Brian's Morning Newsletter

Thursday March 4th 2010

Good Morning
I've been trying to get inspired about the new canvas, honestly I'm a little scared. It feels a little like I'm going to the Show, as baseball players say when the go pro. Sara suggested a Kachina, I'll be the first to admit I was reluctant, but the more I fretted over features such as hands and faces the more a Kachina appealed to me. One of my difficulties, and sure there are quite a few, is I haven't had a model or a photograph to work from since the calendar animal set I did in the beginning. With The Moulin Rouge painting I extended the living-room PC LCD monitor across the room to reach the edge of the dinning table where I've been working.

Moving the monitor is inconvenient at best. Anyway, Nell has a Kachina doll, if we can locate it, I'll set it near where I've been painting. Oh yeah, we haven't bought an easel yet, so I'm working poor-boy style and have the canvas set on the Kiva ladder in our living-room. It works well enough, as I used the ladder for the demon painting and am happy with the height, angle and if I place a clamp-lamp above attached to the loft I ought to be able to paint in the evenings as well as during the natural light periods.

I suppose most of you aren't thrilled with my latest works, or I'd have heard something. Oh, I suppose it is possible that I've crossed some invisible boundary of quantity and quality, hey much like my morning newsletter, huh? One thing I have always been good at is determining what I'm good at and focusing specifically on those talents. Nobody likes to be frustrated, so I tells myself, painting is fun, as long as I'm not struggling to create what I have in my imagination. Like most everything I see painting as a balancing of ends and means. I thinking of the Kachina doll so I have a model in front of me, while I am also thinking the figure is more cartoon-like than a human figure.

Speaking of the demon, I did work briefly on that painting yesterday, although it was after my ill-timed attempt to go for rock. Yeah, speaking of the best laid plans, that was a good plan, and maybe if it didn't warm up so quickly yesterday morning the Dodge-dually might have made it more than the ten feet it did before sinking in the mud of our driveway, right in front of our house, no less. Not one to push a vehicle when it doesn't want to go, I quit after a futile rocking back and forth several times produced a negative forward motion.

Say the serenity prayer, chant a calming sound, after all my life is about as mellow as can be. Not needing to be anywhere, is a luxury, I know and yes I love it. Leaving Cujo in the Dodge, I simply came back inside and made a new plan which didn't require the Dodge to move, and painted while I thought about it.  There are only two outside jobs awaiting my attention, one is Slim's diesel generator, which is parked outside the shop, as is Bobby Benivedez's Ford PU which Jack and I hauled up and out of the mud of the driveway on Tuesday. Bobby's truck hopefully needs only minor work done on the clutch hydraulic system so I agreed to work on it for him, then the engine stalled-out coming up the hill, leading us to believe perhaps more troubles are awaiting.

Slim's generator shuts-down after 60 seconds and flashes a reset lamp, suggesting either an over-voltage, over-cranking and or oil pressure issue developed and the electronics kicked off the safety switch. It is my job to figure out what the trouble is and correct it. Slim says I have permission to over-ride the system over-ride if I can, but I still belive I can determine what is going wrong and correct the fault, leaving all the Murphy switches enabled. Yesterday I installed a new solenoid for the glow plug system, because of course, working on old equipment means fixing a multitude of long-term dis-use caused issues.

The diesel engine finally started, and ran long enough for me to run a few tests on the generator itself. I feel more confident now to make a diagnosis. I called Slim later and told him it looked more like the generator wasn't getting up to the proper voltage before the failsafe kicked in and shuts the engine off. So anyway, I have plan of what to do next on the generator.

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