Alas, this entry was going to start off differently, but give me a moment to grieve a first world problem.
My Switch flew out of my hands a few minutes ago and smacked into my laptop, flopping all over and landing on its screen face. The Macbook is unscathed and fine. The Switch now has a very small chip on the back plastic casing and both Joy Cons are scuffed, the left blue one having jagged scratches on the shoulder buttons so I feel them everytime I pick up the console. And.. there are small scratches on the bottom of the screen… I am pretty upset about it, haha. I’m also seeing the left controller has drift now too, which makes playing anything pretty difficult. I’m going to leave it in its dock for the remainder of my time in LA and only play through the tv. Ugh.
Now with that aside…
I received TWO amazing surprises yesterday. The first being my darling Nicolette sending me the sweetest message checking in on me and my art (how’d she know I was thinking about her?!). And the second being my lovely Kevin randomly facetiming me mere minutes after I received Nicolette’s messages (how’d he know I was thinking about him?!). The funny coincidence is that they both happen to be extremely talented music people that I met at the Chautauqua residency I attended. I suppose they have so much love in their hearts that they knew I needed a little extra oomph to help get me through this move and this return to limbo. Is this Venus’ retrograde being benevolent and returning people I still love and wish to hear from to me? If so, keep regressing! (It was hinted to me by Kevin that Dudley may be reaching out soon, hooray!)
Last night I watched Mononoke and it was… interesting! It was indeed layered and quirky with its visuals. I was expecting something like Mushishi since it deals with spirits but where Mushishi is a bit quiet and somber in its approach, Mononoke is bombastic and more unsettling. Gentle versus aggressive. Apparently Mononoke is considered a hidden gem amongst the anime watching community so I’ll do my best to finish it soon.
Afterwards I mixed more Dianthus Pink while listening to some incredible music. Seriously. I know I’ve been casually sharing things I like, including ambient zone out stuff but this… this was different. But alas, onto some nerdy paint stuff in 3, 2, 1:
You think I have enough? 🤔
I recently came to understand that the numbers on the back of paint tubes are actually universal abbreviations of pigments. I probably discussed this previously but here I go again. I then found an amazing website database that chronicles all the various names and chemical makeups of said pigments. It’s kind of changed the paint mixing game for me. I was making educated guesses before and they wouldn’t always work out. And something I realized is that I’ve been using the wrong pink/red to make my bulk Dianthus Pink. To mimic Williamsburg’s warm yet yellow free pink I needed to use a PW6 (Titanium white) and PV19 (Quinacridone). I was under the impression that the quinacridone fushia I was using as my pink base was mostly suitable, and it was, but when I looked at the pigment classification it actually said PR122. Whoops! The tube of permanent rose I own is actually the correct pigment I needed all along. I used a small amount of it during my initial mixing sessions since I needed to warm up the batch but now I know it’s all I needed the entire time. Told you this would be nerdy, I’m legitimately excited about this. :)
Here is the site: http://old.artiscreation.com/Color_index_names.html
Check out those digits 🔠🔢
I realize it’s a bit silly to continue mixing large amounts of paint when I won’t really be able to use most of it for the time I have left in LA but I like to fantasize about the work I’ll make at home. Plus, it’s meditative for me. Unfortunately it requires using up materials and oil paint is expensive so I should be a little more conservative about how much mixing I do.
And now for even more music! Except this is the absolute banger I came across last night. It’s specifically described as an OST for a game that does not exist. Siiiiiiiiiick!
If you listen to anything I put up definitely listen to this. It’s not just save room music, it’s exciting, rich, and textured. Fantastic working music, probably why I ended up making so much Dianthus last night.