Rejected travel agency commission. Hehe, they said the shepherd with sheep might set off the wrong idea.  Pity, I quite liked this one :)

I have a hard-on for the Faber-Castell Albrecht Dürer Box of 12o watercolor pencils... And may have a plot to get my hands on one :p

Ugh, Zemotion just thanked me for a comment on her autoportrait...

     ... I do not tremble before royalty, but I do tremble before her.

:D

Am sad :,(

         Drove gran to the gallery and it turns out two of my paintings have been stolen.. Just like that. Dunno why, that really depresses me. Yeah, sure, everyone says I am supposed to be flattered and how people are interested and so forth, but these were my originals, I invested parts of myself into these concepts and they were meant for reproduction and further projects, not to be just *gone*.. I don't like that. I don't make them to be just taken off the wall.

Costume concept of the new book Piček's though of and has already started brewing... darn it :D

It's about a tree's POV thoroughthe ages.

One of the unfinished designs for the sockings company commission

The bitchy come-back dialogue #49:

          (Piček is watching an old western on a dubbed Austrian channel.) I ask:" Do you know german enough to know what is going on?"

          "Well - when they're shooting at eachother, I'm guessing it means there's not much love between them."

          "Hah, and WE are not shooting at one another - what does THAT tell you?"

          "You don't have your PMS?"

Having the afternoon shift this week, it means Piček can snuggle with me every morning and we watch TV or I read and he has to have his knees up, because I don't wanna watch what's on TV. He likes this show about some 'survivor' guy, some nutty bloke that put himself into hostile enviromnent (Like the jungle, or Soho) and tries to survive in it. NOT pleasant show. Good tips, too. But he was going on about this time, how he heard of a guy who fell asleep in the jungle and his arm hung off the shelter bed and when he woke up, he found it kind of numb. Turns out, a boa constrictor already swallowed the arm up to the sholuder and was already digesting the fingers. It's a myth, obviously, but COME on!? Too much imagery!!

         Piček asked how I feel about having a pet snake. I said I don't like things to be in terrariums and I like to cuddle stuff, I don't like them cold. He said snakes aren't cold. Well, said I, they are room temperature, which in our case means they'd get as far as impersonating a log in the middle of our room. We could play baseball with it.

In other news, my brother scheduled a 'business meeting', as he called me a couple of days ago, announcing I should invest in poster blow-ups of my work and that he is going to arrange another exhibition for me in a shore city. Dubious at best, I tried to explain I have no money to begin another project which will surely NOT pay off, and he was very aggressive about it. It's his way. I don't take him too seriously. He has great connections and excellent ambitions and at the age of 4o, he still has his mother pay his bills.

             The evil mastermind that Piček can be, however, led the conversation into making my brother suggest he himself covers all the expenses, organizes and puts up everything, then distributes and mayhap profits from the project, paying me back the 5o%. That way we get the publicity and money, if it works out, without putting anything in. Fine by me. I offered the connection to bro a year ago, but it wasn't until the exhibition last week that he realized I CAN be profitable. Just as long as he doesn't put me in the gallery with 'young artists' who call themselves disliked and misunderstood because they fingerpaint cleaver-stabbed vaginas.

For the first time in a very long time I got sick last night. My head started to spin and wobble and my tummy turned (just in case the plastic bag is still by the bed). It wasn't just a passing whimsy either, but it was over by morning. These spells haven't bothered me in ages and I still don't know what brings them on. I eat chocolate and drink coke every night, so that wasn't that; I wasn't using any out-of-the-ordinary pigments that could prove toxic.. The weather, maybe? Ah, well, we're all getting old :p But I got to read in bed (!!!! :D ) and WOULD be reading a little bit more this morning, if I didn't realize the screen doesn't automatically illuminate... Or does it and I haven't figured it out yet. The dark grayish non-contrasted screen is wonderful, though, really easy on the eyes. And I love the screensaver images it displays automatically.

