.
Lots wife finished - or abandoned, perhaps that's the same thing. It's Bastille day and a national holiday but will have time to attend to the pic with the hedgehog.
On the plus side, the composition is a marvel :)
Squared eyed from collecting covid-quotes - fascinating, depressing, eye-straining - returned to the easel. Lot and his escaping family is making progress. The picture that I'd intended to be Orpheus looking backwards has turning into someone holding a hedgehog.
All scanned - and saved in several places in case I loose them. Decided as they are Survivors that there should be references to the Covid-19 on the back of each - eg, Boris in Jan 2020, 'the best thing would be to ignore it '- did a cursory search and there are loads of quotes on line. Just find the retrospective thang depressing and working on the computer hurts my eyes... no surprises.
Thinking cigarette cards, that sort of collection. Only playing card size.
Should have left for England and rejoicing that I'm not :) All too restricted, difficult, fundamentally unnecessary.
So today, apart from greeting an old mate who is coming to lunch, I'm painting...
There is a track to the campsite of La Valdieu hard left on the entrance and they are at the bottom of the track. After that its more horse trails which regrettably peter out - couldn't get to the hermitage as a result. Too far anyway. Kat and Margaret (who'd come to do some watercolouring) decided to drive me down the nearby road - but that was closed too. I can take a hint.
Need more than a hint now. All the gatherable info has been gathered and now I have to wait for the god to descend.
Slightly less panicky this morning though now more worried about the incipient glaucoma which I'm also being treated for. At least it doesn't involve knives.
Off to La Valdieu now, till tomorrow night. Expecting revelations.
Doubt and uncertainty are my handmaidens... not touched the Survivors Souvenirs, overwhelmed by indecision.
Went life drawing yesterday, a girl so young she had few feminine features. She played music throughout the 2 hour session, tinkly girly stuff which turned out to be from a Japanese film track. Rather good :) But its so long since I've worked fast, my hands ached and still do rather (though not badly) Anyway - I try not to be judgemental whilst working, if you are aiming to discover something unknown then censoring with the already known is not useful. ...There was no getting way from the fact that the results are crap.
Today is the ophthalmologist, an appointment I've waited three months for. Feels rather festive. Put on a frock.
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Back from Ophthalmologist. Cataracts; they are operating on one eye in late August, the next early September. Other issues too, for which meds. Have dates for the ops., for an eco something, for a heart man and for an anaesthetist. In deep shock and trembling with terror. Visceral, I know these people mean me no harm and if I leave things they will deteriorate. But terrified.
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Now the boring business of scanning begins. But only this morning. Lunch and the rest of the weekend are given, it seems, to celebrating my birthday.
Planning to return to La Valdieu on Weds for the night in an attempt to pick up the thinking before this Strangers project moved in on me. Such a strong pull; I blame Abbe Boudet.
In the meantime; nice bit here from a review of a book on Seamus Heaney, about where ideas come from:
The idea that poems are less things you make and more things that occur to you is a venerable one, a version of 'inspiration' [-] 'That old-fashioned notion of poetry as a visitation has been a determining one for me', [Heaney] once said. Of course, like Eliot, he had to recognise that the conscious part of the mind did play some role in the making of a finished work, and so his essays repeatedly invoke a dualism between what's given and what's made, setting dark intuitive powers against the worked-out deliberations of craft.'
Wish I'd read this before I did the Saints book - so concise. (written by Seamus Perry in LRB 6th May)
