Yeah, well ya know...

Yes, I realize that I said I wouldn't use a knife for a while, but I thought today deserved a nice red, white and blue swipe!  I watched the USA/Canada hockey game for the gold medal.  I was really bummed about that, but I was proud that they at least won the silver.  I don't have anything against Canada, really, except for Nickelback and Celine Dion.  I've long since forgiven them for Alan Thicke.  :-)

I'm pretty bummed that the games are already over.  I really watched quite a bit of them this time - the last few games (summer and winter) I've been busy and just didn't have the time to watch as much as I like.  It's kind of funny, too - as much as I dislike winter, and cold in general, I really do love the winter games!  I think I enjoy them more than the summer games, actually.  One major thing I'm gonna miss is my lovely and talented wife singing along with the Olympic theme song, making up different lyrics every time.  Example: "This is the Olympic Theme Song.  I don't know the words, so I was hoping that you did!"

Well, Jenny and I are sitting here watching the closing ceremony - she's gawking at all the hunky men, and I'm trying to get the image of Tom Hammond out of my mind.  He really does look like the world's worst drag queen - he's got so much makeup on!  Right now all the athletes are making their way in, and Ryan Miller, the goalie for the US Hockey time is marching in and smiling!  That's so awesome!  I just love how the Olympics can seemingly bring the entire world together.  Just the "Spirit of the Games", I guess.  I'm desperately trying to find this old commercial that ran during the 1984 Summer Games in Los Angeles, that had a couple of soccer players that had just gotten through playing each other walking off the field and they switched jerseys.  I can't remember exactly what company it was for (I think McDonalds), but it doesn't really matter - the sentiment is still there, and it always meant a lot to me - just the sportmanship, and the coming together of people from all walks of life.  I love it! 

Canucks, ya done good!  Now London 2012 can't get here soon enough! USA! USA! USA!

Winken, Blinken...

...and just plain Nodden off.  It's day 3 1/2 of this stupid cold, or sickness, or whatever the hell it is, and I'm just so tired!  I don't necessarily feel as bad as I did - I'm still sore, and I can still feel all sortsa crap in my chest and sinuses, but now more than anything, I'm just tired after doing very little movement.

Alright, enough about my stupid ailments!  We did just have a pretty good dinner, though, at Tucker's Steakhouse.  We got a gift certificate from her mom for our anniversary, and we finally get around to using it.  Jenny departed from the norm and got a pizza, and I, of course, had a filet.  Oh, yeah!  It was just okay, actually (wow, did I just sound like Randy Jackson there?) - didn't have a whole lot of flavor, which kind of disappointed me.  Tucker's used to be the place in town (aside from the really expensive joints) to get a great steak every time, and now it's just every once in a while that you'll get a really good one.

Well, now that we're back, I decided to get back to work.  Jenny suggested that I double-load the brush with purple and yellow.  She said later that the purple was for me feeling kinda poopy (not sure why the purple means that, but, oh well.) and the yellow was because the sun was out (and very bright) today.  I like sun!

My fellow Americans...

...not to get too political, but I, unlike most of our politicians, actually listen to people.  :-)  The other day I was talking about the fact that I was overthinking this project and a friend of mine,  (Hi, Jenn!) suggested that I abandon the knife for a little while (since there's no rule stating that I have to use a knife) and just go with regular brush strokes, so that's what I'm-a gonna do.  I think I'll do some color mixing for a while, too.  This afternoon I just snagged the two colors I had the most of on my palette (purple and white) and went to it.  I'll probably reload my palette, though, and who knows what I'll do tomorrow.  It'll be crazy - dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria!  Sorry - I was temporarily channeling my inner Bill Murray. 

Maybe this will be just the thing I need to kick me in the butt to start shaping something - at least something temporary!

Well, it's off to the front room now for the continuation of the "sick day movie marathon".  Tonight's double feature will be "The Outsiders", followed by either "Jacob's Ladder" or "No Country For Old Men".  See ya later, Greasers!

Pass the mashy taters!

So I stayed home from work today - just woke up not feeling any better (in fact I think I've gotten worse throughout the day).  Jenny had to go into work for a little while (she usually has Thursdays off), but when she got back we went up to the vidjo store to pick up some movies.  If I'm gonna be laying around, I like to be able to catch up on some movies, especially some old ones that I know I should have seen by now, but haven't. 

I picked up 3: Citizen Kane, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and Being John Malkovich.  Citizen Kane was great.  I can't believe it's taken me this long to see it!  Close Encounters was one of those movies I saw bits and pieces of when it used to be on what seemed to be every couple of weeks on the ABC Saturday Night Movie or whatever, but never saw all the way through.  It was okay - the special effects were spectacular (I would expect no less from Mr. Spielberg), but the movie as a whole was just a bit "meh" for me.  I dunno - maybe I just missed something.  Maybe I was just pissed off that I didn't have any mashed potatoes. 

