Shannon Larratt is Zentastic

I finished up my underwater painting. It’s nothing profound, but I do quite like the way it turned out because of the way I worked the paint. There’s a thick bottom coat of blue acrylic, and then the initial sketch was done in black Sharpie marker on top of that. Then the painting was done with a lot of acrylic (as you can see it’s quite thick and textured), and then lined using my “ink” that’s a mix of top-coat polymer and black acrylic. On top of that is a layer of transparent yellow oxide mixed with the top-coat polymer. While that’s still wet, several layers of color are added, bringing the levels up or down from where the glaze left it. Finally, the whole thing gets re-lined.

In addition, because the top-coat is a hard polymer, and the acrylics are soft polymers that change shape as they dry, the painting will get hairline cracking throughout the surface layers to various depths, exposing the lower coats. That’s not visible yet, but click the photo to see it at much higher resolution.

In the “aww, that’s so cute” category, last night Nefarious took all of her blankets, pillows, towels, and stuffed animals and built herself a new “bed” (or perhaps I should say “nest”) next to her window so she could peek into the apartments in the building across from ours as she was falling asleep. Minus the voyeurism, I remember doing the exact same thing when I was a kid (building alternative beds using anything I can find). There’s no greater joy than watching a child grow up, both as a joy on its own, and in the joy it extracts from your own memories of childhood.

Next, this is me, playing hide-and-seek, from the hider’s point of view.

Note to hiders: the flash gives you away!

Also, I finally wrote up a detailed outline for my BME memoirs book… History of various movements and modifications, commentary, and tons of interesting stories, many never before told.

I’m actually not sure what to call this painting yet — and I’d better figure that out soon because it’s nearly complete… This is the primary undercoat, done in acrylic on the wood panel, with lining done in a black “ink” made of a hard polymer and acrylic black. The next step is a series of glazes (which will also induce cracking) and some changes to various colours… I think you’ll be surprised with how much it will still transform, which is why I’ve posted this stage.

On the note of painkillers (which is why my mind has been on them in many of my recent paintings), I found out today that my family doctor (who I don’t think much of and plan on changing) has been actively working against some of the treatment I’m under from specialists by being unwilling to provide day-to-day support… They think I should go to rehab and/or go back to smoking pot for pain instead of being on low-level opiates, which to me is BS because my primary concern with pain killers is that they have minimal psychoactive effects — I do not want to be high, and I really like having been drug-free for the past two years. My only goal in this is to have a clear and alert experience of life, and pain works against that. The few times I’ve been prescribed a painkiller that even makes me drowsy, I refuse to take it, so I was deeply offended when she accused me behind my back of being a junkie.

[Edit: Entry updated to reflect a before-and-after glaze picture]