Progress Report

So here's my first assignment for my contemporary color class. First time I've used acrylics in about twenty years. Fun, yeah. But I'm awful at them...

The assignment was to go from white to black with the intermediate steps being tints or shades of particular colors of paint, forming something resembling a gray scale. I worked from left to right and the further right you go the better they are, which is something. I guess.

It's fascinating to see what a lousy job my scanner does on the colors, though. I wonder if the current models are any better?

Seems like it's been a while since I posted on my progress in my art and writing. Let's do a little catch-up, shall we?

The novel. Well, the wait to hear back from my readers has been driving me fuckin' nuts. (Short trip but scenic, as the man said.) I was walking around complaining about it -- "They just aren't gonna read it. I'm gonna wait and wait and they'll feel guiltier and guiltier and this sucks. I should just start revising."

Well, last week two of the three readers let me know that they were well into the manuscript and so far they like it. It does, in fact, read like a novel. The word 'excellent' has been used to modify the word 'writing.' So I'm starting to relax a little.

Rob-the-Swill-Editor and my old writing pal Allison Landa, two of the founding members of the Monday night writing group, have decided to start a new group and I'll be sitting in at least for the start -- depending on class schedules and music and so on I may drop out later but I'll be in at least for the start of it. It'll be on Thursday nights for now.

The new group might be enough to break my will and make me start premature revision on the novel...

I'm back in school as well. My intention was to sign up for digital photography and art marketing courses; unfortunately, I screwed up and had them both scheduled for the same day, which my back would not support.

So I'm taking art marketing, contemporary color, and digital printmaking, all with the same teacher -- Matthew Silverberg. I cut a deal with him on digital printmaking. I'm taking it as a pass/fail class and I'm going to be really flakey about my attendance, both for time reasons and in order to spare my back.

Art marketing is really exciting. It's going to be interesting to see how I can deal with the, uh, eclectic nature of my ouvre. I'll probably have to figure out two or three different identities to market -- the neo-surrealist, the paleo-artist, and the botanical illustrator. And of course I'll probably be spinning out in other directions as well, but I'll just have to take things two or three at a time.

We've got all but about ten pages of the next Swill filled up and it's looking like another strong issue.

And then there's this, which is gonna have me doing more paleo art.

Man. Between that, my marketing class, and the upcoming art show I need to write two or three different biographies. Time to start thinking up some good lies.

Oh, and there'll be something a little lighter than the midwinter pissing and moaning I've been doing tomorrow -- while searching for and failing to find brushes and a gray scale I ran across a stack of sketches. Get ready for another trip to the Valley of Forgotten Projects. This time it's kid friendly, believe it or not.