So, I do art and stuff - general artistic / creative chat

General Discussion
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Some of the pieces on there have some of my ink sketches as part of the item, but The art for the glass sculptures is completely procedural.

I think it is amazing that he creates software than can make such beauty and movement. Sometimes I’m jealous of his expertise. lol

The monitors for his collaboration with Eric Hilton the glass artist have been quite large. Not sure of the exact dimensions but around 5x3 feet.

Have you considered taking it to a copy shop and having a reduced image made? (or perhaps I don’t yet understand you motus operandi?)
I have some 3x3-foot, 4x4-foot, and 4x6-foot pieces. I don’t want to go much larger than that because most homes wouldn’t have the wall space required, especially if the buyer wanted it framed.

I’ve found that myself. I can write a 100,000-word novel in less than a month, but I stopped because I just never seemed to get around to properly editing the blasted things.Too much like hard work of the tedious kind.

Pretty cool stuff. I’d love to se his work (if he keeps going with it) in about twenty years (but I probably won’t still be around by then. Thanks for those links! :heart:

I haven’t painted much this week. We just decided to put off moving and installing in the Studio the big TV Monitor. Instead I asked Mal to return my little Studio Computer and I hooked it up to a 2560x1440 res monitor that I swung around into portrait mode. Of course I had to go into Windows and muck about with it to get it to display properly and a bunch of other things. I’ve been working on the “left brain” side of the creative equation this week. Making lists. Creating a tracking code system for finished work, designing a vertical extension attachment for my EdgePro PaintBook Easel that will let me use it with a vertical (portrait mode) format panel (I thought they had an extension for sale, but I must have gotten mixed up after researching so many Easel types. lol) and of course, applying more isolation coats to existing finished acrylic pieces. I’m so glad that Golden Artists Colours finally made its own version of the isolation coat medium, so now we don’t have to mix it up ourselves.

It was a busy, but satisfying week, inspite of the bad stuff that happened: furnace stopped working last Saturday and no one coudl figure out why. Two guys were here for hours trying to fix it (I’m scared to look at the bill when it comes in) but it seems to be working fine now. And muffler fell off the card and Mal had to wire it up. We were looking into getting a new car–that one is waaaay old, but we were waiting for some expected money to come in first, The washing machine broke, our oven has been broken for well over a year, and the toaster oven is on it’s last legs… The timing on these small disasters could be better. Mal had to take time from his creative work (a commission) to take care of all those things, including tearing out the drum from the washer and cleaning, sanding and repairing it it. He’s a hero!

Well I hope you enjoy Mal’s Cogent Whir Vimeo videos. And I hope everyone is having a great Hallowe’en weekend!

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So that is like the coolest thing ever… :exploding_head: I mean the art, not all the broken machinery, although…that could be life imitating art… :sweat_smile: or could at least inspire some art or actually become art once it is tossed out and dismantled. :thinking:

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I know, right?! And here’s me having to live with that gorgeous vibrancy while grubbing away with oil paint. lol

If anyone is interested, a couple of those glass/software sculptures are still available in a couple of galleries. I can’t remember which ones though. So if you know anyone who would love to have one and has a few thousand US dollars to spend… :wink:

Oh! And how’s the Ancient Stone Circles coming along in NMS?

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Just a detail, the correct form is “modus operandi”, even if you paint in silence (motus) :wink: (I’m not a latinist but it’s easier when half of your native language come from latin)

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I hate to compare artists, especially in widely divergent media like this, but Mal (James?) is an astonishing talent. Unity appears to be the second most popular engine for these kinds of tasks as well as games, behind the dreaded Unreal 4. The kind of work Mal does is the equivalent of an artist making their own pigments, brushes, thinners, frames and easels, everything but the canvas (monitor)! That he can create such vistas with his own programming expertise is simply amazing. I’m guessing that the programming he does is in making tools and extensions to Unity. Jeepers, such a talent…

Well, I’ll just be making circles now. :sweat_smile:

I’m glad things are progressing for you in spite of everything, including your vision, apparently breaking down! I doubt that using a monitor has made your art really all that better per se, but perhaps easier and a bit quicker. I can see how well in your above post your work is expressing the scene in the monitor. God bless your eyes! My own have grown more “tired” lately. Even the illuminated keyboard in my lap is looking fuzzy, when it used to be fairly sharp. Egh… organics, we have it rough.

