Strange Experience and I wouldn't text you...

I am hoping to get some work done today on an old painting that I want to add to my portfolio on my website.  It is always a strange experience to work on an old painting.  Even though all of my work has my stamp on it, there are changes over the years that are more evident to me than the viewer.  My methods are completely different from when I started out so the trick is to go back in time to work on an old one or use my current methods to change it completely.  I don't want to do the latter so I have to try and remember how I approached it many years ago.  Art is such a trip!

I have noticed in movies and real life that sometimes people will text very serious messages rather than talk to the person.  Since I grew up without cell phones or computers I find this an odd approach to communication.  It was a long time before I got my curmudgeon husband to even buy a cell phone and since he hardly uses it, he has 700 minutes on it.  He says when the Martians finally contact him he will be able to have a long, long conversation.  He never texts and when I mentioned to him that he would never text a serious message to me, he said he wouldn't text me to put the burgers on the grill.  I like living with a comedian!

Be sure to check out my YouTubes.  Just put my name in the search.


Also check out my large canvas print specials this week on Fine Art America and look for Reaching Out on The Mindy Project!  There were three shots of it on the second episode.

 

Latest You Tube and Flying out the Window...

I am very pleased with my latest YouTube video on Beautiful Beaches!  The colors in the first ones are great!  The last one is a little low in color due to the lighting in the room I used to made the video.  Since I say welcome to Towhee Hill Studio at the beginning, I guess I should use my studio but the spacing is so awkward in there and the light is better in the computer room.  Anyway, here it is so be sure to look.  If you put my name in the search all four will come up on the first page.

    http://youtu.be/GZL_rm12bCU

   
My husband and I are getting so sick of the political commercials and the stream of phone calls to vote the way the caller wants us to.  We are constantly clicking the mute button but the ringing phone is getting on our nerves.  I think there will be one positive outcome of this presidential election.  Out landline is going to fly out the window at a hundred miles an hour and we will just turn off the cells.

Check out my YouTubes and Headaches...

I have been working hard on some YouTubes of my work in spite of two sick guys at home.  My husband is better but my son took a few days off last week and then started a secondary infection that swelled his throat up so much he could hardly talk.  Anyway, I am proud of my efforts and I hope people keep checking them out.  The first one is on my Beautiful Nude Series which includes "Reaching Out" which was picked out of over three million works of art on Fine Art America to be on The Mindy Project.  The second one is on my portrait work and includes my recent portrait of world famous violinist David Garrett and the third one is on the beautiful Blue Ridge Vistas that I have made and sold many paintings of.  I live in the most beautiful place in the world and I never tire of painting it and adding my own special interpretation.

A new commercial about a help center got my husband and I joking around as usual.  The center is called The Headache Center, and , of course, the purpose is to help people who suffer from headaches but we couldn't help cracking jokes about how this must be  the place to go if you need a headache.  This week only, two for one sale! Buy one headache and get the second one free!  No offense to the center but I think they might consider adding the word Relief to the name.

I am working on a portrait this week that I didn't finish a long time ago.  Yes, artists do go back to old work sometimes which is why it is always good to sell them.  Sometimes revisions kill the initial effort.  Fingers crossed!

Knocking hard on wood and You might get another political announcement...

Lately I feel like I am slogging through mud trying to get things done.  A little over a week ago my husband and son came down with a nasty virus and I slathered on hand sanitizer and knocked on wood all over the house.  I didn't get their bugs but it is so hard to work when you have sick people to care for.  My son got better and then last night started a different viral infection while my husband is still hacking from the first one.  I keep wanting to put up another YouTube video but I need the time to do it and quiet to record.  Oh well, maybe tomorrow I can get my third one up which will be on Blue Ridge Vistas. I have my piano music on Audacity for the background and the paintings up.  Fingers crossed!

