museology: day two

June 11th, 2004

Notes towards a personal Grove of the Muses

From my meditation garden mandala, i’d like to incorporate N/air/wisdom, E/water/grace, S/”fire”/beauty-courage. The W/earth/stability aspect doesn’t seem to need to be so present — except in that fundamental sense that it is only when i am stable and supported that i feel free to create.

And that, right there, is an interesting thing to consider. Should i not create when i am stressed or worried? When there is personal chaos? Shouldn’t i process that chaos through the creative impulse? Can’t i ground myself through the creative process and not require that i be grounded to become creative?

So, i can cross the plowed plain of my western garden, mounting the horse that so often meets me, and reach the mountains on the other side. I release the horse, and climb the path next to the cascading stream. The narrow gorge widens to a mountain side meadow, with southern exposture. The creek has been damed to form a clear pool. I cross on the foot bridge to the circle of nine ponderosa pines and into the grove of aspens. There is a large rustic cabinet, and inside its magic space are all the libraries of the world, any insturment, any paint, ink, paper, canvas, clay, tool….

Posted in m u s e * o l o g y | Comments Off

Small changes

June 10th, 2004

I trimmed the blossoms off the hydrangea yesterday. Outside it goes. Probably ought to be repotted.

I sprayed a pyrethian-based insecticide all over the aphid infested pansies. Lots and lots of crawlies. I’m sure part of the problem is the plants are stressed by the irregular watering, wind, and sun. No aphids are apparent on the more sheltered plants.

Posted in Gardening | Comments Off

museology: day one

June 10th, 2004

I’m taking Eliza’s museology online course — and i’ll be keeping my daily notes here. She points to an online quiz about the muses, and i took that without really reviewing anything about them. I guessed right that Mnemosyne, the Titan, was mother to the muses. Urania,Terpsichore, Calliope, & Erato were easy guesses because of shared word roots (although what organ music has to do with epic poetry is a mystery to me). Melpomene was a wild guess, although i think one of the characters in Jamie Robertson’s Clan of the Cats gave away the general sense that tragedy was the association.

Completely missed:
Euterpe, inventer of double flute, muse of lyric poetry and instrumental music.
Thalia, tamborine & comic mask, muse of comedy and pastoral life.
Polyhymnia, “matron of mimes”
Clio, muse of history

Average score is 6/10, i got 7/10 — probably because i knew terpsechorian referred to dancing.

Taking the statistically annoying Quizilla quiz, i’m told my muse is Melpomene. An honest tweak easily brings me to Urania.

Melpomene
~Melpomene~
Your muse is Melpomene, the Songstress, the muse of
Tragedy. Her symbol is the tragic mask. There
could be several reasons she is your muse. You
could be simply fascinated by the dark and the
plethora of emotions that accompany any good
tragedy. You could also be depressed yourself,
in which case you might try working on making
Thalia your muse…

Which of the Nine Muses is your muse?
brought to you by Quizilla

m u s e * o l o g y is brought to you by eliza badurina and caravan publishing (http://caravan.moderngypsy.com/) po box 161 * madison, ne 68748 email: “muses” at her domain, moderngypsy.com.

Posted in m u s e * o l o g y | Comments Off

Sproutings & fruitings & buddings

June 7th, 2004

During a quick watering this morning, I noticed the Moulin Rouge sunflower seeds, planted abbout a week ago, have sprouted. The root end has pushed out and propelled the still shelled seed out of the dirt. The colors are red and black — little green. It looks a bit alien.

The calendula has sprouted quite a bit in the ginger planter, but hardly in the sunflower planter. I’m beginning to suspect that the ginger is in a slightly warmer position that the three other planters — i’ll move them tonight. I’d thought the deck wall was causing shade, but it shades the afternoon sun, not the midday sun. I suspect the current location of the two veggie planters gets less intense light.

The tomato plant has one green tomato on it — amazing!

The lemon tree is about to burst into blossoms — i’ve been watching the buds for over a week.

Posted in Gardening | Comments Off

Research: spacescapes

June 7th, 2004

I’m doing studies for a painting that involves a spacescape — these links, mostly to NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day should inform the studies. I suppose i’ll turn some of them into ATC if i can figure out how to use acrylic on cardstock without too much warping. Maybe a prep layer of regular gel medium?

I also know that it’s not likely one could see stars and galaxies and a ten-degree view of a Jupiter-like planet all at once — the brightness of the planet would make seeing the stars difficult. I think i don’t care.

