The Pleasure Dome

I watched Flow: For Love of Water this morning and it’s definitely a must-see movie… It addresses what will surely be a much bigger crisis than oil — the fact that we’re running out of clean fresh water. It sums up with what I think is an important lesson that is the solution to many of the worlds big problems: In short, we don’t need a billion dollars invested in one mega-project; we need a thousand dollars invested in a million local projects. So very true.

I’m going to head to the art store with Nefarious after I pick her up from school — I need to pick up some clear top coat to mix up more glazes, as well as grabbing some more panels to paint on. The general way I build up a painting is this:

  1. Small pencil sketch on paper
  2. Prepare/texturize canvas/panel as needed (ie. priming)
  3. Full size pencil sketch on panel
  4. Marker or ink lining of sketch on panel
  5. Base coats in acrylic
  6. Re-line with black paint
  7. Add more elements by blocking them out in white paint and then painting them in acrylic and lining
  8. Glaze with mixes of top-coat and acrylic, as well as touch-ups in straight acrylic
  9. Final lining in black and white paints and clear-coating

Anyway, I go through a surprising amount of top coat… I love the texture it gives (a mix of its own smoothness, and a preservation of the the rough acrylic below), and the sense of paint flowing and floating on top of the original painting. Doing this takes a fairly dull painting and gives it a “shimmering” quality that makes it feel as if it’s been plucked from inside a dream or vision, which is definitely what I’m going for in this series. I haven’t been able to get this next painting — the interior of the pleasure dome, a mix of lush vegetation and ice-filled caverns — right (it’s too busy up top), but hopefully with some new supplies it’ll move along.

Other than that, my doctors are planning on putting me into a methadone program — for pain of course, not for addiction control! After the three of the doctors who saw me at the pain clinic had their meeting, they sat me down very seriously and were like, “we think we should put you on methadone… do you know what that means?” and I was like, “well, all I really know about it was that it was on House last week”, and the lead doctor laughed and told me that everything he knew about medicine he learned from House, then paused for a moment, and then was like… “NOT!” Hahaha…

Oh, and if you didn’t see the link posted in the comments, the other recent interview I did (as in I’m the one being interviewed) has been posted on the author’s personal blog here.

pleasure-dome

11 Comments

  1. Ian wrote:

    What’s the pain stem from? I read this often enough but I have apparently never caught that…
    That really sucks, I hope it works out well for you.

    Friday, March 6, 2009 at 4:09 pm | Permalink
  2. Vespere wrote:

    Wow, neat. I saw that House too and fired up the laptop while it was still on to start my own research. Sure hope that this approach gives you relief, as well as preserving your health and sanity. Are you planning to keep us up to date on this approach, perhaps in your pain blog? I myself am very, very interested in the results of this approach. Good luck!

    Friday, March 6, 2009 at 5:06 pm | Permalink
  3. miss mindi wrote:

    i think your art looks fantastic mister lovely use of colours!

    Friday, March 6, 2009 at 5:40 pm | Permalink
  4. sae wrote:

    i worked very seriously with a needle exchange program for 15 months and plan to continue soon (relocated to a different state), but i met some people who had did really well with methadone. obviously, most of them were specifically using it to get off certain drugs (though probably a handful for pain control as well) and for you it’s not about a drug issue, but regardless, i felt compelled to say that

    Friday, March 6, 2009 at 10:58 pm | Permalink
  5. Victoria wrote:

    I watched flow the other day too! Very interesting. I also like that quote “we don’t need a billion dollars invested in one mega-project; we need a thousand dollars invested in a million local projects”. Goes to show that donating money to so-called aid organizations will not necessarily solve any sort of problem, as money from these organizations could actually go to helping companies like Suez to set up “water treatment” plants and “infrastructure”.

    As an industrial designer hoping to pursue my Masters degree soon, I found that film to give me some insight to a possible thesis.

    Saturday, March 7, 2009 at 12:03 am | Permalink
  6. Lisa wrote:

    I adore the painting so so so much… It’s just perfect to me :) I’m sure it looks more vibrant in the flesh!

    Saturday, March 7, 2009 at 10:09 am | Permalink
  7. Kyle wrote:

    I dig the black out line on the snakes it really makes them pop off the background.

    Saturday, March 7, 2009 at 2:00 pm | Permalink
  8. Raskin666 wrote:

    I really enjoy the vibrant colors. I am sure a pleasure dome would work much better than methadone

    Saturday, March 7, 2009 at 4:32 pm | Permalink
  9. estrojenn wrote:

    flow is a hot docs film! i’ll get you guys passes for this years fest.

    Saturday, March 7, 2009 at 5:36 pm | Permalink
  10. Lizzard wrote:

    Be careful with the methadone for me it didn’t do shit for my pain and made me really sick to my stomach. Good luck with it. Love your paintings.

    Wednesday, March 11, 2009 at 3:06 pm | Permalink
  11. marty h. wrote:

    ive got flow in my queue but havent gotten around to watching it yet. apparently i need to :) as for the methadone thing, be careful; ive seen it do alot more harm than good in alot of cases…

    Saturday, March 28, 2009 at 9:40 am | Permalink
Wow Shannon, that's really annoying! What is it, 1997 on Geocities? Retroweb is NOT cool!

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