Driprock Arch

We got snow so I had to go outside to paint it.
It was pretty cold, 24F.  

I put on my full winter painting gear and used my rubber-bottom bathroom carpet and it was a huge win.  It made a big difference.

(Someone on a plein air forum said they use one of those foam exercise mats, and i think that’s an even better idea than the carpet so I’m going to get one.)     

8x10 oil, three hours, and I have a buyer for the painting which is a great way to start the year!

Here is a picture taken at home. 

Before starting:

Here are some pictures of Central Park with snow.

Things I Think About

I hate TikTok.

Until Daya and I got new phones last year, I had it banned in my household.

I didn't know that when you get new phones all the parental controls are reset, and that's a battle I lost.
Daya's older now though, and I don't know if she goes on there much anymore.  

But I still hate it, for many, many reasons.

The videos give me anxiety and I think it's because they end and switch right when they start.
It makes my head feel bad in a weird way.

I also think it is completely dumbing down attention span and how people intake information, moreso than other forms of social media. Yes some of them are funny but mostly they are mindless stupid garbage.

Instagram is turning into another TikTok and this is highly annoying to me.  It's actually their new platform model. I just want to see pictures of peoples' paintings.  I don't need to see a 20 second process video that is many hours of work condensed into a few seconds. And that's all there is now, with few exceptions.

So where does this leave the medium of visual art?

Because it seems to me that now the focus isn't on the actual finished painting itself, but a performance of how it was made which isn't even accurate. and half the time the finished result isn't even shown, like it doesn't matter anymore. So now painting is just performance art.

I find this to be highly annoying.  

We can't even look at paintings anymore? And everything is just a concentrated seconds-long show of someone making brushstrokes? It isn't just digital art either, it's ALL of it.

It's annoying and I'm highly grumpy about it.

1|1|22

Another New Year!

My word is THRIVAL.

That's my word, I made it up.
(I think other people also made it up too because I googled it... but it's still mine. Apparently it isn't a "real" word but it should be.)

I want to shift from surviving to thriving.

Time to state my intentions, which I do every year:

1. Drink a lot of tea

2. Paint some pictures

3. Swim regularly

4. Continue and maybe even finish clearing out old stuff in my apartment and making my space nice and refreshed. I have been here a long time (15 years) and it's pretty amazing how things end up sitting around for years. And I need a new couch or couch equivalent.  This is an important time to refresh my space. Life is changing to a new phase.  Daya is 16; she has a year and a half left of high school. So over the next couple of years, I will be entering into a very new Life Phase that I need to prepare for to let everything good in. I feel it coming.  I had wanted to really do this about 4 years ago but honestly I think I couldn't because it just wasn't time yet. This past year (and a little in 2020) I really have been shifting my space in earnest.  So it is going...slowly, but it's going and I might see that accelerated this year.  It's time to prepare and pre-pave the way.

5. This is a new one- I'm doing prints this year.  Giclees. (Archival museum prints) It's time. I'm ready.  I haven't been ready before but I am now. I'm going to start with some Topiary Cats, see how they do. Last year was a pretty ok year for painting being self-funding, and I'd like to continue that trend.

I have a friend who wants to help me with the photography, and I have 2 printers- one is recommended by 2 friends but isn't local. The other reached out to me after I posted my Topiary Cats and they are local.

I still need to compare and check out prices. I have a lot to learn but it is time to start.

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Here is the Lee Harris energy update for Jan 2022.

It's interesting that the big theme he says is that this January is not the time to go blazing into action, but it is a time to be introspective and reflective.  This is exactly how I feel, and I was thinking about that even before I listened to the update. I don't feel a big momentum to action right now.  I think this time, especially with the Omicron wave, and winter, is about rest, self-care, and introspection.

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Over the past couple of days I was thinking it might be good to do daily cards this month, and I had a thought from the recesses of my mind to use the Black Cat tarot.

To be honest I haven't thought about this deck in a whole bunch of years. Seriously. So it's a little odd I thought of it, it literally just popped into my head, which is even more reason to go with it.

Here is today's card, 2 of coins (pentacles) which completely and accurately describes where I have been and how I feel. It's SO RELEVANT.

This isn't a "negative" card. 

Last night I was thinking how I always feel like I'm walking right at the edge of a treacherous cliff.

I have a lot to balance, I have no idea where I'm going, but I haven't fallen off the cliff!