I'll watch Malkovich tomorrow night while Jenny's out with her mom.  I started watching that years ago, but just never got around to finishing it - kind of like I've done multiple times with "Apocalypse Now", "Willie Wonka" and "2001: A Space Odyssey".  I just need to force myself to sit and watch them.  I've also got "Rocky", "Raging Bull", and "The Godfather II" in my queue. 

As for my stroke this evening, I guess I could've gone with maybe a black and white stroke, for "Kane", or maybe a little pink and red for "Rosebud",  but I decided to try something bright to mimic some of the lights on the spaceship in "Encounters".  Ya know how I love the bright colors.

Cloudy, with a chance of...

...goin' to bed really early!  Looks like the chicken finally ran outta steam!  I woke up this morning and felt like I'd been hit by a Mack truck!  I went on to work, but it progressively got worse, so I left at lunch, came home, and just crashed until a little while ago - just in time to see Team USA beat the Swiss in ice hockey!  EWE ESS AYE!  USA! USA! USA! 

Anyway, because of the "feelin' poopy" factor, and the fact that I noticed there was no real shading here yet (probably due to the fact that there's no real direction here yet) I decided to go with a little grey.  Or is it "gray"?  I've always gone with Grey, personally. 

We're watching the American Idol right now - haven't gotten to see a lot of it lately.  Really not impressed with much of anything I see and hear.  Not really sure why I care.  Wow - could I possibly change topics more than I have in these few sentences?   That's how cloudy I am this evening, folks!  I promise this'll get better soon!  I'm gonna start thinking about getting back into the bed now, though!

Running around...

...like a chicken with it's head cut off!  That's what I feel like this evening, and, unfortunately, it's preventing me from doing much here - I forgot I had to get some stuff ready for my art class tonight, and so I have to cut this short and run over to Kinko's!  Hey, at least I didn't put any red in there - you can imagine the chicken as a full-bodied entity, able to go on living life to it's fullest! 

If I have time after class I may come in and say something else, but I gotsta go right now!  Ta ta!

Marhaba!

ان كان عشاء جيدة جدا! Don't ask me how to pronounce that, but it's Arabic for "That was a very good dinner!". 

My sister, Jo Beth, came into town this evening from Chicago so she could see our new little niece, Savannah.  I don't get to see Bethy very often, and both of us are major foodies, so we like to go out to try different things.  Tonight we went to Ranoush, a Middle Eastern restaurant down in the University City Loop.  For years and years it was Saleems, another restaurant somewhat similar to this, but I never got to eat there.  We were trying to decide if we wanted to try this or splurge and stuff ourselves on sushi at Seki.  Now I love, love, LOVE sushi, and I haven't had it in quite a long time, but I'm so glad we decided to eat here!  If you happen to be in the area and want to try something new, and really, really great, I highly recommend it!

Okay, enough raving about food!  I really did just have a wonderful, albeit very short, visit with Jo Beth!  I miss her a lot.  Like I said, we just don't get to see each other very often, and we love a lot of the same things, especially food-wise.  We took a trip to Los Angeles a few years ago and had an absolute blast out there (we'll have to do that again, Beth)!

I decided that I'd pay a little tribute to the wonderful people at Ranoush tonight and throw a little splotch of colors from a couple of Middle Eastern flags down.  Both Syria and Lebanon have very similar colors in their flags - red, green, white and black, so I just put a little of each on the knife and let 'er go.

np: Camera Obscura - Let's Get Out Of This Country.  This is a great band from Glasgow, Scotland.  They've got a real 60s-soul-ish sound, but more updated.  The production sounds like the 60s, though - in a good way!  Give If Looks Could Kill  a listen - just really fun stuff, and a great pop song!

Um, yeah - I can kinda see it...

So I still have a lot to learn about painting techniques - that's why I'm taking classes.  I've gotta figure out how to make a straight line with my knife, but I've gotta be able to do it in one stroke, so that may be a not-so-easy task. 

I was wanting to do a straight-ish line in the burnt umber, because people keep telling me it looks to them like a skier tucked down in the downhill position.  I figured I might try to make a ski pole.  Oh, well.  Maybe I'll have to do it in a series of very small strokes on the edge of the knife.  Maybe I'll see something completely different tomorrow and just forget that whole idea! :-)

I think that once again I'm overthinking things.  I need some new inspiration.  It may be that I'm tired, too - didn't get my full beauty rest last night, ya know!  And with no cat nap today, I think it's probably about time to hit the hay.  If you see anything else - even little stuff - drop me a note here!  Night night, folks!