I have another commission for the travel agency and (though I am a day behind with my socks work), so I purchased a couple of more items for Kindle, even though I really shouldn't - but I kind of really need them :D The leather case for it, a nice minimalistic skin and the little reading light. Mostly all of it in white. I disagree with some folk who claim everything mechanical should be black. It's a manly thing. I like things white. Except maybe the thing that Zaphod Beeblebrox steals from that noisy concert scene... that's black on black with black buttons. I don't remember what it's called... But wait, I have a Kindle now, I can download and read all Douglas books anywhere anytime! Mwuuahahahahahah!!

LoL

Okay, I'm nuts. I know. ;p

PS Gods, Piček is so lovely when he sleeps. I love the way he moves his hands and hides his thumbs into his fists or stretches them way out when turning. I could watch that man sleep for hours. But I have a Kindle, so I read instead :p

THE KINDELINGLINGLING IS IN MY HANDS!!! It's tiny and pristine and delicate and naked and I've only managed to upload 2oo or so pirated books by the time the battery was fully charged (pathetic, I know, but the delivery lad took me by suprice), but it's here and it's MINE MINE MINE!

*dances around the room*

*comes to grips with sanity*

*akhem*

Anyhoo... :D Off to see where we can steal some money to posh it up :D

    "Wake up! It's 6 o'clock, you'll be late for work!"

    "Oh! All-right!.... Er... Uh, where do I work?"

<-- dialogue between Piček on the phone and the just woken up me. I had a dream the army wanted to reinstate me, so temporarily I was confused about which job exactly am I being late to. hey, even Tyler Durden had nightmares about his day job! :p

Ih, yesterday was a lovely day. I suppose Sundays are lovelier by design. Piček finally managed to push his rogue to the finish line (I had a screen shot, but I lost it :S) and we just doodled a little with his lock a bit, helping me with the Pilgrim's Bounty first day of seasonal a bit; and I was painting with pastels, watching the first day of 24.. We had lunch with my folk uphill, where I took the 'Princesses' book to show my parents and the toddler, and we all discussed what the technique may be.. We had mum's mega yummy mushroom and potato soup with cream, dad's roast and alongside baked potato and a delightful creamy desert with my latest favorite pistachio ice-cream. All that would have been perfect (even with a stale Coke - my mum has no sense of a fresh Coke and she tends to pour them all together into one bottle where she finds them :S Eww..) if suddenly we weren't told to go work a bit in the vineyard. My brother's family sorted through some wood and Piček and I dragged the fascis of cut grapevine branches down to the woods line for a bonfire when a windless day comes. The day was windy, but it was sunny and warm and full of that strange pale sunlight that shines in near-winter days. The grasses are tiny, the leaves have left the trees and now serve for the dogs to push through and love it. Piček and I tussled in bed so much yesterday, I have muscle ache in my tummy from laughing today. Twice the pain from laughing was so great I nearly choked. Which is a truly unjust tactic - he knows very well I can't fight while laughing, I have no strength! So he always makes me laugh first and then overpowers me. Sneakiness of men! :p

Indeed, a lovely, lovely day.

Trying out new things while waiting for the new era to begin

Mesmerized by the works of Rebecca Dautremer (I got her book The Princesses so quickly it made the slide doors in the bookshop spin. I may be a pirate, but I am still mad about picturebooks.) I've failed to identify her technique, especially for the backgrounds and vast surfaces, so I'm trying out everything I can think of.

For the first time in over a decade of watercolor, I'm testing out the Derwent Drawing pencils (once my most prized possession)

and pastels. My brittle-like-a-bitch prized possession. Took me four hours to sharpen them all with an utility knife and I have blisters to prove it. Piček had to massage my arm to make it capable again. I've forgotten how much drawing with pencils hurts..

Somewhere in the dark, in the cold, in a box that's in a box, my Kindle sleeps.

Well, no, not any more - it's very likely right now it's on a bumpy truck heading closer and closer, but none the less, at this moment it's still flawless, no fingerprints, no dents, nothing to identify it from a billion sisters and brothers. When I am slightly less poor, I'll order a ton of skins for it, but right now, I just think of it drawing closer. The book thief being given the antidote. Not that such a thing can be cured. It's like putting a day job into the hands of Jack Sparrow.... Well, actually, it's exactly that: I am going to get promoted into a book pirate :D

Yaaaarrr!! :D

LoL, JesusfkngChrist, I had a nightmare that my Kindle arrived and it was ugly! LOOOOL. My subconscience is such an idiot :D The things that worry me,eh?..... To be disappointed yet again by things I believe in. Heh.