Basically this card describes the state of precariously but successfully balancing resources and being able to handle problems as long as time, energy, and resources are managed well.

I actually think I have been doing pretty ok with that. Maybe more than ok.

Thrival.  I have to shift from survival into Thrival.

12|31

Well, it's the close of another year. Another new years eve.
Sometimes I feel like all I'm doing is getting older.

I'm a bit freaked out about that to be honest.

But I did have a yearly physical earlier this month and aside from my iron being in the sub-basement of iron numbers (I knew it was low), I have no health complaints. (Iron saturation range normal is something like 15-33% and mine was... 6...) At least iron is easy to fix.

I'm a bit achy in my right shoulder and a little in my knees, but it's not a big deal. It's not interfering with anything. I'm still walking everywhere, schlepping painting gear around, swimming, and I'll be down at the boathouse volunteering and kayaking again when the season opens.  I'm looking forward to it.

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This year was really good for me artistically.

I think I was extremely productive.

I got a lot of drawing practice in, and I did 54 plein air oils in 2021!

More Topiary Cats were painted too.

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I made gingerbread cats and went over to Sharon's the other day to decorate them.

It was fun.

Apparently Daya likes gingerbread now because she definitely helped eat through all the ones I took home!  I might have to make more, they are so good.

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I am deeply grateful beyond all measure that Daya and I have made it safely through another year.

Morgan

Here is a portrait of my friends' cat who passed away.

He was still a kitten; they only had him for a few months when he became really sick with FIP.

Mostly, this is lethal in young cats and it was in this case.

9x12 pencil on Strathmore toned Grey

Drawing Ring Wraiths and Yet Another Commission Update

 Abigail posed as a Ring Wraith from The Lord of the Rings tonight.

1 hour

20 Mins

7 mins

And the 1 min poses, which I liked tonight.

*************
I got this text about 20 minutes before drawing:

The parents like the painting.
So I guess it was a successful commission after all.

This was such a difficult situation because the one person whose opinion really does matter didn't like it, but he was the ONLY one. It left me in a place of not knowing what to do, that's just an impossible situation, but Simon had said show it to the parents.... and he was right.

I told Simon that he is my new Artistic Life Advisor.

This is also why I think I'm not going to do babies anymore-- I mean, I would really need the money to do it. There is the technical success of the painting, and then there is peoples' weird perceptions and sometimes there is just no way to navigate around that. 
Babies are too risky. They are technically and perceptually THE WORST.

Now watch- next year I'll get like 5 more baby requests.

I would much rather do cats. Or any pets.
OMG. The money is decent but is it worth it?

Last Plein Air of 2021

I went out today to Central Park and 102nd street.

Above the tourists.

Relatively quiet.

Someone still managed to find me and ask for directions to the Met.

I think they were very lost. They seemed lost.

Anyhow, this was a weirdly difficult painting because of all the tiny lacey branches.  It kind of got away from me for a little while and I thought it would be a bust.  Not how I wanted to end the year.  I think I reigned it in though.

8x10 oil

Topiary Cats: Gifts of Abundance

Finally, my latest Topiary Cat series is complete.
I have been working on this since May.

All the paintings were planned digitally in Procreate, and painted in pastel on Richeson sanded paper.

They take a long time and a lot goes into them.
It was my goal to finish this before the year end, and it feels really good to put them out in the world after 8 months and a couple hundred hours of work.

#1 Gifts of Seedlings

#2 Gifts of Reflection

#3 Gifts of Entourage

#4 Gifts of Silence

#5 Gifts of the Unknown

#6 Gifts of Contrast

#7 Gifts of Receiving

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I am very happy with this series, but it's still always a bit nerve-wracking to put yourself out there.

These are personal and 100% my own imaginary images- it's a little different than my other work which is usually based on life.  So much goes into these Topiary Cats and I'm really proud of myself for getting them done.

Christmas

I like to go see the tree at Rockefeller on Christmas Eve.

It's nice to walk around for a little while, see the tree, which is crowded but still MUCH less crowded than at other times- and just float around for a little while then go home.

Daya and I didn't go last year but we did this year.

Usually we would see the tree, get some Godiva chocolate, then go home.

Godiva has been a covid casualty and all their stores are closed.

So we went to Magnolia bakery for some of their famous banana pudding instead.

Here are some nice store windows on 5th ave, walking south.

