eric135

One down, eight more to go... Planning for a trip to Europe...

Pumpkin
Watercolor, Sillman & Birn Alpha-series Sketchbook

I've just completed my first 8-week module for my masters in nursing. It wasn't too bad. It was another exposure to all of the nursing theorists, a topic I have tackled multiple times in the past. I must admit that I did learn a few things. I never quite got the point that nursing theories come in "Grand Theories" (very broad, subjective) to "Middle Range Theories" (less broad and subjective, more objective) and "Practice Theories" (very specific and objective). My favorite nursing theorist has always been Jean Watson's Caring Theory, and for the first time, I had to truly describe what I liked about the theory, and why I found it suited me better than all of the other theories. I also feel that I have a better understanding of Caring Theory, and realize for the first time that it is unlike most of the other nursing theories because Caring Theory is not a skill or task, but rather a system of belief and values. I think that's why so many hospitals struggle to implement this theory. It sounds really good because it talks about all of the values nurses believe are important -- kindness, dignity, caring -- but are also so difficult to measure, and thus document or teach.

The next 8-week module will be on nursing research, which, to be honest, I should be able to handle with my eyes closed. We're going over the "Qualitative vs. Quantitative" thing right now, and I'm basically just beating the urge to go into my BSN files from a couple of years ago and re-use those. But I won't do that. I'll actually do the reading, and come up with new content.

I've been taking a break from work. We had originally planned to spend a few days visiting San Francisco, basically doing the tourist thing. But we had screwed up and scheduled doctors' appointments during the time, and we decided we wanted to save up for a trip to Northern Europe in 2018. Now that I've visited my native homeland, Brent wants to visit his mother's homeland of Denmark, so we're thinking of Amsterdam, Copenhagen and Stockholm. I think I like the planning as much as I like the travel. There are so many resources now to help plan for an affordable and inspiring trip. 

Missy and Jazzy in watercolor

  Missy in watercolor

I've been uploading my watercolor sketches onto my Flickr account but have been neglecting pulling the pics onto my blog (which I'm seriously ignoring these days anyway). Entirely too much going on right now at work, but have taken a break from my BSN classes until January. I can only do so much really.

 

 

I've been re-discovering my high-school love of writing with fountain pens. I'm using nibs that I have to dip into ink, usually india ink, but have been experimenting with using watercolors, with mixed success (I have to remember that watercolors will dry much lighter than originally penned). 

From Desert Botanical Gardens, Phoenix AZ

 

My rendition of the human-ish figure near the entrance to the Phoenix Botanical Gardens. 8.5 x 11 in Stillman Birn Alpha sketchbook. Schminke pan paints.

 

Star Trek Into Darkness (in watercolor)...

We went to see Star Trek Into Darkness again the other night. I usually get a few more details each time I see a movie, but no new relevations this time around. but I was in the mood for some watercolor so I drew this from the movie poster into my journal. 8x5 journal paper, Prismacolor watercolor applied with a water brush.

I got one of these new electric sharpeners from Target, the iPoint evolution. I think it does a great job but, if you didn't exercise restraint, you could keep pushing downward and end up with a 1-inch pencil. 

A weekend of Bar Mitzvah and watercolors...

We celebrated my eldest nephew's Bar Mitzvah a few weeks ago. Having never been to a synagogue before, it was an exciting experience, and witnessing Alex reading and singing and giving speeches made us proud.

We stayed the weekend at the Bethesda North Marriott Hotel. I never got a good look at our hotel but I did manage a painting of one of the large buildings across the street from our hotel window. 

 8x5 Journal using watercolor pencil.

When we weren't at the synagogue or partying at the hotel, we visited with family and friends at their house:

 

 I still continue to struggle with buildings and architecture but I find the process gets easier the more that I paint. 8x11 Arches with Pelikan pan watercolor.

 

 4x6 Moleskine Journal using Prismacolor and Graphitint pencils applied with a water brush.

The Avengers

 We saw The Avengers the other day. I think the movie runs for two hours and 15 minutes, and the last half of the movie makes the first half worth it (a lot of character development, not usually my favorite part of the movie). 

• Robert Downey Jr: I wonder what it must have been like, being a "regular size guy" acting against such huge muscley slabs of man meat. No doubt, his character was as kick-ass as all of them, and his acting is easily on the order of ten times everyone else on the screen, but still.
• I still see Thor as Captain Kirk's father.
• The airship design, dependent on four rotor blades, the failure of even one of which would bring the huge thing down... they needed to seriously re-think that design. I mean, if three of four airliner engines stop, they can still land the plane.
• The whole lethal bow-and-arrow thing just hasn't been working for me since Legolas did it successfully in FOTR. I don't care if they make them blow up, you'd be better off with a fully automatic gatlin gun.