I come from the land of the ice and snow...

...from the midnight sun, where the hot springs blow.  These lyrics are from the song "Immigrant Song" by Led Zeppelin.  That was the song that really got me into LZ, because I heard it on the radio, but they didn't say the name of the song, so I bought every Zeppelin album I came across until I found that song.  I was glad I did it that way, actually, because I found a lot of really great music in the process.  I was going to post a video of the song, but thanks to Shrek 3, most of you who weren't already fans already have probably heard it, anyway.  Plus, when I went to look it up on youtube, I came across this piece which is much more interesting (despite the fact that it gets cut off mid-song; sorry about that).  The song is by an Icelandic group called Sigur Ros (don't ask me how to pronounce it), and they are a mostly instrumental group that performs these beautiful, for lack of a better word, "soundscapes" that are so filled with emotion - they can take you through a whole roller coaster ride in one song!  And the singer sings in a made up language, so no one really knows what he's talking about - it's just all about the emotion in the music!  How cool is that?  Well, it's cool for someone like me who doesn't really listen to lyrics.  I'm all about music, baby!  These guys are so into the fact that you should solely concentrate on their music, that one of their albums was simply titled "( )", and it had no song titles. 

I'm actually on my way out the door to meet some buddies of mine to go see a Led Zeppelin tribute band - that was what started this whole thing in the first place.  I was feeling a bit rushed, so I grabbed my pallet and chose 3 colors that were kind of together, and here we have it.  It's kind of funny because this stroke actually looks like a continuation of the yellow and white one with a little blue in it just above.  Didn't really plan it that way, but there ya go. 

Well, I'm off to climb the Stairway To Heaven.  Or maybe just the Elevator to Menswear.

Sparkle, sparkle!

Hey, folks, it's Friday!  I've been in a relatively good mood all day because of this fact, actually!  Bonus: we've got some friends coming over for a game night, so it's gonna be a good night!

I was so busy today at work I didn't even have the slightest chance to think about what I wanted to do this evening on "the painting".  A little part of me wanted to keep the glow going from yesterday's birth of my niece, and another part wanted to celebrate the fact that I didn't have to go to work for two days!

I found a happy medium (no pun intended) in using another one of my cheap-o crafty paints, mixed together with a gloss medium.  I decided to use a "Metallic Rose".  I like the shimmer, and I like gloss, so I figured I'd like both together.  This line of thinking does not always work - see also "I like hot dogs" + "I like pancakes".  They do NOT go together.  Never.  This combo, however, has a good chance of working - I guess we'll see tomorrow after it dries!

Okay, well, that's it for today, but I wanted to add one other thing:  on an old Yahoo message board I was a part of for many, many years, if we were listening to something as we were posting, most of the time we would tack it on as an addendum to our post - it would read "NP: (whatever you were listening to).  NP=now playing.  So I thought I would incorporate that into my posts here.  Here goes:

np:David Gilmour - On An Island (2006) - a pretty decent solo album from the Pink Floyd guitarist.

Savannah Smiles...

Today at 5:01 pm I became an uncle again.  My little baby sister, Erica - the one that constantly makes me feel old, gave birth to Savannah Grace Warden.  She's 6 lbs, 10 oz., but we don't know how long she is yet - she's all curled up.  I'm sure we'll find out soon enough. 

Erica is 12 years younger than I, and I remember the day she came home from the hospital!  All of these milestones she's achieved in life - graduating from high school, then college, then getting married, etc. have constantly reminded me that I ain't gettin' any younger!

She and her husband, Keith, decided early on in the pregnancy that they didn't want to find out whether the baby was a boy or a girl (much to the chagrin of my wife, who loves to plan things, and loves to buy outfits ahead of time, etc.).  Several of us were just absolutely positive that this one was gonna be a boy - we just felt it!  All the other kids have been girls, and we figured it was about time for a boy.  Not to be so, though - but that's okay!  We love little girls around here - we've had lots of practice buying cute outfits for 'em!

To kind of tie in with her name, "Savannah", I wanted to incorporate a little peach into the painting.  I didn't have any in my regular paints, though.  I remembered, though, that I had something pretty similar in my collection of 50-cent craft paints, and I had read just today on Liquitex's Facebook site that you can mix colors and inks with a medium (I used the gloss heavy gel) to give it the consistency of a thicker paint, so there we have it.  Looks like I smeared a big ol' Georgia Peach right onto the canvas!