I love the dogs in this one!

(Samoyeds- I love those dogs)

I wanted to go inside St Pat's and light some Christmas candles but they were closed until midnight mass. It's ok, I lit candles there on Tuesday.

The tree is always beautiful.

Our 2021 picture

Magnolia menu

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I did nothing at home.

No tree, no Christmas list, nothing.

Daya was a real bummer last year about Christmas and I was close to not doing anything last year.

This year I really didn't.

I have never not done a tree and Christmas, but she's openly indifferent to it which is such a bummer- I like doing it but it feels terrible to do it and be met with indifference. So why should I bother?
And she was crappy again when I asked for her old pointe shoes for the tree.

I have not been feeling very appreciated lately and this year I decided to see if doing nothing is less crappy than doing the whole thing to be met with indifference.

This morning when Daya woke up she did actually come over and say Merry Christmas, which was very nice.

I do NOT like NOT having a tree, it's a real bummer.

So, I do wish this holiday could have been different in the sense that I would liked to have done it and have a nice time, but I think I did the right thing.  It can't be just me.

Christmas day itself is pleasant enough, I'm going to bake gingerbread cats.

I miss having a tree, I'll do that next year.  As for the rest, we'll see how the year goes.

**********

My Christmas wish is to get through the next few years intact physically, mentally, and financially.

I have 2 more years (This year and next year) of crazy dance expenses.
Even with the help my aunt has been giving the last 2 years for Daya's tuition, and the 50% financial aid from Manhattan Youth Ballet, this stuff is still no joke. I just paid for Knickerbocker, I have several hundred coming up in performance workshop fees for spring and June, and summer intensive expenses which is a few thousand. Tights and shoes and leotards... this stuff is seriously no joke.  And I have medical copays starting immediately in January for her physical therapy and chiropractor.

I don't know how I do it.
Since the Universe put this "thing I have to carry" in my life with a force that has always felt like something Much Larger, the universe needs to provide and get me through this, since I seem to have no real choice in the matter.  This whole thing with dance has always been a force that rips through everything no matter what I say or feel about it. 

(You hear that, Universe?)

**********

Summer auditions are coming up and Daya already submitted to Julliard.

I don't know where else she will apply, she's supposed to figure that out over break.

What I do know is this is the year for her to do a residential program.
If she gets into Julliard (they only take 40 people......!!!) I'm taking back her apartment keys and sending her to the dorm for three weeks. She has to pretend she doesn't live here.
If she doesn't get into Julliard I want her to do the EMIA residential program at Hofstra.

That's in NJ so she REALLY won't be able to come home when communal living gets under her skin.

Daya wants to go to the dorms.  She wants the experience of it, and she needs it.

She's desperate to move out and live somewhere besides home, and that is understandable.
I did my first dorm experience for 6 weeks when I was 16, and it was better going to college already having that.

Daya has never had to share space with anyone- I don't count, and we don't share a room anyhow.
She is used to having her own room, her own space, her own privacy, her own terms....she has never ever had to deal with sharing personal space with anyone.  She doesn't even like sharing a bathroom with me! When she comes home, she likes to retreat and take a break from people. You can't do that with a roommate.

When she goes to college- for the programs I am aware of that she wants- living in the dorms is required for Freshmen. So it's better that she learns to cope now. That's why I'm not going to allow her to come home for the duration.

So, I think communal living is something she needs to learn how to deal with.

I personally don't do well with it, I require my own space and all the times I had a roommate it was a real struggle for me. I don't mind having other people around, but I need to be able to retreat to alone-space.

I think Daya might take after me in this, at least to a degree. 
I think she'll have fun until she doesn't. Until she has to deal with the annoyances f it that you never see in movies or tv shows.

And who knows..... maybe she'll really love it.
It's lonely for her being aa only child, but then again having siblings carries its own challenges.

So we will see.

Great Hill, Water Tower

Does the water in water towers freeze?
I think it must.

*I* froze!

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It has been a long time since I went out plein airing- well, long for me these days.

So I went today, despite it being 32 degrees (0 degrees Celsius) out....

8x10 oil, 1 1/2 hours because that was all I could take due to my feet being seriously frozen.
I did not do my full gear prep, otherwise I could have held out longer.

I should have put heaters in my boots, I don't know why I didn't.....

I chose this scene because of the water tower.  I like it.

I liked this tree, which was to my right.