Thursday, September 13, 2007
Yesterday was Nefarious's school BBQ — it was nice seeing that parents from last year were quite happy to see she was back… And it's also good to know which kids are the troublemakers, since they were all running around like maniacs causing a variety of degrees of chaos.
Because I was really happy with how the framing turned out on my last painting, I decided to do some supplementary painting on other frames. It's definitely a trend I'll continue, because it means that with even with really basic 2×4-box type frames I can make something quite pretty. I have to clean off one of the sensors on my carving machine, but when I get a chance to put aside an hour to dismantle it and do that, my next frame should have some carving on it as well.
All three of those frames are I think 1.5″x3″ boards in a simple box, with a masonite backing glued together. On the outside two, the stretched canvas is floating (mounted on risers, with a small gap between the painting and the frame on all sides), and on the middle one, the painting is actually painted right on the masonite because Nefarious used it as a drawing pad when I realized it had been cut too small (so the painting and the frame are the same thing).
Work is progressing on The Blind Lizard quite nicely, which is also tentatively “sold” assuming it turns out nicely — people have been asking me a lot lately whether I would sell paintings or work on commission, and I've decided that it's time that I start to do that*. When I get a chance I'm going to set up a website that's a dedicated portfolio but I likely won't get around to it for a few weeks… Not sure yet whether I'm going to use zentastic or get a new domain to host it…
Anyway, off to make some pesto fettuccine!
*
I was asked if this included paintings that I do with Nefarious. These are not for sale. I might sell some when she's old enough to understand it and appreciate that she's building up savings, but I don't think it would be fair to exploit her by selling them at this point… That said, I am willing to do paintings based on your child's artwork on a commission basis!
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
I made empanadas this evening with Nefarious, another really quick and simple meal. The dough I used is really similar to a pizza dough with slightly different spicing, and it was stuffed with cheese, refried beans, salsa, and many tiny shrimp (pre-cooked). Finally, baked for twenty minutes at 400 degrees and then served with guacamole and sour cream. It was eaten by all with gusto.
When Phil gets back from the wedding in Vancouver, I'm going to ask him to help me take much higher quality photos of my paintings because I'm ready to take the step to start selling work, doing commission work, and preparing for a gallery show, so I need to set up a site dedicated to that.
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Because I'm just making really simple frames right now, I figured it might be fun and look better (and suit the paintings) if I painted the frames to match…
Monday, September 10, 2007
I know everything I cook looks almost exactly the same. I should just take one photo and crop it differently and pretend it's a new photo… But this was really quite delicious — a Korean-style teriyaki shrimp with udon noodles and a mix of fresh garlic, red pepper, zucchini squash, red onion, and green onion if I remember right. Other than what I mentioned I don't think it was spiced with anything other than a little sea salt, mustard seed, and seaweed, and was crazy-delicious… Total cost for the meal (enough for two to three people) was about $7.50 at the most — a delicious meal for about three dollars a person seems good.
Other than that, we did some biking and drawing on the steps with chalk, and I painted some frames I made for my paintings. I also went to the gym for the first time in a month which was great — the tumor removal really does seem to have totally fixed my knee, damage to the nerves below or not — and did a little computer work as well.
I have an interview that I'll work on a little tonight about very intense play piercing including chest skewering (
literally — where a long needle is inserted through the ribs and actually rests against the heart so you can see it bouncing with every beat)… I'm somewhat split on publishing it because the response to heavy mod and play content has been so closed-minded lately that I'm strongly considering just publishing it in a private forum instead.
Monday, September 10, 2007
Congratulations to Gillian and Clive on the birth of Ashden! Ever since they bit each others fingers off we knew this was coming eventually!
Sunday, September 9, 2007
Sorry about the downtime issues — the IAM server just keeps overheating. It will almost certainly have to be taken down for a period later in the week to either move the existing internals into an improved case, or the software to a totally new box. I'll post information here of course but I'd recommend that if you have things like phone numbers stored only on IAM that you save them in case you don't see a notice (although I'd recommend that in general anyway).
I made a shrimp nasi goreng today, one of my favorite meals from childhood… I was recently asked how much these meals cost me, I guess in part because there's always decent seafood in them. I buy large shrimp, but I peel it myself of course, so at $7.99 for a big big of them it's probably about $3 a meal (so $1.50 a person) in shrimp, and then the veggies and everthing else, even if I'm lazy and use pre-made sauces, rarely brings it past ten dollars, so $5 a person…
Seems like a good deal to me. I actually ordered food yesterday — sushi — and it was terrible, and of course cost far more, and the wait to get it was much longer than cooking a meal from scratch… I felt really ripped off and probably won't bother with that again.