Well, I've gotta get outta here - I've got band practice up at the church.  I just wanted to say congratulations to my little sister and her husband, and to Savannah Grace - may God smile upon you every day of your life! 

When in doubt...

...wear red.  That's what my friend, Bridgette Sesti-Fyvie (owner of Hullabaloo) always says.  Red is good.  As you can see, I use it quite a bit.  I suppose one of these days I'll probably do an all-red piece.

Last night in class, my teacher (hi, Annie!) also said "when in doubt, go with purple".  Purple is pretty much my favorite color, so I was happy to hear that!  Everyone loves purple!  Well, I was in doubt this evening, I guess.  One of those "I dunno what to do" moods, I suppose, and after looking at the picture for a couple of minutes, that just popped into my head. 

I kind of hesitated in my placement this evening, because I really like that blue and white swipe I took a while back - looked like a really nice wave down in the Caribbean or something.  But I thought that the purple/white/red "Stroke of Doubt" would go well down there, so I just kinda took up the bottom half of it, leaving quite a bit.  I think thinking of it as a wave has been kind of hampering my vision of the piece as a whole, actually, so maybe I'll cover over the whole thing.  I can always do another one later on if I want.  It's my painting, I can try again if I want to.  Try again if I want to.  You would try too, if it happened to you. 

Well, I'm gonna go get ready for bed, I think - Jenny and I took Ma to the Chinese Noodle Cafe, which really is the best Chinese joint in town, for dinner and we just stuffed ourselves!  It's time to give Jenny a little foot-rubbin', and then go to bed!  Night, y'all!

Let it flow, man!

So today was one of those days.  I went to work, everything was cool, got some stuff done, then, out of nowhere, a bunch of little crap started going wrong.  Then the guys at work almost instinctively picked up on this, and seemed to try to do anytihng in their power to push my buttons.  It's probably all a figment of my imagination, but it really seemed like it!  I know you've had those days - we all have.  I think I just need a vacation!  I'm thinking about just going to some itty-bitty deserted island for a couple of weeks, just to get away, maybe pickle myself a bit in a cooler full of pina coladas.  That'd be really nice. 

Anyway, after an afternoon full of listening to XM's LiquidMetal channel - the all heavy metal channel, trying to work out all my frustrations (it really works for me, actually!), I came home and put on some Maria Callas, and it just put me at ease - also put me  in the mood to do some painting, which is good, because I also have painting class tonight!  I'm so excited - it was cancelled last week due to bad weather, so this is the first class of the "semester".  I've got a whole bag full o' stuff to work on - we'll just see what I feel like painting later on. 

I felt like trying something different today, so I just grabbed my cobalt blue (probably my favorite color, of the ones I've bought so far) and I threw on some matte gel, gloss gel, and gloss heavy gel, just to see what it would do.  It looks a little cloudy right now, so we'll see what it actually does tomorrow.  Right now, though, I've gotta go get ready for class!  Stomach's growling - gotta get something in there!

Lessons from Josh Baskin...

I was looking through the movies over at the library the other day and saw that they had the deluxe edition of "Big" - one of my favorites of all time.  I've got it on DVD, but I didn't have the deeeeeluxe edition, and really didn't want to spend the money on it just to see the extra footage and the commentaries - I love that stuff, but it's not like I'm going to watch that stuff over and over.  So, I grabbed it and popped it in tonight.  I've always thought it was an amazing movie, and that Hanks did a great job portraying a 12-year-old, but I didn't know until now that he was nominated for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe for the role (he won the Golden Globe, but not the Oscar)!  I also remembered that this was the movie that made me love Mercedes Ruehl!  I've loved her in everything I've ever seen her in!

I did watch the extended version, with about 20 more minutes of footage.  Some of it I really liked - I could see why they took it out, as it just kind of took away from the flow of the movie, and some of it was just too long.  There was one scene in particular, though, that I'm so glad they took out - it just completely took away from the mystique of the movie.  I'll have to watch the commentaries later. 

Anyway, I was watching that, occasionally glancing over at the painting, and I got to thinking about the theme of the movie - that bigger isn't necessarily always better.  I figured then that I'd been focusing too much on big strokes.  I knew then what I had to do.  Little stroke, yo!  Just in case you don't see it, here's a closer view.  I got a little bit of an idea from ma, so I went with that.  I'll let you draw your own conclusion.

Oh, and just for a bonus this evening, here's someone else explaining big and little for us:  Hi-Ho!

Awwwwww, dass so sweeeeeeet!