Aaah, airport customs phoned me today to inform me my darling darling darling Kindle has landed and they just fast forwarded all the documentation via email, so it doesn't get too cool... :D Uh uh uh! Excited so!!!

Uuuuuuuuuuh.... every morning I approach the mail box (well, the PO Box), the childish tingle trickling through he blood, an exciting and most wonderful feeling!... I KNOW it's impossible for it to arrive already and the customs will announce charging me sweetly when it hits the border, but... Not today? Ah, perhaps another day! Bon travels, my beloved Kindle!

:D
:D
:D

Mondays, mondays

Still a little bit stunned from the exhibition opening (it was like losing virginity, really, minus the nose bleeds and nobody wanting to talk about it afterwards :p) Bottom line, cannot really paint on yet. What I'm doing instead is manically downloading eBooks. If all goes well, I will be able to order Kindle in two days. Where the fuck is my accountant, though??

Dragged Piček to see 2012, as it wouldn't make sense NOT to see it on a huge screen. I loved it for the booming effects (Woody Harrelson was excellent, too!) and was perfectly ready to continue the retarded family drama with my own tale of a survivor, going out to look for more people and establish more resurrection units (though of course I am perfectly aware very soon there would be a shortage of medicine and humans are all too happy to turn into idiots when opportunity presents itself.) Piček nipped it in the bud, though, he hated the movie. He always has these comments, like "This is not how you would roast a man" or "This is not how you slash someone's neck open" or "This is not how propulsion within a pyroclastic cloud works"... The man has zero sense of fantastic bullshit. I don't think he's read a single fiction book in his life.

He's taken his black winter jacket out of the closet and is doing his Arnold Vosloo thing again. Matter of days before he thinks he's the second coming of Pik Van Cleaf and bullies his postmen again. Gods he's delicious and of course I am skipping around him with my ridiculous orange and turqouise cap and moronic happy grin, busting his image into smithereens.

Okay. I'm off to ravish him :D I'll post some latest pickies tomorrow :p

One thing, however, did catch me off key: I had the privilege of meeting  a Mark III camera in person yesterday and found it entirely useless for me. WAY too big and awkward, way too heavy to feel right. Dunno, perhaps it's something one needs to get used to, like a new sword, but for the time being, I'm putting it off the wishlist.

Exhibition opening

Yikes! I am STILL completely drained of energy and I've slept for almost 7 hours! 

This was SO much fun!

(Haven't got the pickies yet, can't get my eyes to focus properly, as I OD on make-up :p)

This was so cool. I am completely hooked - I want more! More people, bigger show, more food and more chatter although I was dizzy from trying to talk to everyone at once. I've never been in this kind of spotlight before, so everyone shaking my hand and congratulating and complimenting me was kind of surreal, but people kind of glowed while talking about my art and I could tell they liked it. Even the old grumpy of my elder brother found a few he loved - and my younger of the two older brothers was cross because I don't include him enough - he tried to sell me some ambitions, but was too stoned to make sense, so need to call him again to check what exactly did he have in mind. LoL, he tried to convince Piček that Piček is stoned as well and that must have looked like a Jack Sparrow convincing Commodore Norrington (in the first movie) to go to a fun house with him. hahaha.

I think mostly everyone was very happy. My parents and Piček's parents finally met - dad instantly banding together in vivid agricultural debates and I was forced to do an interview for the TV! Really, they tricked me, otherwise I'd hide :D But I kind of think it went really cool. Though I didn't know this is how I look - like a villain in an opera show. LOL

Aw.. man. I so want more of this. Lights and opinions and people stealing my pens and greeting cards and little kids playing flutes (good choice! I wouldn't have thought of that. Everyone thinks I love kids to draw like this; I hate to break it to them I have the Oscar Wilde syndrome regarding the subject.)

We earned enough for one nice meal and although he was already completely drained, I kind of made Piček go to have dinner with me out and I had some very very cool gnocchi and gorgonzola pasta. It was an excellent closure of the day. 