Jupiter:

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap031114.html

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap030906.html

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap021207.html

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap030309.html

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/image_of_day_030603.html

Jupiter and “stars”

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap030403.html

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap020925.html

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap010322.html

Galaxies:

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap040426.html

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap040407.html

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap040211.html

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap010608.html — in draco

Draco:

http://www.crystalinks.com/draco.html

http://www.astronomy.net/constellations/draco.html

http://www.astro.wisc.edu/~dolan/constellations/constellations/Draco.html

Draco1:
Ioannis Bayeri Rhainani I.C. Uranometria : omnium asterismorum continens schemata, nova methodo delineata, aereis laminis expressa; Plate C The constellation Draco (the Dragon); An edition of the plates only, dated 1603 on title page, but without descriptive text or colophon; therefore this edition was published in 1624 or later.

Creation Information: Date: 1624 People: Johannes Bayer, author
Collection: Part of History of Astronomical Observation
Contributed by Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens. 1151 Oxford Road, San Marino, California, 91108 United States
Object ID: CSHRRB482143PlC

AMICO has several dragon etchings by Antonio Tempesta (Italian, 1555 – 1630).

Posted in Edition research | Comments Off

Quick notes

June 1st, 2004

Added Dukat dill seeds to the planter with the tomato and the planter that will have the Ancho chile. Planted around eight seeds of the Moulin Rouge sunflower in the third round planter, and then added Pacific Beauty calendula. Also added the calendula to the pot with the ginger. I’m sure my Dad would look at the ginger in its current state, two green leafy stalks a couple of feet hight, and think “corn” — at least for a moment.

Posted in Gardening | Comments Off

May 2004 Gardening Notes

May 2nd, 2004

[4 for $10 -- grr, they charged for 5]
Upright Rosemary (a)
Mrs Burns Lemon Basil (a)
Sweet Basil (b)
Curled Parsley (a)

(a) SummerWindsNursery.com
(b) Woodbridge WGardensInc.com

Kimono Mix of Celosia $3.50
Magestic Giants Blue Shades Pansy $2.69
Silver Thyme $2.69

Improved Meyer Lemon [height 6' to 10' at maturity, from FourWindsGrowers.com; prune in warm months] $29.99
Pot & caddy for lemon: 7.99 + 14.99

Hydrangea $16.99
Pot & saucer for hydrangea: 6.99 + 4.99

Seed packets, price varied & on packet, all from BotanicalInterests.Com:

Calendula – Pacific Beauty – Calendula officinalis
Dill – Dukat – Anethum graveolens
Chives – Common – Allium schoenprasum
Nasturtium – Alaska – Tropaeolum majus (6 planted in with the pansies)
Catnip – Nepeta cataria (started a dash each in two small pots; then 2 small pots of cat grass)
Chile Pepper – Ancho/Poblano – capsicum annuum (started in three square pots, 4 seeds each, 10-25 days to emerge)
Sunflower – Moulin Rouge – Helianthus annuus (hybrid)

2 cf “supersoil” $7.99

Posted in Gardening | Comments Off

Golden Paints Lecture

April 18th, 2004

I went to Tesia Blackburn‘s Golden lecture at Flax. She’s giving another on 26 June at Riley Street in Santa Rosa; it may be worth going. She basically goes through all of the materials Golden makes, showing the material out of the tube or bottle, mixed with paint, in a dried sample. I found that wonderfully useful for me in figuring out what it is i want my paints to do. She also gives out color charts and body sample charts that are actually painted, and there’s a nice pack of a collection of paints and media to try out. As a beginner — i found it a very useful presentation.

For my own notes, i signed up for the Golden and “the presenting artist’s” mailing lists with the email address beginning ATC1.

More notes on other workshops at the end.

* Mixing mineral pigments (cadmiums, chromiums, cobalts) produces earthy tones; using the synthetic colors in mixing leads to bright, clear colors.

