Saturday, January 17, 2009

I can now proudly say I am completely back on track with my studies and have caught up and am exactly on schedule. I thought I might be behind for another week, but I finished my last unit last night and began my three new ones today. And my next assignment is due in two weeks and I am nearly done with it. Playing catch-up is hard. I don't think I better take any time off from school again.

Maybe part of the reason I've been able to catch up is that my hours have been reduced at work. I now come home about an hour earlier than I did this time last month. It's not just me: we now shut an hour earlier. So that's about four hours a week that I'm at home instead of work; I now have the chance to study for an hour after work in addition to my days off.

Partner's birthday is coming up soon; he knows what his main present is, and he's asked for socks as his secondary present. I am not getting him socks unless they will fit in his sock drawer. I estimate it will be several years before I get him new socks. This man has a ton of socks. I keep a crowbar in the laundry basket so I can wedge his cleans sock back in the drawer. And closing the drawer is out of the question.

This painting is one I did after we returned home from our inlaws' house at Christmas. Compare with a photograph from an earlier blog entry. It's not a proper scanned image, since I really can't be bothered to go upstairs and fiddle with the scanner, so I just took a quick snapshot of it on my laptop. It was just a little experiment with the acrylic paints. The new set I got came with a few pieces of cardboard. I figured they were for painting on, but I didn't really like the feel of it much. However, the overall result wasn't too bad, really. I was able to get a little texture action going on, and while I am much more used to watercolor, I like the effects of the colors themselves. I find it difficult to get any white space in a watercolor, unless I just don't paint the spot I want, leaving the paper itself showing through. And it's easy to miss and paint over the white spot accidently, and then it's ruined. With acrylics, I just load up some white paint on the brush and slap it back on the paper.

1 comment:

Adam and Jennie MacPherson Family said...

I love your painting even better than the photo. It is good to hear that you are feeling better and that you have managed to catch-up with your schoolwork. I don't usually do these but I have decided to tag you. Check out my blog for details. You don't have to do it if you don't want to. Anyway good luck with your classes. Love the blog!