Brian's Morning Newsletter

January 25th 2010

Good Morning

Nell, bless her heart, sorted and hauled  four weeks worth of laundry to town and the laundromat, on Saturday. That's all it took apparently to goose the god of water flow into action. We were going through our drawers making room for all the clean clothes, when I heard a trickle from somewhere.  Well, our changing and clothes storage room is also the bathroom, and I leaned around the corner spying a little, I mean tiny stream of water coming from the partially open lavatory faucet. I mentioned something to Nell and she said something irrelevant to the water spectacle back to me, so I repeated louder, "There's water coming from that faucet!"  

In shock, we both scurried about turning on faucets and watching the water flow increase with each moment passing. Previously I had been digging through plastic bags of clean laundry looking for a pair of blue-jeans so I could finally get dressed  and cart the three large water containers down to Jack's house for replenishing. Stupidly, I thought while I watched the water flow, "I don't have to leave the house, there's water right here to fill the containers." So, I filled them. I mean after all, it hadn't really sunk in that our water was back and we didn't need the containers full of water.

I'll come back to the water in a minute, because it is just too cool. I'm sure by now you've noticed the paintings. Friday, nearly killed me at work. It was bitter cold from the first minute of three jobs I did. I was on my first roof in Old-Town by 9:30, it was drizzling, but the roof wasn't really wet, damn cold though.  Every now and then the weather cleared up, usually in time for me to do the interior portion of the job. I fell on a sheet of ice outside the shop in town at 10:00AM and landed squarely on my already sores knees. It was a slow-motion-nightmare, I had time to cry out three times, "Oh crap,"  before I hit the ice. 

Does it still hurt if nobody is there to hear you cry out? Damn right it does. I was thrilled to have three Wireless Internet installations in one day so I took off in my truck still mumbling, "Ow, owie, ow," to my poor-own-self.  By the time I got home I was sore, dead-tired and chilled numb in the fingers. Saturday morning I was determined to convalesce and nothing more, hence I was still in pajamas, when Nell got home from the laundromat.  As part of my relaxation practice I decided to get out the paints and see what I could throw together, or learn at least. The mountain goat is what I came up with.

Background first, this is what I was thinking. keep delivering more detail and depth as layers are added.  The sheep or goat or whatever is painted free-hand, meaning no outline, a practice I did not replicate. I painted the blurry background around the place where I guessed the sheep would be, figuring the sheep is basically white, the canvas is white. My naiveness did not last long though, and I tried, I don't know how many different techniques to make fur and depth, building up many layers of paint in the process. Well at least the canvas was covered. 

 When Jona and Sara got here on Sunday I already had the sheep and the fox under my belt, I wanted to rework the beaver, there were several things bothering me about the fat, twig-munching dam-builder.  When I did the background on the sheep without an outline, it occurred to me that I had inadvertently created an oval shaped  creature. in the beaver painting. Also, I wanted to see if I could create the effect of an animal gazing up at the viewer. For the most part I failed to improve my little furry beaver, I know, but I was happy to add a couple of techniques I learned from the sheep to the pond-dweller. Still having trouble mixing shades of brown, but having fun nevertheless. I played with the twig briefly, trying for more contour with a touch of shadow, which sort of worked, well at least I was happy enough to keep going .

 Yeah so, my grand finally is supposed to be the majestic Bald Eagle, but I can't get over how much the head came out reminding me of Foghorn Leghorn!  It figures that no sooner than I go and get the slightest grip on how to paint fur, I had to move over to feathers. Anyway, that's why my eagle has fur rather than feathers. Yeah, feathers are  difficult, and there are a million feathers, I don't yet know how to fake it, which is the very next technique I want to master if I am going to continue to have fun with paints and not go all-OCD on this play-time affair. After-all, what drew me to painting is the Impressionists, and their success at painting a scene  without any details.
Fortunate for people like Renoir, they knew how to paint to begin with, so leaving out some detail was more like a virtuoso removing all but the essential sounds in a piece of music.

Oh and Talons, Jimminy Crickets, I said to Sara, I ought to spend two years drawing hands at the very least, before  I try to create talons. Yeah, years of work are needed, for this  type of relaxation, right?
Regardless, I still quite pleased with Foghorn-Eagle

Well, should I return to my discussion of  thawed house water, or have you heard enough this morning?

How about I leave you for now with a simple down-home feeling of gracious gratitude

Sincerely,
Brian Rodgers

Letters

Hi Brian

Who says you can't teach an old dog a new trick?  I'm 67, soon to be 68, and still learning.

Here is my blog entry for today. 

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