Grubbing away with oil paint… that sounds more like me. Between the tarry black mess of my first attempt I “temporarily” abandoned, to floundering with my failed struggles to make wood appear like magic or something, I’ve had a crisis of confidence in my talents. And it is stupid, really. We both have talent, we’ve both produced works we’re proud of - and you’re a legitimate professional with works in galleries! So it’s just doubt and defeatism wreaking havoc on my self-confidence in my case. You persevere, and I… draw circles I threaten to paint. :laughing:

I do have that piece gessoed and ready to have at it, but between my hectic interruptions and food foraging and all that, I’ve had that canvas sitting there for I think three whole days waiting for “the master” to tend to it with dabs of acrylics. And today, yet another interruption. I would be helping my drug casualty friend Jack with my deck, because he’s likely afraid if I asked his friend, an actual carpenter to help, which would mean money I don’t really have to pay him, it might mean no handouts of cash. That’s my feeling, plus he’d have to behave himself, and he has a temper. When he gets frustrated - which happens every time - tools, wood and small children in range can go flying, and likely me if I had less ballast. But today I’m driving him to his late girlfriend’s home as she passed away last night, so he can get a few things he left there. And early, in just a few minutes - or now. So I might be back later to elaborate on the frustrations of wanting a serious talent and confidence boost. :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:

Edit: well, that went pretty okay. He didn’t stay long, as the relatives staying there were understandably in a mood, so Jack gave his condolences, and they promised to keep his things safe for him, as they were in her bedroom. He sprung for an egg n sausage biscuit and cinnamon roll for breakfast. And he ate as he drove, the yutz. I was cringing with each smack, particularly when he got to that gooey cinnamon roll, and he had just a bit of trouble staying in his lane on the highway… :grimacing: But enough about my poor drug buddy.

Your large canvasses are just what I’m thinking of for my portraits and nudes - just kidding, my larger aircraft and maybe a favored landscape or five. Portraits, I’m thinking as small as I can conceivably paint, maybe 11x14" or so, though if I feel brave, I might do something more normal like an 18x24". IF I feel brave… :no_mouth:

I’m plenty happy making this piece an 18x24" though because much of it is two concentric circles, and much of the rest dark, and you’ll understand if I can get brave enough to attack it with great determination today. If so, it could be done tomorrow and ready for a pic, though I’d prefer a morning or afternoon shot in the sunshine. I’ll ask a couple of office supply shops if they scan artwork for four color printing, and… the dreaded price, dun dun dun…

Ever since I learned about Golden art products, I’ve been a fan. They sound like a solid company making great products, with an accompanying cost, but that’s the “get what you pay for” thing. If you noticed, I bought their acrylic undercoat and satin multimedia varnish. And by golly, I think I will go ahead and buy a tidy set of their Open acrylics. One thing I forgot about is the fact that acrylics, even Open acrylics, are dry and finishable in a few days, versus the six months for oils - to a freaking year?! GRAH!! Where’s my hair dryer? And if the colors pop back up like they really should under varnish, that sounds like the ideal situation for me. And I have all those years experience with acrylics under my paint belt, so no oil or watercolor hang-ups to fight off. I approach each medium as its own creature. With a whip and a chair…

By the way, when the heck can you tell an oil painting needs more than six months drying / curing time?? Good Lord…

