If you’re wondering why I removed the random pictures thing in the sidebar, I decided there were too many adult themed pictures showing up, so I thought it would be best if I moved them to a dedicated “random stuff” gallery page, which I’ll do later.
On the way home from school today, we biked in full skull-face makeup. Every person we passed on the way — roughly fifty or so people — Nefarious roared at. People had a number of reactions. Some smiled as soon as they saw her. Some smiled as soon as she roared. Some smiled after making sure that I was smiling as well. A small number just glared angrily at both her and I. The interesting statistic is that the more attractive the person was, the more likely they were to be smiling, and conversely, the uglier and more obese a person was, the more likely they were to respond with anger.
I’m not suggesting that this is because pretty people are nicer or the reverse — I think that it’s a reflection on the fact that as a generalization they themselves are used to being treated with kindness or malice on account of their physical attributes, and this gets them stuck in a feedback loop where that emotional landscape persists.
Hmm… I haven’t been here in a little while, have I?
I went watersliding with Nefarious (and Joan and Annika) a few days ago, have done lots of teaching and park playing and biking and so on as always. Going camping soon. Did some work on new projects, did some work on old projects, decided on a new place to live (moving out this upcoming week most likely)… Work on my latest painting is progressing slowly but surely — portraits are stressful.
I am putting a lot of stuff into storage, and where I’m going is going to have a lot less wall space, so if I’ve got a painting that you’ve got your eye on, now is a good time to make an offer!
I added a cool “random thumbnails” feature that posts thumbnails for random entries from the past over in the sidebar, and also used it on Price Of His Toys to make a random kit car photo gallery page. I had actually started writing this myself to brush up my PHP skills and then noticed someone had already made a nice robust one, and got lazy.
Anyway, when I was picking Nefarious up from school/camp today, some of her friends (two little girls) were sitting at a picnic table with a jug of juice the teacher just brought them. One of them stuck their finger in it and tasted it and I pointed at her and said,
Me: “Hey! I saw that!”
Girl: “Don’t tell.”
Me: “It’ll be our secret.”
Girl: “Yeah, a girl’s secret!”
Me: “Hey, I’m not a girl!”
Girl: “You look like a girl.”
Me: “Why do you think I look like a girl?”
Girl: “Because you have tattoos, and girls have tattoos.”
In her defense, her mother is in the sideshow.
Did some more fiddling on my Peter Max-esque painting… It will change a lot of course before it’s done, but here’s where it’s at right now.
Nefarious took a super long nap yesterday afternoon so we could all head down to the big Festival of Fire musical fireworks show… We parked down on the waterfront on one of the park lawns. People were getting $105 parking tickets, so I put an old one on my windshield and escaped penalty free… Today the plan is the Science Centre so hopefully she got enough sleep!
I put down the initial linework that I’ll work around for my first real portrait in a long time, based on the day that we all painted each other’s faces (so this is of course Caitlin and Nefarious). It’ll change quite a lot from this — outside of anything else, it needs “more” on the left side — but I think it’s a good start. The canvas has been primed with a rough mix of latex house paint and acrylic leftovers, giving it a texture and appearance quite similar to cement… I much prefer working on a rough surface, and I especially dislike the texture/pattern of canvas, so I hide it with a very thick basecoat.