Well, folks Happy Over-priced Cards and Flowers Day!   Yeah, as you can see I'm not really that big into Valentine's Day.  Jenny and I never have celebrated it, actually, for a couple of reasons: 1) Jenny worked in floral for a long time, and she always saw how much they jacked up prices on all the flowers, so she never wanted me to pay the inflated prices, and 2) we both figure that we try to show each other love every other day - we don't need a special day to get all lovey-dovey and stuff!  We don't begrudge anyone else for celebrating, mind you - more power to ya.  We just don't personally do it.  No biggie.

We did, today, however, have a little get-together with both of our moms, Jenny's Aunt Connie, and our friend Sam from church.  Jenny made some home-made pizza and some cupcakes (by the way - I should tell you that she has a blog, too - Jennydoll Handmade Creations, that has pics of all of her, well, handmade creations - go on by and check them out!).  After lunch, Jenny had some little arts-craftsy things to make; we all made little foam frogs - here's mine: behold "Reginald, the Fabulous Shriner Duck-billed Frogapuss".  No, I wasn't drinking.  Why do you ask?  We all had a good time, and some great pizza, and that's really the main thing.   Good pizza.  And Carla (Jenny's mom) reminded me of an old song that she wanted to hear again, so I looked it up, and now it's stuck in my head.  I figure over the last few weeks we've gotten to know each other a bit, and I think you would like it stuck in your head, too, so there ya are. Don't mind the video - it's just some weird one I found on the youtubes - it was just the best sounding recording of it. 

I figured today, although we don't celebrate V-Day traditionally, I would at least splatter some "Valentines-y" colors on the canvas, so again we have a red and a magenta, along with a little white to break them up a bit.  I didn't want to do just a straight stroke this time, so I raised the knife off of the canvas just the slightest bit as I dragged it across.  I thought it looked pretty cool.  So did Reginald, so there! :-)

Fludders everywhere!

So ma and I toodled around town today a bit.  We started off over at the Missouri Botanical Gardens, which is hosting an orchid show - took about 230 pictures!  There were some absolutely beautiful flowers there - orchids are probably my favorite flower!  Gave me some great ideas for more paintings.  Everyone in my painting class seemed to think I had a knack for painting flowers.  Dunno. 

After the gardens, we had a nice late lunch over at Llewelynns Pub, an Irish pub in the Central West End.  Good fish and chips!  Saw an exciting ending to the Mizzou/Baylor basketball game (unfortunately Baylor won). 

From there we went across the street to see a couple of antique shops - the really expensive kind.  Man, there were some really nice pieces, though - a really beautiful  four-post bed from the early 19th century!  We also went over to the Atrium Gallery, where the main exhibit was a collection of paintings by Keith Jacobshagen.  He really had some great lighting going on in his pieces - the sunsets looked so real!  The gallery itself is partly owned by Victor Wang, who is a painting instructor over at Fontbonne University where Jenny and I went to college.  He does some absolutely breathtaking work - uses a lot of oil paints that have been (for lack of a better word) dried out, and thickened, making some really great textures.  None of it was on exhibit, unfortunately, so ma couldn't see it up close, but the nice lady (did that sound like Jerry Lewis? "Nice laaaaayyydeeeee!") working there remembered me from the last time I was there and gave us a nice little booklet that contained a good number of Victor's work, so ma could at least get an idea.  Victor has one recurring theme in a lot of his work the last several years - sunflowers.  Read his bio to find out why.  It's a very interesting and touching story.   This gave me an idea for tonight's stroke.  I just grabbed my pallet and a knife, dug into the yellow and a little bit of white, and slapped it on the canvas. 

Well, off to watch some more of the Olympics!  G'night, all!

P.S. - for those of you wondering what "fludders" was, that's what Jenny's cousin used to call flowers when she was very young.  I've called them "fludders" ever since!

Greeeeeeeeeeen!

There was a lot of that color, and what you could buy with it, at the St. Louis Boat and Sports Show.  That's where Jenny and I went tonight.  I think I saw more sportsmen there than I did possible purchasers-of-watercraft of any kind, though.  I also can't remember the last time I saw that much camouflage in one place (not having been to a country concert or NASCAR event :-D)! 

There were a lot of sparkly, shiny, very large boats there - many of which should be down in the Gulf of Mexico, or any other large body of water, but will probably end up at the Lake Of The Ozarks, taking up even more space once occupied by smaller boats.   I stepped inside one, and it was roughly the size of my first apartment.  Not sure how much it was.  Not sure I want to know! 

These things are all very pretty to look at, but I know I don't need any of it, and really, I don't even want any of it.  I was more interested in trips to Florida, and some other places, that were being advertised there.  I like to try to keep as much green as possible in my wallet, so I can then afford to put it onto a canvas! :-)

On your mark...