* I should have been experimenting with the soft gel gloss, not the regular gel gloss, to get the translucency i wanted. Also, my earlier experiment probably ran afoul of the mineral pigment issue. [Bought soft gel -- and it's in the sampler pack]

* The liquid paints have as much pigment as the solids. Mix the liquid paints with the mediums to get heavier body. Save $. 1-9 mix of liquid to medium makes a translucent glaze; 3-7 mix gets to be the “equivalent” of the heavy body paints. [three samples of liquid paints are in the sampler pack including one irridescent]

* Tar gel produces wonderful stringy body. Showed marbleized acrylic film (let film dry on glass). [Bought tar gel]

* I liked the liquid paint over the molding paste — molding paste is somewhat more absorbent. [In the sample pack, i think]

Flax is hosting her two day $130 workshop on using Acrylics like Oils — apparently students will work form several “Old Masters” paintings to explore the different techniques. Flax lists the following requirements:

# Three blank canvasses (9″x12″)
# Roll of paper towels
# Water container (1 Qt)
# Apron or smock
# 2-3 plastic palette knives
# Paper plates or disposable acrylic palette pad
# Soft sable or synthetic sable brushes: round #4 & #6; flat #6 & #8
(Robert Simmons makes a good inexpensive synthetic sable brush.)

The same workshop is offered at “SF City – College Fort Mason – (415) 561-1860″ on July 24 & 31 but it’s not clear what the fee would be. (And if that’s really the date, i can’t go to that, either.) Her Golden calendar is also a little behind the flyer she shared at the demo.

Posted in Tools and techniques | Comments Off

The Patio

April 18th, 2004

We’ve still a long list of things to do to settle in to our new home. (An album of photos of the empty place the day we signed the lease is HERE.) The container garden on the patio is far towards the end of the list, in some ways — not in the least that there’s shelving & furniture out there that still need staining. It seems fair to do a “before” photo series so that i can see how things unfold, so last week i took a number of photos of outside.

The north end of the patio is where i’ve put the baker’s rack we had in our San Francisco kitchen. The pine will warp and weather with time, but since the other option was donating it to Goodwill, i’m quite pleased. We have another unit that actually fits between the Baker’s rack and the wall — it was moved because GreyBeard kept escaping to the patio of our neighbor. I moved it to the south wall, under the Green Man — and as i moved it GreyBeard escaped again.

I had thought of making that southern interior corner the shady glade. It’s not working that well at the moment — it is a well lit corner and the plants have all been sunburned. Once i have another tree or two — i’m wishing for Meyer lemons and or a Mission fig — I think that corner will be shady. We have a storage closet on the north end of the deck and our dining area. We’re enjoying that already.

Posted in Gardening | Comments Off

Calligraphic Leaves

April 18th, 2004

This project took me far too long. It was “by request” — my mom wanted me to inscribe some of her favorite quotations on to 3×5 cards. She was then going to hang them from an antique hay rake she has in her workroom.

3×5 cards were not going to do it for me. So i made these leaves with soft pastels. After making the leaves, i realized that the soft pastels would rub off on everything.

So there was a long delay before i got around to buying fixative. Then i over sprayed the fixative on my test leaf, leaving it looking oddly frosted and spotting through on the obverse.

So, there was a long delay before i got around to spraying all the leaves, as i feared i was going to ruin them all. Eventually, i did spray the rest of the leaves — and took these two photos. The calligraphy was to be done on the white obverse of the leaves.

In the same time frame, i heard that some ATC i’d made for the “Glorified Characters” trade had been lost in the mail. I had been frustrated with the calligraphy on those; too loose them as well was disappointing. I slowly developed a block against doing the calligraphy. Moving provided a very nice excuse not to continue with anything.

Still, i’d committed to this project, so last weekend i did the calligraphy. I tested the paper — seemed using Pounce was good, Pounce + resin was not. I made a sheet with rules to put behind the leaf in hopes the rules would show through as a guide. I didn’t practice a great deal — i need months of practice i think.

Layout was hard and didn’t work. I’d previously done layout with a digital font on the leaf patterns; the font and scale didn’t really match my nibs. Since i couldn’t use those digital layouts, i tried sketching the lettering on the leaves. I never estimated the lettering width correctly. I ended up using a C-4 and Higgins non-waterproof ink.

I am hyperaware of the imperfections. Without looking, a week later, i can list: I spattered some drops of ink on the colored side of the leaves, i smudged some of the lettering on the first leaf, i misspelled a word and had to patch it with another layer of paper…. I don’t feel like scanning in the lettering.

I think it will be just fine, but i’ve learned how much doing things on request triggers bad perfectionist paralysis in me. I’m going to have to see how this affects my participation in ATC and other trades. I certainly got worked up over my Glorified Characters trade. (And to have them lost!)

Posted in Other Projects | Comments Off

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »