Into Week 3

So Week 3 of being home started for me on Friday.

Thurs evening was rough so I decided to stop watching the news, and as a result I have been feeling significantly better over the past few days.

Saturday I made waffles.  Belgian yeast-based waffles from scratch. I ate three and Daya ate the rest.

I have a walking route around the neighborhood, it's a few miles long and I do it pretty much every day.  Honestly I should do it twice a day. If I can wake up early enough I might do that.
I'm trying to maintain a regular schedule but as the days go on this is getting harder and harder to do.

Week 1 and 1/2 was Wine Week, but I'm all done with that and I don't even want wine anymore.
This is a good thing because my goal is to get through this without gaining 10 lbs.
But I figure that first week and a half is whatever-you-want-free-pass.

My alarm does go off on workdays but with all this at-home time I'm having to make a real effort to not go nocturnal.

I have been gaming a lot.  I have my online gaming friends and we game and voice chat a lot.
My ESO guild also has movie nights where one person streams and we are all listening and on voice chat together.

I also should be painting and I think I do have a new small series to work on, we'll see.

In 2018 a new Tomb Raider game came out and I never got it, so I did, and today I started it..... it is AWESOME. Daya started it too. I tend to get the Tomb Raider games when they come out, I just didn't with this one, I suppose there's some good benefit to that because instead of paying $110 I paid $20.

It's gorgeous.
I'm running it at ultra-high settings.
Click to view images larger, it's worth it.
I have barely started too. I'm only in the first full region.

So this will keep me happily occupied for a while.
I got a text today that NYC is officially having everyone but non-essential people stay home until April 15 now.

I can't wait til this is over, and til schools open again.

Shit is Real

Aside from doing the daily paintings but not writing much about the COVID 19 situation.

So here goes.

I'm not an alarmist person, and I deliberately don't watch/read much news.
So in general I don't tend to freak out or worry too much about things.
And even after this crap is over, I'll still be like that.

But I started really reading the news about this virus in Jan and thru Feb.
I wasn't worried abut the virus here at all, although I was aware of it in China and spreading, and containment measures.

Our first case in NY was March 1.
It started spreading fast.
So on Wednesday evening March 11th I decided not to go to yoga after work, that's when this started to really look serious for the city.

Thursday March 12 was my last day in the office.

Then Friday and that weekend I was going to the vet and doing prep shopping.
Other than that, I have been home.
Except to go to the store and that walk to work on Saturday.

*****
I'm at a point where I need to stop reading the news again.
It's bad here.
It's hard to see this as short-term, although I know it will pass.

The kids everywhere are going through a huge loss, especially the kids in milestone years.
Parents are overwhelmed.
Everyone is struggling with managing mental health and remote learning.

I'm glad we have our technology.
I'm glad I still have my job and I can do it at home.

Sometimes I think maybe as hard as this is- we need it in order to make new and better pathways for society.  Maybe this is a chance for the world to reset some things, I don't know.  But I can choose to have a positive mindset, because that's better than falling into a mental hole.  And the hard moments are hard.  I'm staying home. All we can do is wait and see and hope it ends soon.

My Paper Angel Strikes Again

I painted those first two #ArtApart Topiary Cats on Uart 600, and I mentioned it's not my favorite.

But my Paper Angel Tammy likes it, so when I can go to the post office I'm sending her what I have left.

And look- she sent me more of my beloved discontinued Richeson paper!!

AND this amazing painting, which has my favorite greens in it.
I put it up right by my computer monitor so I can look at it all day!!

United

United
6x8 pastel on Uart Dark 400

Isolated

Isolated
6x8 pastel on Uart Dark 400

Heal

Heal
6x8 pastel on Uart Dark 400

NYC is Empty

NYC is empty.

I walked to work to get some things from my desk, as we are going on lockdown and that "two weeks from home" turned into "indefinite"...

I also took my plants home.

Yes, I know it is a small and inconsequential thing to worry about in this whole mess but I was worried about them. They have been on my desk for years, 2 of them for more than 10 years.  I'd hate for them to just die because I can't water them. That would make me seriously sad.

It's about a 2 hour walk to work, I have done it before.
I stopped for pictures so the walk took longer.

Bye for now, desk.

Plants are home under their grow-light. :)

Mask

6x8 pastel on Uart Dark 400
For all the Photoshop geeks out there.

Muse

6x8 pastel on Uart Dark 400.
I'm sending all my 600 grit to Tammy.

It was so nice to go back to 400 grit.

TRUE STORY: I was only using the 600 grit because I pulled it out first but was too lazy to keep looking for different paper.

Passion

Passion
6x8 pastel on Uart 600

******
I have been extremely stressed but still doing ok.
Stores are open and people are calm and polite to each other.

Hopefully I have everything we need.

Schools are closed until April 20 (tentative) and Daya is devastated about that.
But she has to learn to pull herself together and make the best of hard times.
Everyone is heartbroken over this.