So it's the eve of the 2010 Winter Olympic games in Vancouver, a city which, ironically, seems like Rio de Janeiro right now compared to Washington D.C.  I've always been a big fan of the games, especially the summer games.  I was trying to find the recording of the Olympic theme song, with the lyrics, but I couldn't find it.  Can't remember where I heard it - I believe they are:
 
"This is the Olympic Theme Song/The one you always hear, but you do not know the words"

Yeah, you know you were just singing that in your head, seeing if the words fit!  Admit it!  We all do it!

I do like the Winter games, too, though - except the curling.  I don't understand that crap. I really enjoy the ski jump, and the ice skating - here's an interesting opinion from NPR's Frank Deford (who looks strangely like Grandpa Munster in his photo) about how the new ice skating scoring system is taking away the creativity in the sport. 


My stroke today was inspired by the All-Drug Olympics, from Saturday Night Live, back in the 80s.  Jenny called up today while I was at work and told me she was going by Joanne's, the arts-and-crafts store, and asked if I needed anything, so I told her I needed some red.  After we hung up, I was as busy as a one-legged soccer player, and just forgot all about it.  On my way home I was trying to think about what I wanted to do on the painting, and was at a loss.  When I walked in the door, I saw the tube o' Cadmium Red, and I had it.  Oh, yeah!  Enjoy the games, folks!

For my Sweet Babu...

Well, this evening "A Charlie Brown Valentine" is on.  I know it's not one of the original - it's from 2002, but nothing else is on, and I'll always have a soft spot for Peanuts - it's probably the first comic strip I can remember really liking as a kid, along with Garfield, and, of course, everyone (over a certain age, that is) grew up watching "A Charlie Brown Christmas" and "It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown".  Remember this?  Ya know you do!  Everyone got excited any time they heard this!

When I was in second and third grade (or was it third and fourth - either way it was a long friggin' time ago!) for the big holidays my buddy Jason Mackey and I used to get to draw murals on paper for the hallway walls in grade school.  I can't remember everything we'd draw on there, but my specialty was drawing Snoopy, and his was Garfield.  I went through a period where I was drawing him everywhere - I can even remember drawing a model of his house, including his "basement", at least what I imagined it to be like, gathering clues from what was talked about in the comic strips over the years.   What can I say - I had quite an imagination!

Well, this story had nothing whatsoever with today's purple stroke, but we can't have everything, can we? :-D

A learning experience.

Yes, a learning experience.  That's exactly what this was. I could say that I did this on purpose, but I really didn't get the effect I was going for. 

I'm starting up on my painting class again tonight (Hi, Annie!), and the first piece I'm gonna be working on is finishing up a pink carnation (but not the white sport coat that sometimes accompanies it - sorry, couldn't resist!) that I started painting last session as part of a Christmas gift for my mother-in-law.  I was wanting to blend my white and pink a little better, but I guess I either used too opaque a white, or didn't use the knife correctly, or something.  Oh, well - it's still a pretty nice looking stroke, and it gives me something else to consider when looking at the piece as a whole. 

Sorry it's so short tonight - gotta bolt!

This...

...is a completely random color/stroke.  I just opened the drawer, saw the burnt sienna, grabbed it, squeezed a a little on my little round, stubby knife and put it down on the biggest blank spot on the canvas.  It was just that kinda day.  I just wasn't in that "uber-creative mood" today.  I guess it was bound to happen eventually - nobody's gonna have 365 "on" days in a row! :-)

I think that today, instead of going into some long story about what inspired me to pick this particular color, I'll just post this commercial.  This should have been one of the Superbowl commercials.  I get a little choked up at the 49-second mark every time - very powerful!  All I'll say is that it's just one of those things that reminds you to always tell the people you love that you do love them!

Well, sorry for the "off day"!  Tomorrow's another day - it'll be better!  I'm gonna go hug my wife and mom! :-)

Have ya heard?

Apparently there's some sort of sporting event being played today.  Something-Bowl.  Salad, maybe?  Dust?  I can't remember.  All I know is Miami's a happenin' friggin' place today, and I wish I could be down there!

This should be a really great game, actually - really looking forward to it.  Watching all the pre-game hoopla now - the sappy, feel-good stories about  New Orleans, and high school football teams who had players die, etc.  We're getting ready for Katie Couric's interview with the President.  Because when I think of football, I think Katie Couric and the President.  Right. 

I'm really not sure who'll win - I expect the Colts to win, but you never know about these Saints this year - they're just flat-out tough all around!  I guess I'm rooting for the Saints, although I don't care who wins this year, as I like both teams.  I've always been a Peyton Manning fan, but I love an Underdog Story like New Orleans has had this year.  The only reason I did blue and white today is because I didn't have the right colors to put down for the Saints!  No gold in this house!

