another lost week

Sometimes doing nothing is doing the most.

And nothing is pretty much what I did this week... I mean, not quite nothing in a nihilistic way, but nothing. I slept (poorly), I ate, I showered, I ran the dishwasher, I did laundry, I put on clothes and went to work... but I didn't sketch anything or draw anything or write anything, so I guess I didn't really do anything. And that's fine.

I was taking some medication, and it was affecting my thinking, and well, I stopped taking it... and I feel like myself again, relative to how long it would take for that kind of thing to wear off. To be vague - it made me feel tired and sleepy, so I'd go to bed and then wake up long before the alarm was set to go off and become unable to fall back asleep, so then I was zombie-awake and lethargic... there were times when I was at work and having one of those 'trapped in my body moments' where I would be shuffling down a hallway and thinking, "shit, I should be able to walk faster!" But I couldn't. I didn't have the energy to do it. It was like I was made out of sand.

I would cry for no particularly good reason...

And eventually I finally picked up the paperwork that came with the prescription and read it. There was a moment of ruefully sarcastic laughter when I scanned over my exact "side effects."

So, uh, yeah, that little boondoggle is drawing to a close.

I, like millions of other people, sat in my living room on Thursday night (well, technically Friday morning in my case) and watched "Brand X" and "Anger Management." I' 33, so technically, I'm too young to be a 'brat pack aficionado,' and I'm not. Charlie Sheen and his coke fueled meltdown or whatever that was last year — that was something that while I was aware of it, it just didn't really affect my daily life. I never watched "2 1/2 Men" — so the fate of the show wasn't really something that was bound to affect my entertainment... and it isn't exactly like I've seen more than 3 movies starring Charlie Sheen... but I watched "Anger Management," and it was funny, so, there's to winning.

I liked Brand X too.

I'm looking forward to the return of "Episodes" and to the July return of "Leverage." Sorry, book readers, but I do enjoy the television.

I have, however, in bits and pieces, been reading Keith Richard's autobiography "Life" in my spare time. People my parents age have that age old dilemma of 'Stones or Beatles? Well, I guess I come down on the Stones side. For the record, I also pick Zeppelin over the Who... but anyway, really, my favorite band it Pink Floyd, so it's irrelevant. Except, Keith was always my favorite Stone. "Happy," btw, is my favorite Stones song. So, even though I'm no groupie or superfan (and no, I don't own all their records) — and I know nothing about playing guitar — it's a good and genuine autobiography — and even reading it in bits and pieces out of order (which is how I prefer to read biographies) — it's been very interesting. The last part I read was something about the open G tuning of a guitar, and even though I know nothing about reading music, it's described in such a way that I don't feel like I'm reading Greek.

Anyway, on the accomplishment front — I sent this painting off in the mail yesterday. Shhh, don't tell my other paintings, but it was one of my favorites. Particularly this part:

Technically, it's a gaff, really, that crinkly / crusty / lumpy paint right there. And how when it dried - chemically it was such that it repelled the pristine paint that it was sitting there on the surface with, which is why it looks all crackly like that. And yet, to me, it's perfectly catastrophic - this little gurgle of texture in the middle of the painting. As much as those paintings are about a play on color, and literally the shape that paint takes when it just pools and sits there even after it's been pushed in a direction — it's all the things that come together that make the picture.  That painting is just as much about the juxtaposition of color and the abstraction of shape as it is about that little gurgle of crackling paint... which reminds me of what I read about how notes reverberate as per how a guitar is tuned in Keith Richard's book...

So, I hope the new owner of sunkissed alchemy phantasmagoria likes the painting, for whatever reasons they may like it.

And now I guess I should try to get some work done ; )

the pageantry of bad photos

If I was more ironic,  then, well, I'd be more ironic... or I might be content with these things because their flaws are an expression of character or something.

I wanted one of those macro shots of a magnolia petal on the ground, but well, it was windy and I was standing at the end of some stranger's driveway essentially photographing leaf litter, and well, that's always weird... I seem to have missed my shot. The cement is in focus though - I mean that little part at the top.

 Over-lit... I mean the "dirt" looks good, but then there's the other 90% of the picture.

 You would think I took this photo on Mars — based on the red glow. Nope, just my camera's aperture not agreeing with my lighting.

 This is certainly not glamorous, but it usually does the trick: natural light.

 ...except, of course, I was interrupting the construction.

...and then there's the wind. Yes, thanks, wind.

 This would have been the previous shot.

 I'm bringing back bad lighting, and 1980's Sears catalog floral bedding selection patterns...

...if I try it indoors I can make it look even worse.
It's a white card and a white envelope - no attempts at photography thus far have provided satisfactory results.

 The inane things that have nothing to do with the actual task at hand are always infinitely more entertaining - look, its lichen or moss or something!

Oh, yes, yes I did. I got a nice shot of some nice green lichen right after it rained, and it's got that macro blur on it... Of course, this isn't a picture of a greeting card, so, its not terribly useful, but at least it was a decent shot. Perhaps its time to put the camera down for a bit and wait for the answer to come to me like the solution to a mystery on House or something. Damn, I'm going to miss that show when its final season ends. And, yes, I had a little school girl crush on Chase...

I sat down and caught up on "The Big C" yesterday afternoon. Somehow since the season premiere I managed to miss an episode. It's a well performed & well written show, I recommend giving it a try.
And maybe later this week I'll muster up the ability to take some usable photos. Maybe.

Anyway, I thank you for enduring the pageantry of bad photos, I actually have a lot more, but, well, I think you get the point...

the lost post...

The weekend seems to have whizzed by without a blog post... whoops.

Which is funny, because I spent a lot of time sitting in front of the computer. But I was typing, and well, screen captures of text just aren't that dynamic when it comes to blog posts...

I did, however, go shopping. I mean, I went shopping to buy conditioner and garbage bags and napkins... and somehow ended up in Hobby Lobby. Yeah, I have no idea, right? ; )

Anyway, I snagged the remainder of these 2 bolts of awesome fabric.  Ecograda Rose on the left & Ecograda Lattice on the right.  If I've never mentioned this, I love gaudy retro floral patterns and color schemes from the seventies.  I have an entire stash of what I think of as "future curtains." You know, for that window-licious house I'm going to buy when I win the lotto one of these days.  These colors & this pattern were just too much to pass up.

I have plans for new things in my "sarahknight" shop on etsy coming up in April.  This is one of my projects...

And I've been working on sketches of people... actually, I've been working on this project on and off for a couple of years now. I already have an entire sketchbook of "the girls." I just need to find the time to actually get past the sketching phase of the project and move on to the next phase...

In the mean time I immensely enjoyed Archer this last week. Katya as a cyborg was priceless.

However, I think Grimm left a bigger impression on me. I may have already copped to having a school girl crush on David Giuntoli. And really, who wouldn't? Just look at those sparkly baby blues.  Which reminds me of one of my favorite Jackson Browne songs... yes, that was a non sequitur.

Anyway, last Friday's episode was The Plumed Serpent. I think maybe it should have been called, "wow, that is a lot of shirtless Nick Burkhardt," but, you know, that's me. And, yeah, there was a lot of shirtlessness there.

: )

Not that I'm complaining.

Oh, and OMG, there's a tumblr called MONROELICIOUS, ha! The things you find when you google "shirtless Nick Burkhardt."

Anyway, hope everyone is having a good week :D