They start online learning next week.

Unshaken

Art Students League is running daily prompts, so I'm doing a series of Topiary Cats.

Unshaken
6x8 pastel on Uart 600

(I need to use my 600 paper, it's not my favorite, I much prefer the 400 grit.)

Sedated Pebbles

On Saturday Pebbles went to the vet, I kept having this nagging feeling we really need to get a urine test.  The non-absorb litter the vet gave us didn't work, she peed on Daya's coat instead.

So we sedated her and brought her back.
Pee collection successful.

As it turns out, she has some kind of infection. There are a lot of white blood cells in her urine.
I'm not paying $230 to do a culture so we're just putting her on antibiotics 2x a day for three weeks, then we'll do another urine test and hope everything is cleared up.

Friday

I'm officially working from home for the next two weeks at least.
So I'll probably go batshit crazy..... I like going into the office.
I will have to take long walks.

I'm not worried about getting sick- for me or Daya. We'll be fine.
But I do want to lay low and take a step back from everything, stay out of the craziness.

Everything is cancelled and shutting down.
Except school-  but LaGuardia started running a shortened school day until further notice.
All Broadway shows are cancelled until April 12!
People are very scared.

I haven't seen this much ongoing society disruption since 9/11 and it sucks.
Maybe that's why it's bothering me so much.

We've had disruptive blackouts but they were temporary.
Storm-Sandy was terrible too but it was over and done, then there was a lot of cleanup.

I'm feeling surprisingly stressed and scrambled, I wasn't worried about this at all until Wednesday.
Maybe if I can get my inner zen back I'll use this extra time to do some studio work.

Just Wednesday

Coronavirus SUCKS.

I can't wait til this whole thing blows over.

*******
Daya got into Manhattan Youth Ballet but isn't going unless she herself can figure out how to fund it because I'm not paying for it.

*******
My shower got re-grouted and I love it so much.
It was in awful shape now it looks great.

******
I haven't been painting, have not been emotionally up to it.
Just stress.

******
My friend and co-worker I have known for 14 years was let go today and I'm really upset about it.
He's ok though.
But I'm really upset.

I have been told specifically my job is ok and they aren't making a lot of cuts.

******
I took Pebbles to the vet due to peeing on my bed almost every day for over a week.
What happened?
Daya went on a sleepover at her friend's for two nights and the cat couldn't handle it.

I got-- the idea thanks to one of my gaming friends-- a room divider that sits on the floor.
WHY didn't I think of this years ago. I'm so slow and dumb sometimes.

I got a large six-panel one and it covers my entryway and KEEPS CATS OUT and I feel just so much better overall.

I have to take pebbles back to the vet to get some pee because instead of peeing in the sample box I tried at home she peed on Daya's coat.

I did ask Daya why her coat was on the floor and she said that's where she normally puts it...
so idk what to do about cats or teenagers.

******
Fuck you coronavirus.

Pebble Portrait

Pebbles admires herself.

2020 on 30

Some views from the 30th floor, which I had occasion to visit a couple of times this week.

Gouache and MYB Audition

Daya had an audition at Manhattan Youth Ballet.
I painted while waiting, and had to do some finishing at home, about 15 mins or so, because it was such a short audition.

It was also an experiment to use pastel over gouache instead of inktense pencils.

Central Park Horses

There is still no snow this winter so I painted Central Park horses instead.
It was really cold and this was a complex and difficult painting.

I made my life even more difficult by painting very small.
Temp was ok for about the first hour and a half, then I started freezing.
Total time was over 3 hours, maybe 3 1/2, 32 degrees (that's 0c).

Not very long ago I would never have attempted a scene like this.
Daya recognized the location immediately.

6x8 oil

Hua's Balcony

Tonight I went to see my friend Hua, who I met at the Garin Baker workshop.
I think we have been friends for many lifetimes; it's one of those situations where you meet a person and everything just flows and you are immediately just good friends.

Hua lives in China but is an American citizen.  She has two daughters here in college.
She owns an apartment in Lincoln Center and does come to NYC a lot.
She's a wonderful artist and takes a lot of classes at the League.

Anyhow, she's here in the US and I went to see her.  I brought paint.
It is mid-February and was 28 degrees outside, so like any normal people woulddo, we went outside on her balcony to freeze and paint.

She's on the 22nd floor and has a great view.

Here is Hua painting.

Here we are together.

And here I am.

This is my painting, 8x10 oil.
I actually could have spent a lot of time on this but it's only about 45 minutes of actual painting time.
It was SO COLD and we ended up taking some long breaks inside to get warm again.

Weirdly though I learned a lot doing it.

I would not call this a finished painting but I'm not doing anything else to it.

I like this part.

Ailey Acceptance

She got in. :)
Registration already done.

And Level D! I thought she might get C.
Levels D/E are the highest levels.