You slacker. :upside_down_face: Just kidding. I can sympathize though. My fic here is even larger than some novels. With one chapter being roughly 100 pages, I’d think! And when I read it over a few weeks ago, I caught a few typos and misused words - like “were” instead of “we’re” or whatever, as if I was a speedy touch typist or something. Never mind my forgetting the rules of Vy’keen syntax I’d come up with. And I’m now an enemy of commas, like I used to be for semicolons. I hate the “something something, too” commas most of all. As far as I’m concerned, commas should only be used to show a pause, not from some archaic usage rules established by moldy old farts from Oxfohd. Then again, I was taught that if one used semicolons very often in non-technical or scientific writing, the sentences were too long; meh, what do they know? :grin: I used to hate them too, but my run-on sentences I’m fond of fashioning were crying out for them, and having four or five commas in the sentences began to draw attention to themselves, and sentence length… meh, what do I know?

Might I suggest Grammarly, if it really is just $80US for a copy? I’m considering it myself, since it has a kind of linguistic A.I. useful for ferreting out contextually inappropriate terms, like my example above, comma placement, semicolons, colons… all that linguistic anatomy. I’d be interested to read some of your stuff sometime.

Well, I either want to write, as if I haven’t kind of sort of been doing that for at least 45 minutes now, or work up the nerve to squish some acrylics on canvas board. Maybe more caffeine courage - but darn it, I had eight cups already! Grah, my life and its self-imposed limits…

Oh well, another lovely Stryker essay to enjoy or ignore.

Happy Halloween! :japanese_ogre: :scream_cat:

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Yes. Thank you! :heart:
Of course! I normally do paint in silence (motus). Though sometimes I listen to podcasts or audiobooks.
Well actually it is hard to find one’s typos when all the letters look alike. lol The software underline it in red and I could not see for the life of me why, so I thought “Oh it doesn’t recognise the foreign word”, so I italicized it . I know it is modus from whence we get our word “mode”. I have been (at least until my eyes went so very bad, a bit of an etymology geek).

But your response reminded me of one of my favorite books that has one of my favorite characters of all time in it: Professor Well Actually. Why? Because he reminds me of that tiny part of being human that compels us to correct others (Well, Actually, it is his super power!). It made me so much more forgiving of myself and of others because now I can laugh about it when I get irritated by the “Well, Actually"s of others. Funny isn’t it? How a thing can change from “Argh!” to Awww sweeeeet!”
I’m not going to give away any of the story, but it is so convoluted and hilarious, I will just share a link to the Audible page for it. https://www.audible.com/pd/Andrea-Vernon-and-the-Corporation-for-UltraHuman-Protection-Audiobook/B074GG7MT1?qid=1635781127&sr=1-25&ref=a_search_c3_lProduct_2_5&pf_rd_p=83218cca-c308-412f-bfcf-90198b687a2f&pf_rd_r=15KAGPD8KMTYC5C3BQ7H
Enjoy!

He worked as programmer most of his life --at NASA, in his early years and for IBM for decades, When his section was sold to another company (What are we slaves?) he grew increasingly dissatisfied with corporate work and finally quit to become a full time creator of his own work.
But all along, he made beautiful digital art using unconventional software and creating his own art creation programs --like Spiralocity, which he has since removed from the Apple app store.(iirc)

Ugh! That word again. “Talent” :unamused:
Somehow some of us are born with some innate ability or “gift”, and others don’t. That is total BULLROAR that has been more damaging to people’s creativity than anything else in this world. And that goes for any kind of creativity. “Johnny, don’t sing, just mouth the words”. has left many a person believe they can’t carry a tune, when all they needed was for the key of the music to be tuned to THEM.
No one would ask amy other profession to have “inate” ability. Everything that is worth excelling in take practis, practise, practise! I’m not talented. I practise. I have practised since I was three years old. I had a lot of drawbacks, roadblocks and heartache but I liked to draw and paint. so I did a lot of it in spite of my family telling me it was a frivolous activity and I should go get a job in a factory and do something useful. When you practise, you get better at doing the thing you are practising. Creativity isn’t about talent, nor is it about “getting it right”. Gah! I’m ranting. Sorry. :blush:

If you already have a colour copy, why not just have it scanned as a black and white/greyscale copy and transfer that to the canvas/panel? You have your colour reference already? and if what you need is a different scale, then no need for further colour copies (imo) That is if I understand you correctly…) A neat trick for colour matching I sometimes use is to place a sheet of acetate over my colour sketch and put a dab of the mixed colour on it to see if I mixed it close enough. Paint wipes right off the acetate.

