well, the most exciting item of news is that l'ipod, lazarus-like, is risen from the dead. the battery finally died after having been frozen in indigo-girl stasis for several days; i recharged it all the way, played with all the toggles more or less at random, offered up a prayer to steve jobs (hail steve, who art at apple, slightly odd is thy name, but thou art wicked smart and thy products tend to be reliable, and besides i have only had it for a year and a half, so give me back this day my regular access to recorded music other than what's on the jukebox at the local pub, which is shut anyway while the pubowner goes on holiday for the next week and forgive me for having taken it running which i probably shouldn't have done, for thine are the IQ points and the millions of dollars and the stock options forever and ever amen), and hallelujah! a miracle! it is risen, so i don't need to slit my wrists after all, and can instead concentrate on putting my blathering out into the ether. (i am trying to type this while listening to johnny cash, a boy named sue, and it is a feat of serious verbal coordination).
anyway. lessee. morning pilates, run, breakfast, etc., (did not hit the hat-stand today. still can't do a sit up. cantaloupe and pont-l'eveque for breakfast. so much better than the cardboard packing material they mix with raisins to put in muesli boxes here. i feel i have broken through my emotional breakfast barriers to a higher plane of enlightened breakfast being). drawing class was good; we worked on rounding studies in drawing, which suddenly seems ridiculously easy once you don't have to worry about colour at all.
painting also good, except for i need to buy a pair of racehorse blinders so i am not distracted by everyone else's work, because everyone else is SO GOOD it is a bit disheartening sometimes. i did discover a new fun colour today - cadmium red purple was on our supply list, and (true confessions) i hadn't even bothered (until today) putting a blob on my palette b/c the colour on the wrapper was so blah - sort of a dull bruise colour - but today i grabbed the tube accidentally on my way to find something else, and put a squash of it on, and WOWEE it is a deep sexy rich scarlet, nothing at all like the wrapper. so moral of today's painting lesson is twofold: don't judge a paint by its wrapper colour and also do whatever painting teacher tells you. i love red.
i started on a new master copy; i think i am going to stick to drawing on this one (laziness more than anything: it will mean a few days' break from trekking all my paints and brushes back and forth between home and the studio every day), although the original is painted. it's sort of a sweet little portrait of some dauphin or other, aged about two, done by the maitre of moulins. ooh, tomorrow is our last day of rounding studies before... drumroll.... we get to start our first Real Painting on sunday. we will have the same pose for two weeks, and i am hopeful i will be able to finish something in that time (that is the one advantage (?) i seem to have over the other students: everyone else paints soooo slooowwwwlly. for example, G took 4 hours to do a contour drawing yesterday, and 3 hours today to fill in the hair (black hair, in shadow -> all black. what was he DOING all that time?? dunno). my paintings might not be ready for the sotheby's auction block, but shit, girlfriend can cover some CANvas, 's'all i's sayin'.
bellydancing class tonight - i had a solo private lesson with H, as the other regulars (MC, krystle) were invited to M's for dinner. H is kind of amazing - she is one of nature's aristocrats, automatically good at pretty much everything she tries. she speaks brilliant french, picked up bellydancing this summer from videos on the internet (and is clearly a natural at it), sings, paints beautifully, pretty, funny, gobs of personality, and very much the social hub of the group. i am struggling to master the trick of doing two moves at once (hip slide plus snake arms, e.g., or shoulder shimmy with camel. can't do it to save my life (yet) but i have been practicing in the shower, and i am getting a bit better. the only problem is that we learn more moves my showers have been getting longer and longer...)
i think i may have created a monster teaching L about pre-made pastry for tart-making. she has been unstoppable - she used our leftover pastry from the blackberry one to make 'cookies' today (strips of pastry with dobs of chocolate paste on them), and this evening she was putting together another blackberry tart - with cocoa- and polenta-flavoured creme patissiere (yes, cocoa, polenta, and blackberries) and rhubarb jam to make the glaze. eek. just call me 'dr. frankenstein'. she asked me today for the recipe (!) for the green beans i was steaming for supper, and i am scared to tell her how to top and tail beans and put them in a pan with half an inch of water, for fear i will come home the next day to find her trying to steam a half a goat or something (dutifully topped and tailed), sprinkled with caster sugar and mayonnaise as a variation.
omg and speaking of monsters, MC and i found a spider on the stairs today that was four inches across. we got a picture of it next to my ruler.
okay, time for bed; i have an urgent appointment with my current junky thriller...
love to all.
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I love the prayer to Steve Jobs :-)
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