(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
12-20-17 Saturday
Some fog, solid featureless clouds, 61 degrees early morning, 62 after noon, 71 high. Light breeze that takes away any heat you have, some light foggy mist on the windshield at times. It is supposed to get down to 56 degrees tonight. The area should be covered in a nice frost. During the week before Christmas, we got some frosty temps down to 46 at night. The ice buildup was horrible. I was able to use canals as short cuts to get around traffic. A few places when driving over bridges, the black ice build up was such that my truck fish-tailed badly. One morning, I tried to drive over to the Bahamas on the great ice shelf that had formed, But the icebreakers kept shipping channels open so I never left the shore.. This weather report is brought to you by the city of Pompano Beach Department Of Tourism.
CHRISTMAS
The doctor said I could start wearing boots again over the healed areas of infection. My feet no longer hurts. I can walk again. It does not help that I have no endurance now since it has been a while since I walked any distance for over a month. The wound is starting to look normal when dry, but shows red when wet. It will be a while before it is fully healed, but at least there’s no pain.
During the week before Christmas, I painted a batch of 17 cards to hand out. Some went to people at work, some went to some friends. I did keep a couple for myself I have a copy of most all the cards I have made over the years.
Saturday, I started another batch of cards and had them finished, except for the lettering inside by Monday when they were to be given out. We usually give out presents Christmas Eve so the kids have all Christmas to play with them, or early morning if they have to go some place else. This time, the Kids parents decided they were going to a Church event in the Evening so we got together for Christmas dinner instead.
I lettered just the cards I was giving out that day plus took a few extra just in case I missed someone. My brother’s friend was there. We made a decision not to give out adult presents. It worked out well as I did not have the opportunity to do much shopping this year because of my feet. It has taken me until about five or six years ago, to fully understand that giving is much better than getting. Since then, I did not care what I got as I was happy to just give. Someone gave me a gift certificate for Cracker Barrel. That was my only gift. This year I would not have cared if nothing was going to be given out. Just being together was a true pleasure.
During the week, I finished lettering and handed out more of my cards. Some still have to be mailed out. I thought I was doing good starting as early as I did, but reality had set it quickly that I needed to start a week or more ahead of that. I had a problem coming up with a design. I had an idea for the central subject and made two attempts at painting it and saw it was not going to work. I am painting too small and using the wrong paints to be effective.
The Acrylic paints I am using don’t mix together for shading. They tend to be two colors mixed together to get the tones they have. With green, it might have some yellow for a spring green tone, red for leaf tone, black for shadow tone. A red might have yellow for something bright, blue for something dark.
When mixing pure colors, blue and yellow make green, red and yellow make orange. Blue and red makes purple, etc. Because the paints I am using are not pure colors, you mix them and you get mud. You basically take the colors you have and make them work as they are. The only pure colors are black and white.
With the size of the cards I am doing, the slightest slip of a brush shows. Also I am not using the right brushes. They don’t make a “knife edge” for really fine details. There is a lot of slop in the work I do on these cards.
746
The main cards I made this year. The bottom right card was never finished. It fell behind something when drying and was skipped.
Some cards I made for non-Christians.
a collection of the cards I have made over the years. some "repeats were second versions of the same card. In the middle on the bottom was the first batch of cards I made, with a sleigh. I did not like the look of it but loved the background so the two cards on either side are the results.
No comments:
Post a Comment