You may! I will look into that more closely if I ever get back to writing. Right now my complete focus in on painting with oils for the next five years at least, maybe longer (though I still use watercolour and acrylics and India Ink when I am unable to oil paint. I have recently fallen in love with an ink pen (unfortunately, not refillable!) that makes a whole range of beautiful marks. from the finest stippling to large luscious strokes. It has a firm brush tip that gives more control than the softe one.

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Definitely high quality, very highly pigmented acrylic paints. I love their gel mediums. They can be used to even further stretch the paint without much altering it. I think the best value is their High Flow which has the same amount of pigment as the regular and OPEN paint and can be mixed with their polymer gels to stretch them even further, also can be mixed, with their OPEN mediums and gels for better working times. I used Golden paints for decades (and still do) without running out of things to learn about them.

That depends on how thick the paint is. I believe that if you work in thin layers you can give it a coat of something like Gamvar once it is completely touch dry (don’t quote me) but you should wait three months to six months if the surface paint is thin and the full year (or more) if the paint is thicker. If you want to have the overall lustre made even so you can bring back sunken colours (usually the earth colours ) and have a nice even sheen while you wait to varnish, you can “oil out” your piece once it is dry enough that you won’t disturb or wipe off your paint strokes or layers.

Oiling Out is a specific technique for oils. Each pigment has its own level of gloss or dullness once it dries, and needs to be brought to the same level of sheen as the rest of the painting, after it has cured enough to be touch dry ( a few days?). I use a very fine layer of linseed oil, rubbing it very gently in with a soft lint-free cloth, and then wiping it off again, letting that dry for a few days, then if the sheen is still spotty (too glossy in some areas and too dull or sunken in others) I will repeat that process. After that I wait six months to a year to varnish. The process is such that one can use it to see more clearly where the piece needs more work and you can go in with more paint if you need to (and possibly oil out again if needed). I’m not sure about using oiling out with water miscible oils, however. I would think that would alter the chemistry so that one would have to wait as long for those to dry as regular oils.
There is always something new to learn about painting! And that is the nicest thing. You never get bored. Frustrated, exhilarated, despondent, joyful, but never bored. :nerd_face:
Good luck with the Acrylics! They can be a lot of fun to play with and you can end up with some pretty cool effects!
“put paint on something small every day” Enjoy!

(not going back over tht whole thign for tyops) :wink:

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I agree with the whole idea of “talent”. I have seen people who have never been called “talented” come up with some truly original stuff. I missed my chance to go to any formal art school. In a way, I regret it. In other ways, and it is why I never really pursued the idea, I was afraid that being “trained” might box me in. Force me to funnel my creativity into a set mold. Though I would jump at the chance to learn new techniques, some of which require some training, I have never wanted to be forced to use something I enjoy as a means for paying the bills. Then it just becomes a job. Or at least, that is how it would likely be for me. I envy those who pursue art as a living and can still hold onto the creative spirit.
I have a friend whos father worked for NASA. Way back. Like so far back, NASA was still calling him in the 90’s when the old tech was not working for them. His son, my friend, is a programmer even now when he is fighting alzheimer’s. He can sit down to a PC and program the day away. He helped develop a game back in the 70’s and has been collaborating on the 3rd rendition of it for modern systems. I forget the name of it…will have to ask. I wasn’t playing video games in the 70’s…which is true for most people. :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

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As for my stacked rocks…NMS rocks are all aquatic in design. Wishing for more regular rocks. So I decided to work on an aquarium instead.

