Today has been a good day.

I stumbled across the picture gallery attached to Christ Church. There were paintings by Filippino Lippi (the son of Fra Lippi) and I was introduced to Jacapo Bassano and Annibale Caracci. There was also a lonely Frans Hals portrait that had been tucked into the gallery’s back pocket. I would have gone just for Frans ( Read more... )

This followed by this is a very interesting hypothesis ( Read more... )

I just watched Rain Man. I could feel emotional responses to the characters. Empathy. Years of being numb means that it's a joy just to be able to respond to representations of love, understanding, discovery ( Read more... )

I suffer from pangs of dishonesty when I use Conté. People usually admire the result, but I'm far from a master of the medium. It is possible to layer Conté endlessly, so I make umpteen mistakes and revise them. The best artists in Conté use their knowledge of light and precise crosshatching to create astonishing work ( Read more... )

I agreed to take part in National Art Making Month with quabazaa. So far I have been rubbish and not produced, but today I applied myself for a few minutes. Hopefully taking part will help me to accept that art does not have to be a polished finished piece and this will lead to increased output. A 5 minute sketch, or a 30 second capture, does as much ( ( Read more... )

Sometimes life chooses to demonstrate her love for me in special, direct ways. Rather than let me spend hours chasing a supplier of Molinard's Vanille scent I was directed to Harvey Nicholls, where a lovely French woman who used to sell Molinard informed me that since HN closed their 4th floor, Molinard almost certainly no longer have an outlet in ( Read more... )

She's a confident one. A schemer ( Read more... )

There's a particular co-worker who I find infuriating for no better reason than her personality rubs me the wrong way. She's slow where I'm fast, panicked where I slow down, cautious where I blithely dance in, careful of due process when I ignore or circumvent it. I spent the past ten days working with her. One enlightening thing to have ( Read more... )

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