Overall though I really liked the movie. You can totally tell Joss Whedon directed the movie, with the clever lines and spot-on comedy bits.

Stay through the credits, there is an Easter Egg at the end.

 

My boyhood home in Hopewell, VA, in Pen&Wash and Pastels...

Hopewell, VA
Pen & Wash
5.5" x 8.25" sketchbook

I was playing around on Google maps and looked up the house my family lived in from 6th grade until my Junior year in college. My room mate and I have been going through some serious bouts of nostalgia, which, for me, is a totally alien experience. I've never been beholden to the past in any way. I can't imagine going to my high school reunion (or college, or nursing school for that matter). But last night, I wondered what this house looked like and remembered that Google maps has pictures.

One of our neighbors from years ago installed a huge water fountain in their front yard. My god was it an eyesore. I saw in Google maps that it has since been removed. But other than that, most of the old neighborhood is unchanged except for the fact that peach trees I watched my father plant as saplings are twenty feet tall. The two trees in our front yard are huge now. But architecturally, the house is unchanged. 

Looking at the house, I remember the window in the upper left corner, and the small window you see on the side, led to my bedroom. The two windows below were to our living room, where I spent many hours practicing classical piano. Looking at the house in google maps and then rendering it in art really brought back some memories:

• teaching my younger sister how to read, and having "classes" in math and reading
• my sister's enormous collection of naked barbie dolls (she'd take the clothing of many dolls to make a "wardrobe" for one doll)
• my youngest sister's athletic skills even as a young girl
• mass-producing eggrolls when my Dad was president of the Kiwanis Club, in order to sell to make money for the club (Kiwanis always sold egg rolls when Dad was in charge, the Lions Club always sold funnel cakes)
• going to my sisters' ballet recitals -- in a small town in the South, these recitals were major productions for the community and everyone was there
• the disasterous summer when my parents decided to sign me up for the neighborhood baseball team -- and when I used to pray to the Lord for rain every Saturday (he rarely produced, and I don't know if I've ever forgiven Him)
• having to "crank" my youngest sister's portable crib. We'd take turns cranking it up, and it would click - click - click and keep the bassinet rocking for hours
• riding the riding lawn mower to cut our grass
• the two parakeets we kept cooped up in a tiny cage... our family really should not have had any kind of pets, but we made several poor attempts at it, leading mostly to mysteriously disappearing pets over the years
• incredibly awkward afternoons when pornography or issues of Teen magazine went up in smoke via our wood stove

Oh those were the days.

Here's the same house as above but rendered in Rembrandt soft pastels:

Bob Ross... ; Godshill...

Well that rally didn't last very long. It didn't feel right from the start (April 25 2012). After Investors Business Daily called the beginning of the rally, none of the stocks I was looking at took off, and several fell. I personally think any rally at this point would be suspect unless the market indices take a noticable downturn from here. Cash for now.

I've been watching a lot of YouTube videos. I've had a fascination for watching instructional videos about watercolor and painting in general. With our most recently purchased internet-connected television, I'm able to watch YouTube (in full 50" glory) directly from the TiVo screen. I've been watching more of these then I have of regular television.

It reminds me of how much I liked watching episodes of Bob Ross' Joy of Painting on public TV. In an interview, Ross said that his technique was not "fine art" in the academic sense, because what was important was not the final product, but rather the creative experience of the artist. 

I really like that. 

Bob Ross NY Times article...

Godshill
Watercolor
5.5" x 8.25"

 This painting is my answer to the most recent "watercolor challenge" at Wetcanvas.com. I worked from a reference photograph, taken in a village called Godshill, somewhere in England. I'm particularly happy with it because I am not very skilled in rendering buildings. It's nice to see that all the websites I've read about two-point perspective have actually paid off - the buildings appear to be rendered accurately. I sketched the buildings' edges and roofs with Faber-Castell watercolor pencils, and handbrushed everything else using my usual pan paints.

Three tomatoes...

Watercolor
9 x 12" Arches Cold Pressed paper

As the weather turns to more Spring-like conditions, my room mate's thoughts once again turn to the cultivation of tomatoes. Last year, he had a couple of plants and he ended up with 3-4 tomatoes the size of small grapes, but they were indeed delicious.

This year, on a trip to our Fry's Grocery Store, he spotted a couple of tomato plants drying out in front of the entrance. Didn't look like anyone had been watering it. So he took them home and he's been watering them. We now have 4-5 green tomatoes about the size small plums. They haven't ripened yet, and thankfully, the weather has not yet turned so hot that they turn into hay. So we're hoping for a good harvest -- or at least a few tomatoes a bit larger than grapes.

 

Farmer's Market... en pleine air...

Farmer's Market en pleine air...

Watercolors
Pelikan paints
Arches paper, 5in x8in