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I read that and tears came to my eyes. I myself have never had the chance to get a fine art degree. I did, in my late twenties get a graphic arts degree (called then a degree in Commercial Art) and the best part of that was being able to do drawing from the live model. :smile: Oh and linear perspective! --that was very helpful.
You already have given yourself a high level of skill. The only thing we need to create “good” drawings and paintings is the ability to put aside preconceptions about what we are seeing(a la Bacon’s "Idols of the mind, the marketplace, etc…) and observe, realise that a painting is always an abstraction of what we are observing (simplifying shapes, linear and areal perspective, pushing colours and reducing values, etc) and practising as much as possible. Skills grow. slowly, but they grow.

Funny thing is it has only been in the last month or so that I have come to terms with showing and selling my work. Like you I never wanted to paint for the sake of making a living. What’s cool and that people are buying? Oh! Red Barns! I can do that! But then it i IS just a job. Yuck! Where is the joy in that? So I painted and drew and kept everything, I even hang some of them on my walls, and recently got some new lighting on them. Although I longed to be able to sell, I just couldn’t bring myself to do so anymore…I have sold in the past, but usually to people who came to my studio and wanted to purchase a piece. And just a vouple months ago it happened again.
Some friends came by a few months ago for a get together (after we all quarantined for two weeks) and they walked into my front room and pointed at one particular painting and said “I want to buy that!” in a tone that said “I mean it!” It was so unexpected that I got flustered. It was a piece that I loved. I didn’t want to sell it. But I thought of all the works I had stored everywhere and piled up to breaking point, and I said to myself, "Do I want to keep hoarding my work until my paintings fill up my house and crowd me out into the street? Or do I let go now and sell this painting? I looked up the price and told him and he agreed. And I had to scurry around to find my framing tools, and order some Isolation Coat and get to work on it.
I was so flustered that I gave them the price for the study of that painting, about a quarter of what I should have charged, but I am not sorry. I kicked myself for a couple of weeks, but I began to realise that I had learned a lesson from that encounter that was more valuable than the money or the painting. I learned that it is best to be prepared for the unexpected good stuff to enter your life.
I am so grateful for that encounter. It has made me realise that I can paint for love, that it is the only way for me to paint, but that later, if someone really wants to purchase it, I can also sell it for money. What a revelation that was.
So now I am in the midst of preparing for the best to happen. Gathering my tools, and doing the things that will let me create a business of selling the work that I love to create.

Sorry if I am blathering on…
And as I was blathering, you posted this:

How wonderful!
That’s what I call creative! :heart:

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Uh huh. I hear ya! Back in the 80’s that was all the rage. My dad had access to all the circle saws, crosscut saws etc…I could ever need. EVERYONE wanted an old barn or house painted on a saw blade. I could pop one out every 3 hours…but BORING! Then I had a woman who wanted me to paint the old home stead on a saw. Not once. Not twice. Not three times but no, she wanted it on 4 different saw blades so she could give one to each of the kids for Xmas…so I thought, I’m gonna die! Really? Then I had an epiphany in the middle of the night. 4 paintings. 4 seasons. I painted one in each season. It was still the same thing 4 times but at least they were not exactly the same.
I have been the same with my works as you. They piled up for a while but I also had friends and friends of the family who would come by and say “I want that”. I would sell it. But, it is a little like selling a piece of yourself. I guess we would both be true starving artists and living out of tent down by the river. :joy:

To be honest, I love Kiki’s Delivery Service (I love Miyazaki’s works) and Ursula’s cabin in the woods is my dream life. (except maybe a little more tidy) :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

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and now that I am really looking at this scene, isn’t that one of @TravelEcho 's paintings in the corner?

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Well I never… actually, I usually don’t. :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes: Or do I? Maybe I really am a cantankerous old fot with too much ornery for my own good - hey, get off my lawn! Stupid squirrel… meh!