And now it's a new day :D

I saw a really - really really - disturbing video by Shakira. The other day when I was sad over Piček and I fighting, I went over to my sis's place and they cheered me up with SNL screening galore :D So I downloaded a few of my own (at least some very annoying movie stars redeem themselves there :D... and of course there are the*greatest hits* such as Tom Hanks singing and "Dumbfuckingstan") and was just about to persuade them to play on the LCD screen, when the video She Wolf was playing... Now... the werewolf transformation spasms I get, but for the love of all that's even remotely tasteful?! That was just.... gross... She looks like an epileptic zombie of a gymnast!! Like, PR people? WTF??

Exhibition put-up

Mum offered we make cookies for the opening. I was just going to buy the best chocolates, but the both combined can't hurt - nothing lures innocent victims in like sugar :D

Man, I haven't been this beat in ages - last night was too much to do this blog, sorry... besides, I can't show up at my parent's place at 7. They'd think me a bit anxious :p But hey, back to yesterday, I got my first free meal from the gallery folk - a pink (well, yellow) slip to a pizza place WITH drinks for three people :D Go us! :D

Must say it was the first good pizza I had in a decade. I don't eat them normally, I opt for gnocchi when in Italian restaurants, but this one was not half bad.

Okay, so about the putting-up 6 hours... Am SO grateful Piček and my mum were there to aid me... I mean, I'd do it, but it would look a lot different and the janitor guy wouldn't be half as helpful, so it would take, oh, four times as long...  See, while I generally don't like people and never trust them as a rule, he seemed friendly enough - only later did Piček, the sleepless sheriff, mention that every time the gallery owner came in to socialize with us and my mum turned out to be, well, someone who's been in the exhibits opening business since she was 16, the janitor brought helpfulness up a notch. It's all the same to me. Four people worked hard and it was done almost to the last dot. I am glad I brought my mum along - although retired, she was so happy, running around with an unlit cigarette in one hand and a tape measurer in the other, ordering us to hang stuff EXACTLY 120 cm above ground - registered view level - and to make sure one painting draws the attention to another, inviting it to continue the narrative of the exhibition as a whole... Yikes! I just love to put stuff up! (And I did and the other two kept taking stuff off.' Neat and clean is not my style. I like things messy and curious :D

Of course.. I managed to get one of the new card designs stuck in between two glass panels BEFORE I had them scanned and ready for printers.. Well done, acorn.

Well, I did lock him out of the house, but I did also take a thermos of tea and an extra jacket to him, which I suppose was nice. You can't really pull too much real estate drama on the likes of us - we're too free spirited to be put off by a closed door. He made me go back inside from the rain and then wanted me to move away, so that he could leave again, which I refused him for about an hour. Course he wasn't trying too hard, his attempts to move me were more embraces, but then again if I thought he might really leave I'd have locked the main lock and then he would really have to fight me.

It's okay. He's asleep now. We didn't talk at all, but he's learning how to be a drama queen from the best, though, truth be told, he has a lot to learn. Sitting in the car, in the cold, all day? Please. I was at that stage when I was 11.

The art of it is, neither gives in to forgiving the other and yet neither makes anything worse. I am arriving at mastering the art of lover's quarrels.

Mental note: I hid the gate key in the fridge. He does, after all, have to go to work tomorrow.

Whoa..

LOL. I found a car in my garage!

Okay, that probably doesn't make much sense, but check this out: (cello goes duddu duddu duddu...)

See what I mean??

I knew there was a car in the old garage, something that hasn't been touched in, say, 10 or 12 years, and I approximately knew what kind of a car it was, because I vaguely remember we were using it when we were dragging timber out of the forest when I was... thinner... I remember dad and my brother found it and bought it but it was given to me - not as a gift but as a way to avoid taxes or something. I didn't have a license at the time and it cost like a hundred bucks of fuel just to start it. Several other things were off about it, I know that cylinders were faulty... somehow... and it had a fickle clutch. All in all it's the kind of a car that a president of some really God's joke African country would drive to a safari, but I live in a small town and yearn for a Mini Cooper when the time comes for me to have my own car again.