Well, we're on our way out the door to go watch the game on her dad's big ol' HDTV!  W00T!  Goooooooooo Saints! WHO DAT?

The Dirt - it's Free!

So I'm gonna go on down to the Way Out Club tonight to see some old friends of mine in their bands.  In two of the bands, the members were in a band with me back in the 90s, called "Free Dirt".  We had an absolute blast, and made some really great music along the way.  It was actually because of them that I met back up with, and eventually married, Jenny.  We were up for an award in a local competition put on by the weekly alternative newspaper, the Riverfront Times, and she saw my name in the paper.  She decided to come on down to our show to see if it was, in fact, the same Dave Harris, and lo and behold, it was - the rest is history. 

We didn't win that award, but we did get to do a few shows out of town here and there, and appear on a couple of local compilation CDs, as well as putting out another CD or two of our own stuff.  We even got a mention in Billboard Magazine, which goes out nationwide.  So we had some good times. 

Well, it's been a few years since we played a show.  A good friend of ours, who happened to be a big fan, also, is producing a play in Philadelphia, where he works now, and wanted to put on a fundraiser to raise money for the show here in St. Louis, so he asked us if we would want to possibly reunite for the fundraiser.  We all liked Rich, so we said of course we would.  This made Jenny very happy, as she was a huge fan of the Dirt.  Then we got the news that another band we used to play with all the time, the always amazing Stillwater, is also reuniting for the first time in almost a decade!  This made Jenny almost pee her pants with excitement - she loved Stillwater, also!  If you're interested in coming to the show, it's Thursday night, March 11 at the Schlafly Tap Room downtown.  Let me know if you've got any questions, or need directions, etc.  Now if we could only get my other old band, Earl, to play, too, she said that would be the ultimate birthday present, and she would be happy the rest of her life.  Well, 2 outta 3 ain't bad. 

Oooooh - almost forgot to tell ya about tonight's stroke!  It's a Liquitex medium called "Black Lava" that I got from my sister Jo Beth for Christmas, and I just think it's pretty darn cool!  It will dry clear (except for the black specks, of course).  You can mix other colors with it, but I just kinda wanted to put it down plain tonight.  I may end up doing some more later - maybe mix some color into it.  Well, gotta go rawk.  Later!

Gooooooooooooooo...

TROJANS!!!!!! 

So, back in the day - okay, I'll start over.  Up until a few years ago, really, I wasn't much of a sports fan.  I didn't have anything against sports, I just didn't pay much attention.My high school  didn't have football, so I didn't have any exposure to that, really (by the way, now if I wanna root for the "home team", I'm forced to root for Southwest's old rivals, the Cassville Wildcats.  That's really not so bad, though, as they've been State 3A champs the last two years!  W00T!)   I would watch Cardinals games whenever it happened to be on TV, I occasionally watched a football game, and I remember watching SMSU (it will always be Southwest Missouri State University to me - it'll be a cold day in hell before I call it "Missouri State"!) in the NCAA tournament in the late 80s.  I can still see the other team's guy running around in small circles, dribbling the ball, to tick off the last few seconds of the game to knock SMS out of the tournament, as well as ticking me off, which in itself is funny, since I obviously wasn't that big a sports fan.  Apparently I'm just too competitive.  I get very upset, especially these days, if my team loses!  This is a very bad thing if you're a Rams fan.  Not so bad being a Sooners fan, because they're usually pretty good.  As long as they beat Texas and Oklahoma State, I'm okay.

Back to the point: I always enjoyed going to the occasional basketball game back in the day, but it was usually just tip off or homecoming - the big games - and maybe a couple more here and there, if there was a dance afterward - gotta shake that tailfeather, don't ya know.  Right.  Anyway, now that I am a big sports fan, and thanks to Facebook, Myspace, etc., I'm in touch with more people from my old high school (Southwest R-V, Washburn, MO - home of the Trojans, thank you for asking), and I'm able to stay on top of the basketball team's wins and losses.  Thanks to Cindy Wright, by the way, for keeping me up to date on Facebook - we're 16 - 2!  Doing really great!  Hope they beat the Eagles tonight (Purdy, not Philadelphia)!

I guess you've probably figured out by now that I wrote all this to tell you that in honor of my alma mater (which doesn't, as far as I can remember, have a school song) I went with a crimson and black stroke today.  Our colors were actually red and black, but I thought this looked better.  At least today.  Now to come up with a school song for us.  How about this little ditty!  Enjoy the wonder that is Bobcat Goldthwaite!