Actually I love squirrels, even if they are kind of pests sometimes. But I blather…

Part of the reason I’m so upbeat / ornery / full of poo is I just came back from the Blick Store with some new Golden Opens - er, one Golden Open, and a plain Golden Heavy Body, both Quinacridone/Azo Gold. And a few bottles of slow drying agent - in gloss and matte?! Oh well, 8oz of each to mix and match I suppose. I was assured that it was the equivalent of making any acrylic into an Open acrylic. Not retarder? It’s what the experienced artist salesbabe told me, and she’s an everything painter, so… me buy. If she’s right, she just saved me $200 in Golden Opens until I can buy them seriously next year. I had almost decided to wait to do any more painting, other than my woody house scene, until I got that paintbox full of Golden Open Acrylics, until I got the whim to check out drying retarders and spoke to whatzername who I flirt with. Ahem… anyhow, now I kind of sort of have the best of both worlds: fast drying snappy old acrylics, and if I so choose, slow drying newfangled acrylics kind of sort of like faux oils, a little. Now I have… more incentive. At least that’s what I keep telling myself. :yum: Pictures… I guess if you really want…

Anyhow, about your tail end quote of your rant. I kind of sort of agree, a little. The deal is though, there do seem to be talents, aptitudes and “naturals” hard wired into us from some combo of our genes, heritage, upbringing and environment. My family loved country music. When I was a kid, that’s what I liked too, because that’s all their was. But in school, I was exposed to classical, and I thought country was dirt simple and pretty much nothing in comparison. Which was naive, but then I was a kid and all. Then I was exposed to rock, and eventually to all kinds of prog, acid, space music, jazz, fusion… which I added to my classical and later soundtrack addictions. Then I saw an add for a synthesizer, and I was already digging into everything electronic I could, and I HAD to learn to play keyboards. And… I was pretty miserable at it. In fact, I’m still a pretty sad keyboard player, so I cheat with sequencers to do the clever stuff that makes me sound like I have “talent.” Which I do, but it’s for very basic playing right now, while I’m something of a wizard at sound design and sound programming. I even sold a few sound banks for a few different synths for a couple hundred dollars over the years, some I gave away. But when I get hired, it’s for my recording and producer talents, with keyboards as needed to juice up a part, not as a keyboardist per se. < breath >

Now before I got into music and all that for serious, I was pursuing art, for which I had a knack even in kindergarten. As I got older, thick eight color crayons became skinny 24s, and then 64s, then oil pastels, then watercolors, then mom bought me some oil paints for one Christmas, and then woah Nelly, let me go. And I became good enough, I sold aircraft painting at school, and then in the military. I’m still learning, but prior to my tar induced crisis of confidence, I felt really good about my artistic abilities. I was a natural, and a pretty good one.

I loved all the “scientific” sciences as I called them: chemistry, electronics, physics, astronomy, that kind of stuff, and later computer programming in several languages. I hated math, but I minored in it because the world, particularly the scientific world, was based on numbers. I was just okay at it because I forced myself to endure it. But it wasn’t my thing. Science was, and I excelled at it, then programming where I graduated top of my class, and averaged second in the sciences because competition was stiff.

I hated English, but I was growing interested in writing, after being an avid reader for so long, I wanted to try my hand at it. I took every creative writing class offered. And English with it, since the foundations of writing was the language, duh. But the rules bugged me because to me they were too freaking arbitrary and unsystematic. It was explained that English was based on many languages with their own quirks and tendencies, so it was kind of a Frankenlanguage, as I called it, and some teachers appreciated the humor, some were less impressed by my dissatisfaction. I lobbied for “perplexion” to be a word for decades, and it turns out that it is now, since people began stumbling over the same hole I did, and it was an archaic word, so eventually it was dusted off. After years of me griping about it, meh. I became a pretty good writer. But the rules of English… well, I break them as I see fit. Thank heaven sentence fragments are finally a thing. So now I use them. A lot. As well as run on sentences which have taken up a small paragraph on occasion, a fairly often occasion.