My adventurer's spirit stirs, though, so here are more pickies. This is positively creepy! :D Like Dracula's car, LoL. I've watched the pilot episode of the new Vs and of curse how everyone gawks because aliens look pretty is enough to put me off the show (Seriously, what is it about Americans and pretty chicks? She could be a blood-sucking homicidal xenomorph, but because she's a teen model it probably means she's just misunderstood. )

Hmmmmm.... Do I or do I not want to watch the new Fringe on the big TV in bed?....

Naaaa....

Work desk is better. I'm getting closer to cracking the mysteries of Adobe as well! Adobe for Dummies is a great help :)

Had nightmares about my crazy mother, so I'm a bit un-ready to return to bed just yet. Besides, hate bed without Piček :(

Ahhh, Saturdays...

Off for some hotdogs..

I love this time of the day in my street... It's somewhat even better in winter, as in summer it's already fully bright by 5. Just before 7am, freezing twilight, torrents of school-children rolling down the street from the train station.. I put on my mega parka and skip across the curve to get some bread for the day, while early birds sit in front of the cafe, wrapped in blankets, smoking and drinking their fast evaporating coffees. A garbage truck maneuvers and delivery trucks make improper turns, as traffic is not dense enough yet for the road to be serving it's purpose; just a couple of sleepy cards of folk driving their kids to school. Vans are bringing fresh flowers to the florist, dairy products to the grocer's, some joggers and doggie walkers suffer through.. It's probably the most dynamic part of the day - without being noisy - and everything is in grayish silver tones.  Wish I had a camera, but this should do :)

6 days to till exhibition opening

I just spent an hour changing templates for this blog - tired of blue-love-cats, missing the basic, I settled for welcome-autumn, because it's cure and it has a nice layout :) Day before I spent about 11 hours making invitations for the exhibition opening, checking my throat every hour so that I don't end up like that character from the latest Grey's Anatomy. Room was quite sooty and I inhaled more than a little smoke from burning seal wax, but I seem to be still alive and not hallucinating quite so much as expected :p Making 14o of them just for good measure, I ended up mailing them and if they fail to arrive this morning, I'll parcel somebody. My poor fingertips :S

I have to make four designs this weekend - three for the sock company and one for the museum, which has been waiting for me for ages... Piček wouldn't mind if I took on more projects - as some may actually pay off :)) - but everybody wants everything done NOW, missing the fact that good art takes a little bit of seasoning. :S

Work it, girl, work it!

But on a related subject, I got my computer back!! And not only that - two of my wishlist items came along with it - The Adobes!! YAY!!

Not that I can draw a single line with any of them at the moment, but i spent my whole dream-time learning. It's kind of weird, learning to use Live Color bucket within Adobe while dreaming YOU are the screen... Thank you, Klemen.

I think I may be getting my period. (Can never tell as my bleeds have little to do with my hormone floods - for a while i didn't mark the little ladies' calendar by how mch I leak but how much I fight wioth Piček and it's usually around these days..) I'm awfully mody, even by my otherwise hyped artistic prima donna standards. Got a new coat and some new satin linens for my bed, but it didn't really cheer me up as much as new things usually would. Grandma continues to put heavy emotional loads on me and I try to be Switzerland, but there are so many feelings to consider. It's probably not a coincidence Piček is working late these few days - cold, lonely office evenings aren't as stressfull as me, complaining over old magazines lying around and how I suddenly hate washing dishes and how I demand he tells me I don't look fat. Poor man. No amount of adult wisdom can spare you from a woman when she's having her period.

Computer's in repair shop, fickle bitch, hopefully having the Adobe uploaded, so I'm cotting on Piček's. The stockings factory came through, they ordered three drawings and I am full of ideas... too many, I think. What is customary for an author - to just do something and push the contractors into liking it, or making a few sketches and asking for approval of some? I prefer the later, though i am becoming confidant enough for the former, too..

