Apr. 2nd, 2023

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Finished the below painting today - been working on it for a bit. Had to draw it three to four times to get it right. Or to be an impression of what I remembered. It's of a couple that I saw on the subway - on the way home from church several weeks ago.

I used watercolor pencils on hot press watercolor paper - which worked very well. (Materials matter, and the pencils are easier to use for fine lines and contours, particularly if like me - your hands shake. That's my biggest problem with painting at the moment is my hands shake. Also hot pressed paper works better with pencils, while cold press works better with paints and brushes. The best water color pencils are apparently Faber Castel Al Duher - which I got from Amazon. I didn't get the huge package. I went for a pack of 26, I think. Or the $20-30, as opposed to $50-100. Supplies can be costly. Also hot pressed paper is harder to find, isn't as big or large, and in shorter supply than cold pressed for some reason or other.)

young teen couple sitting on the subway )

I think I have two more subway watercolors before I switch over to dog walkers and dogs and their owners. My only difficulty is I have to figure out how to draw and paint dogs. I've been trained to draw and pain humans and have been practicing and doing it for over twenty years, off and on. But dogs not so much.

As reported in yesterday's post (the personal locked one) - my art supplies came on Saturday, which included the watercolor pencils, a small watercolor sketch book, and a book on how to draw and paint botanicals. (It's a spiral paper back - which works better for me.)

Oh, and here's the completed one from yesterday's post - I think I was able to fix it. Both watercolors had issues that had to be fixed. The one above, I had to fix the girl's hair, and the one below, her eyes.

two commuters on a subway on the way home from work )

***

I tried to watch the film Nope but it put me to sleep, wasn't helped by the fact that it was a "dark" film - and much filmed at night. Which is close to impossible to see on my television screen during the day. I watch Picard at night. I'll have to watch this at night as well. Assuming it doesn't put me to sleep.

[It's streaming for free on Amazon at the moment. Oh, the following films can be found on the following streaming channels...

1. Nope by Jordan Peele on Amazon Prime
2. Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris - also on Amazon Prime
3. Shotgun Wedding (Josh Dushamel, Jennifer Lopez, Cheech Marin, Sona Braga, Jennifer Coolidge, Lenny Kravitz and D'Arcy ?) - Amazon
4. Pinocchio by Guillermo Del Toro - Netflix
5. RRR on Netflix

There's more, I'm certain - but those are the ones I know about. There is far too much content out there - and all of it is poorly indexed and organized. They need a librarian to index and organize all of this and an IT person to install a good search engine. I can never find anything. And when I do - I get kicked out.

I tried to watch Shotgun Wedding several times, I kept getting kicked out. I'd hit on it, it would start, then I'd get kicked out of the Amazon app. I tried a final time with the caveat - that if it didn't work, I'd give up. I got in. I'm glad I did - it was mindless fun and entertaining. Quite funny in places. Also, sigh, Josh Dushamel is pretty on the eyes - and I like Jennifer Lopez for the most part. Jennifer Coolidge irritates me - but we get so little of her - it really doesn't matter. Sona Braga was unrecognizable.

Shotgun Wedding is among the Jennifer Lopez films that required last minute recasting for the male romantic lead. The other one was Marry Me with Owen Wilson. I think both originally had Armie Hammer in the role - and well...
or Shotgun Wedding definitely did, and well... (if you want to know why - go google Armie Hammer on your own, it's hardly a secret).

It is mindlessly entertaining. I'll give it that. I actually laughed during it. The set up? The bride and groom decide to get married on an island in the Phillipines - in the hopes no one will come. (They came, along with a bunch of pirates after the Bride's father's money - the bride and groom spend the movie combating the pirates and each other. )

It's really just for folks who like Josh Dushamel and Jennifer Lopez, if you don't? Skip. Well that, and want mindless fun.

***

I watched the Palm Sunday service on FB this morning, and opted to take a break from the Artist's Way. I will most likely go next week - when there may be less people in attendance. The Artist Way - I'm struggling with in much the same way I struggle with all self help books. But it did help push me to get back into drawing and watercolors. Also to rethink art.

My Aunt L has got a contract to illustrate a series of Christian Children's books. (Her work has a heavy Christian bent). Mother talked to her today, and Aunt L told her how she'd been discouraged from pursuing art as a young adult and teen, but did it anyhow. Their kids are engineers, and her grandson couldn't get into the one English Lit course he took - and is going for an engineering degree. (See half my family is engineers, the other half artists.)

I realized while watching A Million Little Things (which is in its finale season - apparently whiny thirty-something dramas have run their course? They were having a moment for a while now, but that moment is done - people want spy thrillers and rom-coms now - most likely got tired of watching rich people mope? And would much rather watch them dash away from gunfire while struggling to make ends meet.)

Anyhow, back to what I realized - which wasn't that - I realized that I have a trigger regarding bad teachers or self-indulgent teachers. Read more... )

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