My family is mechanically inclined. I refuse to play with it. Like hardly at all. Screwdrive a screw? I can do that. Tighten a nut, ditto. But drive a nail, paint, saw? Forget that, and I pay people to fix things. I can’t remember the last time I changed a tire. No drive for that at all, ba dum tsh.

My dad raced his car, and was fairly careful about it, so he only won a few races, was a pretty okay but average in any sort of standing. I picked up the habit in video games, and found that it translated pretty darn well to actual road running. I never pursued it, as it requires a lot of determination, money, and those darn mechanical skills and aptitudes. I’m a pretty okay fighter pilot in video games too, and I often wonder what I might have been in the Air Force.

No way I’m going to be a cop, detective, spy or doctor. I hate blood and seeing people suffer, and I’m danger averse. Forget dancing. I have no aptitude for such things. And that’s bringing me to a point. Finally. :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:

Talent, aptitude, skill, natural, “has the knack” or whatever, I think the term isn’t as important as knowing that people have certain innate abilities, capacities and skills. They will have some, but not all, and sometimes not many. People with lots of capacities as I mentioned many posts and a couple of moons ago are fairly uncommon. I’m Mensa level, and so is politics bro, but we just enjoy knowing that we’re a slight cut above in what we love to do, and if we love several things, that makes life richer. I encourage everyone to try everything they can or feel drawn too. But not to push against a wall, because that will only lead to frustration when one subject over, that’s really a door waiting to swing wide open. Schools are still a pretty okay place to push kids to try those doors and see which ones will open, but I have to say that many of them push things on kinds that I’m just not okay with. If I had kids, they would be home schooled. In fact, Japan bro is doing that himself, and his kids are amazing.

Oh, and @sheralmyst , thanks for sharing a bit more.

Oh well, writing, art… food? :laughing:

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I homeschooled my kids. They turned out pretty well. But I am biased.
Food? Well, I am not Gordon Ramsey (thank goodness) but I make a pretty mean summertime beef pie which always gets raves. And I have a fancy cookie recipe that I use some fairly good piping and decorator skills on. In fact, mixing colors for icing is a lot like painting. I have been called upon to match colors for people. It is a lot of fun.

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I… nuke things with gammas in microwaves. :sweat_smile:

Hey, I’m a bachelor - and a few females might want to explain why, though Nijol is kind of sort of close to an alter ego, if that’s any indication of my personality. Though he is going to be guilty of a few sins I wouldn’t dream of committing… cough. :innocent:

I’m currently dining on mixed veggies and some Normandy veggies, both frozen and thrown together with some, dare I say, green olives and olive oil. I used to detest those green yuck berries, but a few years ago I found that I like them a lot. But cooking for real… let’s just say that I’m not missing an oven that I’m not sure works, though I can scramble a pretty mean egg. Which isn’t exactly an olympic feat…

I have a chapter which might possibly be closing in on the finished line, which is going to be heavily slanted towards dialog, and personal interactions and understandings. But thickly laced in parts with humor, so hopefully it’s a fun read.

Now… to face my fears, and ponder painting tomorrow - aargh, except Jack is coming over again! Will I ever start this darned painting?! GRAH!! :weary:

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Voltaire once said “The best is the mortal enemy of the good”. He was quoting someone else, but still…

Many of us are capable of good work. Important contributions to the general sum of creation. But we allow others, and even ourselves, to judge our efforts against some arbitrary standard of “The Best”. We are always going to fall short of this ideal. Only one person can be the best - and even they could do better.

Advertisers, marketers, employers, educators, and pretty much the whole economic system, are constantly trying to convince us that if we’re not the best, we’re worthless. It’s madness.

Reject the best. Good enough is good enough. Embrace pretty good.

