Random Things

"Life is painful. It has thorns, like the stem of a rose. Culture and art are the roses that bloom on the stem. The flower is yourself, your humanity. Art is the liberation of the humanity inside yourself."
                                                                                                                                  - Daisaku Ikeda

Finished or not finished? That is the question!

A friend recently complained that my blog posts have become rather sporadic. She's got a point, for sure. I've been painting a lot, but I don't seem to end up with anything interesting to share.

Work on the flamingo painting continues sporadically as well. I can't decide if it's done or not. I hope to enter it into a show in May, so getting it finished sometime in the near future would be a good thing. I don't want to end up overworking it. Somebody please make me put the paintbrush down!

Speaking of paintbrushes, you may remember my bout with tendonitis last year. I'm doing fine now, but if I hold my paintbrush or pencil too tightly for too long, I get little warning signs in my wrist. I noticed that the thicker the handle of the paintbrush, the less I have this problem, so I wrapped the handles of my smaller brushes and my pencils with sports tape to build up the grip area and it seems to help. I got the idea from the artist Andrew Denman. He has a series of videos on YouTube documenting his impressive work on a special commission. I noticed in one of the videos that his paintbrush handles were wrapped. I thought it was a great idea. Even if you don't already have wrist issues, it's probably a good move to wrap your paintbrush handles if you paint a lot to prevent repetitive motion problems in the future.

The birds are starting to return to our area from their winter vacation, so hopefully I'll have more frequent and interesting posts soon. Thanks for hanging in there with me.