Too much!

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How do you use social media?

I’m online too much. On various sites. It’s hard not to post similar things on three or four sites. It’s also about the likes and follows that you get. I think its to do with dopamine, you get a buzz from posting and if your phone isn’t in your hand you feel lost!

I think I should make myself use my computer instead. It would force me to go upstairs and do my work up there. It might limit how long I stay on line?

I also need to get outside more. I’m sure I don’t get enough vitamin D. Personally I would use the phone less if I wasn’t connected to the Internet.

So I’m talking about NOT using social media. Perhaps that’s what I really need to consider. Less use, not more!

Bad painting with added filters

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A kind of rescue

Life isn’t all perfect paintings. Sometimes if you can’t work out what to change you could take a photo and then use some digital filters to alter the image. It may not be perfect but it can be more interesting…

I used photodirector tools to make this look more like a print. It could also be painted on wood. The point is playing can help creativity. I like being a mad professor of experimental art. X

So much changes

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Work in progress

So much can change when you paint! The initial acrylic sketch, then as I painted I realised the eye on the right was too far over, the nose too long, the mouth too big. Having the paint out the eye and restart was hard. I then realised her pupils were not lined up. I’ve refined the nose and tried to improve the shading. I’ve got to sort out the body and arms (her knee was up and in the way), I want to paint nice neat draping cloth instead of jeans maybe add a floral pattern to her top. Her hair is a 70’s perm, but I will work on that. Need a rest now. Three hours work… Thankfully someone reset my phone so it stays on longer, the screen was fading every minute!

More paintings…

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It was a busy day today. I forgot I took some other paintings over to Etruria Industrial museum too, and bought some home. I like the idea of people seeing my work, I hope they appreciate it. I don’t expect to sell the work, I guess people don’t have much money at the moment. I offered to halve the prices because my friend said the price point of things selling at the cafe is a lot lower than at a gallery. All I want, though, is for them to go to good homes. I feel like they are baby kittens being released out into the world. What a strange thought!

Tomorrow I’m going to try and paint something new….

Eclipse

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Drawing I did of the Mandelbrot set

Jot down the first thing that comes to your mind.

The word I thought of was Eclipse. I imagine if a shape like this, instead of the moon, could blot out the sun? Could it be an alien ship (I wonder why I’ve imagined that again). It could be a dream I might have tonight, I’d love to be able to direct my dreams…

There was an eclipse over in western Australia a couple of days ago, it tracked across the ocean and totality (the moon blotting out the sun) only happened for a minute or so. I’ve seen partial eclipses but never a total one.

To find out if a star has planets you can look out for dips in the starlight. Kepler, a space telescope has done this. By watching millions of stars, thousands of planets have been found eclipsing their stars. What a wonderful universe we live in…

Clocking on

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Have you ever clocked on? I did for a few weeks one summer when I got a holiday job. The clock machine we had to use was a big grey box with cards in slots next to it.

I also clocked on for an art project. Each time I went into my studio I clocked on, and off. The cards were collected and turned into an artwork later on.

So seeing this at the museum rang a bell… Some forty year old thought woke up and reminded me of a dirty grey factory floor, oil splashed on the machines, knurling air filters for cars (joining the concertinerd paper together) with two clogged wheels that pressed the ends together to hold them in place before they had cages and the rubberised circles fixed to the top and bottoms, then clock off and go home at the end of a long, boring day. So clocking on? I’ve done that.