Welcome to Cardiff-by-the-Sea
The obvious post-move question we all ask the Universe: "What the hell did I get myself into?" After two separate trips to U-haul to upsize the truck, dragging my car behind it all the while, my patience was waning. And that was before the movers showed up. The movers: I selfishly admit I pictured them as huge, young, strong, patient, and kind with a great sense of humor. Reality hit me in the face as I opened the door. My movers were nice, but more like Blue in Old School. I'm sure their co-workers were back at the moving office planning their retirement party at that very minute, and there was no sign of reinforcements. They walked through my apartment to assess my bounty and sent me back to U-haul for a 3rd time, and even bigger upgrade. Even my overly enthusiastic brain was forced to acknowledge this was an official set back. Gulp. This is what I get for thinking I could move mid-week, right before Christmas when friends and family were unavailable. If my mom hadn't sent cash in her stead, and two dear friends hadn't come by earlier in the week to help me pack, it would have been a true disaster.
My moving fantasy, still intact, pictured us spending a couple of happy, energy-filled, whistling hours loading the the truck, an unadventurous, traffic-barren drive to L.A., arriving during that magical time after rush hour, but before dark. Instead, my reality involved the old fellas needing repetitive breaks, a surprisingly expensive lunch, and poor judgment. Against my begging and pleading, they insisted on saving the largest and heaviest pieces till the end. That special moment happened in the dark, down three stories of rickety, old steps.
Queue my breaking point: It was after 8 pm, I conceded far more cash than originally estimated as well as defeat. I knew exactly what I'd given up to pursue this opportunity. I walked away from a great job and amazing friends I've made over the past nine years and had to accept a new long distance version of my relationship. I called my boyfriend and immediately start to cry. He delivered the perfect motivational speech, and we laughed together when he finished with "It's not supposed to be easy!"
I tucked in for one final night in Sacramento on the hardwood floor of my empty apartment, with my cats sliding off my sleeping bag all night. I woke before dawn ready to get the hell outta there. After going through the trash to relocate all the tweaker-bate* items to a safer receptacle**, a few properties down, the good steward Alley Bob slips his number into my pocket so I can confirm my survival at the other end. I hug him hard despite the fact he has literally just had both hands in the trash.
He checks my blinkers and sends me off! I'm F-ing doing it! The cats are not happy, but desperate wining abates after about an hour and by the time I hit LA, I'm feelin good enough to snap this selfie! Right, I hit LA at 3 pm on the Friday before the holidays so even though I only have a couple hundo miles to go, this is like the halfway point. I pause my pod cast, 'Serial,' for a hot second and reschedule the San Diego movers to the next morning, but in just 13 hours, only stopping twice for gas I MAKE IT TO CARDIFF!
*basically Bob empties the entire contents of the bin since tweakers are not carefully looking to extract the recyclables, they are just tweaking, which apparently requires tossing trash all over the parking lot.
**because it’s a dumpster so they cant tip it over.
Check out the rig!
27' truck with car on the dolly! I now have sweet dolly skills, totally took my car off that thing by myself. Walked tall.
Check this out, my new roommate, who I just met, had the sweetest house-warming gift for me! Not only is this a very thoughtful selection, he got Steve Pressfield to sign it! What a guy!
Notes from Terry's last critique
Terry writes that my self-critiques are right on, and so I am encouraged to keep taking my own advice! Nice. He continues, "Your value control is getting better, but you may be responding too much to what you’re seeing in your reference material. You’ll want analyze why Sargent made a value (or color) shift where he did, and strive to describe the form not because Sargent made a value shift, but because the depiction of form demands it." This eloquently sums up my feelings of frustration when I've got stuck trying to replicate a master's stroke with out understanding it.
The prescription is to study Asaro's planes of the head. I suppose the head isn't just in my apartment to keep an eye on the cats while I'm out...time to learn it. The goal is to learn to superimpose the planes in my mind over the actual head of my subject.
As for the beer series you may ask? "Great job!" -Terry Miura. Enjoying that for a moment. He sees more love and intention in the treatment of the backgrounds and adds,
"Remember, rendering something realistically is the easy part. Designing a compelling image is the hard part, and designing requires that you pay attention to all parts of the composition. I like how you played with the strokes, colors, values, edges, opacity, texture. It all looks very much done on purpose, which is what you want." Now, to bring that to the heads!
Christmas Commission Dog Portraits!
Knowing full well I should have been purging and packing, I took on a couple commissions right after the brewery show and right before Christmas. That's what you do when you cut your hours to be an artist, go to work! This was another good test to keep up quality under a bit of pressure. It also proved to be too much for Tico the cat. Two of my favorite in-progress pictures capture Tico's own frustrations with attention deficit.
Tico Staging a Sit-In
And Again
'Dillinger'
8x8" Oil on Canvas
'Dutch'
8x8" Oil on Canvas
Two pairs of buddies!
'Ida'
8x8" Oil on Canvas
'Woody'
8x8" Oil on Canvas
(thought it'd be nice to through in one framed image for the full effect)
I hope everyone's New Years Adventures are off to an exciting start!
Thank you to my very special guest editor Betty Nelson!