Gimme a few days, I'll show you what I mean :p

Working on a sock gnome drawing for a stocking company - last night a contact mentioned they saw my work and are considering commissioning me to do the designs, so I spent the time meanwhile coming up with this rough estimate :P I drew the gnome in watercolor to almost full finish and did the vines roughly, then sketched the background with what I have that passes for an 'Illustrator'. It's not great, but it's a sketch. I'm hoping to impress the woman in charge by sending her the draft DURING our dialogue over the phone. As if 'I heard you might be interested, so I did this last night, so you can see what I'm thinking...' :)

Never did a puzzle draft before :D Hah, if they send me samples, I'll have X-mas gifts for all the toddlers around! :D

Thinking.... (I know. I know.)

Been doing a lot of thinking. One can do that, with freezing feet and chocolate stuck in their teeth..

It was an interesting year, but it wasn't what I planned to achieve. I wanted to see both my picture-books and at least one novel published, and be rich from the cards. It didn't work like that - not because everyone says the first year of doing business on your own is always absurdly difficult - but because too many commissions cut in, exhibitions and ideas and because I've realized my former technique and skill just won't do.

Porky died and as much as my passion for photography continues to burn, I have a whole new concept brewing in my head, one that requires a far better camera and a whole new approach. Different genre all together.

The book I have, half done, don't feel good enough yet, so I will stop pushing for their publication and just work like a professional, not an unreliable, irrational artist - take a step, do the art slowly, skillfully, exhale. And again... Don't be afraid to think outside the box.

My ambitions, my wish list changes with my knowledge. The age when this little chubby back-packer hitchhiked Europe and raided museums with a tiny little camera, is over. Next age will be that of a creadit card, driving Pathfinder and photographing another face of Europe with a Mark III. As watercolors replaced the drawing pencils, they, too, now face an upgrade. I know today that watercolored stuff can be photoshopped - something that never occurred to me before. Better yet, it can be merged, met half-way.  Several techniques. Better STILL, it can DEVIATE. And that is almost a whole key to the garden gate. One thing, though. I cannot strive to achieve flawless technique and then be done with it and get to work. It's not kung fu. Style always changes; details always take the reins and speed off to another direction. I have to let art breathe. I have to love the fact I will always learn something new every day. Choosing the life of an author is a curious path to take. Some moments it seems awful and bitterly hard and choking the love I have for people who believe in me when I fail to believe in myself.. Sometimes it's just mundane, boring, uninspired and I do other stuff, though very few of the things I used to do as a kid. This is a strange turn of events for me... Some things have withered and it feels that for the tiny little statues I put in the grass as a child have been replaced by towers. I gathered emotions, info, knowledge, approaches, perceptions, responses, casting the inspirational nets for 30 years.

Now is time to reap the whirlwind.

First day of snow!... Oh, poor postmen! .. O.o...

Aww, man! I dreamt I was Warwick Davis in a Matthew McConaughey movie... Oh, man! And not even a lame only-one-unable-to-score kind of a sidekick, more like the role of Linda Hunt in Year of Living Dangerously, but you can imagine all McConaughey ever did was talk about his sex life, shirtless and soooooo seen-forty-times-already!.. I hate that man for the moronic acting career he's chosen. It looked like there was hope for him yet when he was in Lone Star, but seeing Tropic Thunder that hope's lost. Warwick Davies of course is always okay.

 

But nightmares don't matter, because outside is....

SNOW! First day of snow!... and frost and slippery road and minus temperatures... Poor postmen, this kind of weather is Hell to deliver mail through... Piček and I had the good sense of  spending yester-afternoon  putting winter tyres on, even though it was already raining..  Hm.  It's full moon. Fool mun. :) .. :(And my computer is acting up. Makes sense, as it was paid for finally two days ago. Now it's just dying after a few minutes of screensaver and when it's on, the vent is howling like a ghost of a wolf trapped in the digital world.

Eight more days till exhibition - I should probably start making the invitations. The comp has to go into repair shop and I need to upload a couple of Adobe programs, meaning I'll miss it :S... hard to paint without watching some endless show like CSI or some suchlike... And resting my eyes by switching between watching upcoming movie trailers, DeviantArt, Youporn, Imdb and Wiki...

Uu, but Piček bought the small radiator, meaning today for the first time since summer I'll be able to take a shower in more than 8'C.