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Darn, I forgot this part yesterday. The reason I’m considering this, assuming it’s not too much dosh, is so I can have a proper image of a painting or several - God help me - to share online. The pic taking thing can be hit and near-hit as far as capturing it properly. And particularly with the aviation and landscapes should I get to them before something tragic happens, I might consider lithos to sell. Assuming anyone but family and friends tell me “I want that!” :grin:

In case it hasn’t come across yet, I’m something of an iconoclast. In the past couple of years, I have felt less and less shy about telling the world what I think of it. Point me to a windmill and I’ll tilt at it for hours. “Avast ye hairy / scaly varlet!” I could have sworn that was varlant, but evidently not, and I haven’t heard the word since I was a kid. Talk about archaic…

It was fun in school testing the patience of my teachers in the sciences and English, and some history.

“How did Hitler just start making war machines like crazy if Wiemar Germany was destitute?”

(Most teachers) “Well… we’ll explore that later.” (Later never comes)

(One teacher) “Because they nationalized banks and key industries, and stole a certain amount of wealth from the Jews.”

“So they really were socialists, and the jews were so rich that they could fund an economy?”

(The teacher) “Well… I don’t really have time right now to get into all the details, so we’ll cover that later.” (Later never comes)

This was in a less suspicious age, where I just assumed some college level course would explain everything, and I could stop pestering people. And I found out that a certain amount of history and science is… essentially the square root of -1. Something assumed and voted on and plugged in to make the model work. This doesn’t work with me anymore. It’s why Nigel is such a stubborn American Lost In Euclidian Space And Beating His Head Against A Wall. ™ :sweat_smile:

Anyhow, another bit of my head thrown as a wall of text. Morning! :yawning_face:

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I have to agree. These are the sort of questions an ignorant, snot-nosed, attention seeking kid might ask if he were being particularly smartassed.

I would not, however, expect them from a responsible adult. Nor would I expect that adult to find them amusing.

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That was me. :sweat_smile: But seriously… answers? Knowledge? Straight answers? Please?

There’s a certain Interloper in my story who wants answers too. And I think there are times that being a boat rocker, especially in these politically correct times, is in order.

Edit: well, one more thought. The stuff I posted above isn’t picking needless fights, being disruptive, wasting time or self-centered orneriness. It’s… ya know, asking questions when the answers seem insufficient to know the truth. If stuff like the above seems overly obnoxious to anyone, I’d suggest you stay away from this intranets thing because it’s a rowdy place, not for the thin skinned.

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Yes! I have “Good Enough” as my mantra because I have had a constant struggle with my art to keep myself from overdoing it trying to make it better (or perhaps because I get so deep into the zone of the visceral enjoyment of the process that I don’t know (or care?) that I should stop at some point. :blush:

I would add some parents to your list as well.

But there is nothing that irks me more than people throwing around the word “talent”, when most people just put their heads down and work hard (not necessarily in a bad way, but following one’s curiosity and practising a lot) to achieve whatever level of expertise they have.

Between Voltaire and Bacon (and others) we have some indicators that our beliefs inform our capacity to observe, make informed decisions, and act creatively.

A lot of people have much to gain from manipulating the beliefs of others and with out some capacity for self-critiquing, we follow their elitist programs to the detriment of us all.

Perfection is a will-o’-the-wisp that leads us into the swamps and quicksand. It is always somewhere else because it doesn’t really exist. Good enough, as you say, is good enough. Stopping at the point of good enough can keep us from destroying a lovely creation in the name of perfection.

Hopefully I didn’t garble that bit of philosophy, and it was “good enough”. :wink:

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I like that :grinning:

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Taosist philosophy say that Uselessness can be better than Usefullness.
And wanting to be in competition with the whole world is indeed madness.

(About Voltaire, he misquoted Montesquieu who was himself refering to Aristote “Golden mean” (they were fans of the classics greeks during the Age of Enlightenment :wink: ) so the “no extreme” thinking is a very old story)

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