Little baby ducks, old pickup trucks...

These are things I Love.  I also love my wife.  Now I'm not gettin' all schmoopy and lovey-dovey just because "Valentine's Day (TM) brought to you by Hallmark" is just around the corner.  Actually, Jenny and I don't even celebrate that, for a couple of reasons: 1) she worked in floral for several years, so she knows how jacked up prices are on flowers and everything else this time of year, and 2) we both figure that we shouldn't have to set aside one day of the year to be all loving - we do that every day!  (Awwww!)

Anyhoo, this evening, Jenny was just kinda down.  She just had one of "those days" where a bunch of little stuff goes wrong.  Those things add up, ya know?  So she was in a bit of a "blah" mood, and I was trying to figure out what, if anything, I could do to try to make her feel better.  The only thing I could think of was to dedicate today's stroke to her, because it's her favorite paint of mine, the purple she picked out.  So baby, this one's for you!  I love ya!  :-)

EARWORM!!!!

Don't you hate it when you get a song stuck in your head, and you just can't get it out, no matter what you do?  Kinda like this?  Yeah, you're welcome.  That one's been driving people nuts for almost three decades.   There's one piece of bumper music on NPR's Morning Edition that I hear every morning, and it always reminds me of another song (which, thank goodness, I can't think of right now, because the TV's on) which then gets stuck in my head until I get into the car and turn the radio on.  Sometimes it doesn't even take hearing it - sometimes I just have a dream about a song and, when I wake up in the morning, there it is.  BAM!

What make earworms especially bad for me is that I'm not a lyrical person - I've never really paid attention to lyrics, so I usually get stuck with just one or two lines from a song over and over.  And over.  If an earworm is especially strong, it may come back the second you turn off the radio.  Those are the worst!  Like the Brady Bunch song, or Gilligan's Island, or something.  Once again, you're welcome.  :-)

On my way to work this morning, I saw what I considered an "eyeworm".  I looked over kinda to the southeast, and the sky was just beautiful - all sorts of reds, pinks, oranges and yellows.  I knew right then what I wanted to try to do today on my painting.  I didn't re-create it exactly right, but it's close enough, and I thought it looked pretty good.  I got a little more paint on there than I thought, so I had to turn the canvas to keep the stroke going, so as not to waste all that paint.  Got a lot of nice texture on there, too!

Just so you don't kill me for making you "sit right back" to "hear a tale", about "a story of a lovely lady who was bringing up three very lovely girls", I'll leave you with Bourgeois Shangri-la by Miss Li.  You may not recognize the name, but you'll know it as soon as you hear it.  It's such a fun song!  Enjoy!

I have no desire to see...

...the Final Season Premiere of LO-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-OST!  It did, however, inspire today's stroke.

I was sitting here thinking about what I wanted to do when the special "Series Re-cap" for Lost came on.  I knew I wanted to give Jenny some "rubbin' time" (I try to be a good husband and rub her feet just about every night), and I knew she would probably watch the actual episode in the front room on the big TV, and I wouldn't get to spend any more time with her, so I figured I'd take one for the team and turn on the re-cap and rub the feets while I thought about the painting.  (Man, was that a long sentence! Sorry about that!)

I know absolutely nothing about the show, having never seen a single episode.  I think when it started, I had band practice, or something, and missed it, so I never got into it.  After that, I just  never had the time to just sit there and try to catch up with a whole season at a time to get into it later.  As the seasons went on, what little I heard about the plot lines, etc., I thought it sounded silly, so I just refused to start watching.

Anyway, while rubbing/half-way paying attention to the re-cap, I noticed that there was a lot of water there (quite estute observation, Dave - it is an island!).  I like water - more specifically tropical water, and waves, as anyone who knows me can attest to - so, I figured I'd throw a little wave your way today.  Don't worry, the water's warm and calm.  :-)

All I know is that to me You look like you're lots of fun.

Open up your lovin' arms - Watch out, here I come.   I never understood they eyepatch on this dude.  Did he have pinkeye, or was it just part of the whole "poor man's Boy George" costume?  Gotta love the 80s!

So I sat and sat this evening looking at this thing, and I just wasn't feeling it - wasn't seeing anything.  So, I figured I'd "do something crazy", as Bob Ross used to say - I turned it on it's side.  As soon as I did that I...didn't see anything.  So I turned it all the way upside down.  Nothing.  Third time's a charm, though.  I turned it again, looked at it a minute, and there it was.  I won't tell you what I saw - I want your input, if you see anything at all - but I saw something that I may start trying to sculpt.  I may keep it like this for a while, I may not.  Just depends on what I see.