Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Randomness

Magenta Smudge, 2008, Oil on Panel, 6x6

I have just been floating along lately, doing a little of this and a little of that. Kind of chipping away at the projects I have going but not really making significant headway with any of them.

The portraits: I have decided to not continue with the rest of the group that I began on the gessoed paper, mostly for technical reasons. The drawings were too light and then when I did the orange and red washes, I could barely see the drawing underneath, making the painting part pretty difficult. The two that I did and posted were ok, because when I did the washes on them, I did some modeling, meaning I pulled out some lights with a cloth, leaving the shadows. That gave me enough to work with when I got to the color. I haven't the faintest idea as to why I didn't do that same thing with all of the drawings.

Anyway, I am waiting for the heavier sheets of paper to arrive and will start again, having learned a thing or two the first time around. Supposedly.

In the meantime, I am doing some small figures on the birch panels, 9x9 squares for now. I am beginning with a pencil drawing, based on snapshots that I have been collecting from estate sales. They are not far enough along to post images of yet, but I will when I make some headway. Even though I am totally enjoying the drawing part, I should have more done by now. But I don't because frankly I am having trouble resisting the lure of my computer lately. Yesterday I spent hours reading up on important topics such as recaps for Swingtown and the new Beverly Hills 90120. You can not believe how fascinating the message boards for those shows are! Why I spent hours reading through them....

I have also become more involved with Facebook, although I still can't bring myself to describe what I am doing every minute of the day. Everyone else seems so funny and witty while mine would certainly be an embarrassment. "Tracy is checking out viewers comments about whether Tom and Trina should give up their swinging lifestyle and have a baby" or "Tracy just went downstairs to let the dog out and is now back at the computer" "Tracy can't believe that Shannen Dougherty is actually back on 90120" Are these lame or witty? Also, whenever I get new friends I spend way too much time stalking them going through their pages, plus I just figured out that a real time sucker is chatting online. On Saturday night I was up until 1:30am chatting! Well past where I turn into a pumpkin with no ability to function properly the next day.

Maybe I should try a bit harder to get a new gallery, or at least a show. Heh. I need something.

PS. The bad news of today-bankruptcies, buy outs, and Hurricane Ike did not escape my notice. It's just that I felt the need to cut into those extremely sad and depressing stories with fluff. Sorry.

4 comments:

gary rith said...

You said it T: FLUFF. Hey, is your boy playing football again, did he grow a lot over the summer?

Natalya Khorover Aikens said...

sometimes fluff is important too.. especially for comic relief.

Kim Morin Weineck said...

Hi Tracy. Cut yourself some slack and recharge the battery. Enjoy some downtime. :)

Tracy Helgeson said...

Gary, He is playing again and he is one of the older ones on the team so he has to lead drills etc. This is comical to Doug and I since he still has no idea of how the game is played! He just does his thing....And yes, he is officially taller than I am. Surreal! Thanks for asking:)

Thanks Natalya, good point about fluff. And thanks for the facebook invite. That just proves how lame I am about it-it never occurs to me to look for my friends on facebook. i think I have maybe asked 2 people to be my friends since I joined. Maybe I should go do some searching now:)

Kim, yes, that's what everyone says. And I did enjoy the downtime for awhile, but now it's bugging me. I think my battery is recharged but the battery neglected to let me know:)