I keep seeing this ad on TV about a device that removes hair, a grooming practice which didn't use to be so important.  I guess we went from long hair hippies to short hair or bald on purpose kids without a hair anywhere else on their bodies.  I jokingly told my husband I wanted to order one of the devices.  He said I better not because I might get another political commercial to go with it.  I might get someone telling me to vote Republican.  Democrats have too much hair.  Just kidding around!

Be sure to check out my canvas print sales on Fine Art America!

Sold Another Original and You Married Me...

 I am pleased to sell another original Blue Ridge Mountain oil painting of Clover Hollow in Giles County to a great patron in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.  I am especially pleased with the brushwork of this painting and the warm/cool color contrast.



 I am really enjoying my excursion into non-objective or non-figurative art for a while.  I am doing some oils and some acrylics and the process is absorbing and intricate.  Even though I am, and have always been a representational artist, I find it next door to impossible to convince people that all levels of abstraction are the same to me in regards to how the painting is done.  I may base a painting on a scene from nature but I am not a slave to it and my decisions regarding spacing, line, color,  texture, and brushwork  are pretty much the same regardless of the level of abstraction. The painting takes on a life of its own.

I was glad that my drawing, "Reaching Out", was visible on the second episode of The Mindy Project which I thought was the best of the three that have been shown.  Hope to see it again on the next episode.  I wish they had placed it on the wall with all the diplomas.  It is on the wall opposite that one and they seem to concentrate on Mindy's desk and the wall across from her.

My husband is still feeling pretty awful from a viral infection so my comedy writer has been off for a while.  I haven't thought of anything myself but I am going to repeat something I saw on Facebook.  A woman says her husband thinks she is crazy but she isn't the one that married her.  Something to think about!

Check out my Second Video on Portraits and Mice in there...

I am pleased to have posted my second video.  This one is on my portrait work and includes my recent portrait of the virtuoso violinist David Garrett.  I think the photography turned out well and the music helps to enhance the discussion of the paintings.   The next one will be on my many landscapes of The Blue Ridge Mountains.

I came so close to throwing the computer out of the window yesterday.  I don't understand the ridiculous problems I encounter when trying to do simple things on it.  Why does the software change?  Why did my tutorials disappear on Aperture?  Why did the button that said workable movie disappear on my Canon software and was replaced with an upload to YouTube that would not accept my username and password?  Argh!!!!!  My husband came home, fiddled with it for a while, found my video and placed it on the desktop.  All I can say is I better leave this life before him or I may take a hatchet to the computer and then I would really be in a fix.

He explained to me that there are mice running around on the computer.  Each one is vying for the same piece of cheese in the software and they thumb their noses at the ones that don't get it.  I think some computer geek needs to invent a computer mousetrap.  The mouse we use to click is enough!

Don't forget to watch The Mindy Project!  It is a great show and since my drawing, "Reaching Out", is on it, I can say it has great artwork on the set!

I saw it that time on The Mindy Project and Maybe a Trained Monkey...

I was so pleased to see my drawing, "Reaching Out", on The Mindy Project yesterday on Fox TV.  It wasn't visible on the first episode so it was great to see it on the second one.  The set director said it wouldn't be on every show.  I thought the first episode was funny and fun but the second one was hilarious and I am thrilled to have my work on such a good show!  They have great writers and great actors!  I don't watch a lot of TV because I love movies so when I can watch TV I am almost always shoving a DVD in the box.  I will watch The Mindy Project and The Big Bang!  Excellent shows!

I am getting ready to put my second YouTube up and as usual I am having computer trouble.  It seems like I am always searching the help section for one simple thing and looking at tutorials for one simple thing that should be obvious.  Yesterday I watched a tutorial that I'm sure a six-year-old could easily follow.  It could not have been simpler.  I followed the directions and nothing happened.   It seems to me that the only way I can find answers to software problems is to poke around for a while and then, by accident, I find what I want.  I could probably save myself a lot of time if I just got a trained monkey to poke around while I work on a painting or housework or something.  That way I could get something useful done while the monkey finds the solution by accident.