Work in Progress

I'm working on a blog redesign and haven't figured everything out yet.  Bear with me: the design instructions are as clear as mud.

3 Guesses

If you really can't guess the name, I've failed miserably - or you had a deprived childhood.  Regardless, let me know and I'll enlighten you. 

Acrylic on canvas.  11" x 14"

This was my experimental canvas, used to try out various techniques like watercolor, wash, drip, cheesecloth and spattering - and to see the color interplay.  After all the screwing around, some parts looked really great, some really ugly.  I'd been trying to decide what to do with the darn thing, finally got an inspiration a couple days ago and painted the above 'masterpiece'.

Abstracted backgrounds appeal to me big time, will be using them frequently.

Summer 2012

This map shows our summer travel route and the stops along the way.  As the numbers imply, we'll be doing the loop clockwise.  Most of the stops indicate overnights but some are just there to force the software (Streets & Trips) to take the route we prefer instead of the one it likes.

This will be our 3rd summer of travel in our EDGE travel trailer.  Last summer, doing the Canadian Maritimes, we logged 11263 miles in 80 days.  The summer of 2010 we went to Alaska: 14819 miles; 116 days.  This year we'll pull the trailer about 3500 miles and log an additional 1000 miles of side trips in the pickup over a period of 65-70 days.  So, we'll be spending a lot less time driving and setting up/breaking camp, a lot more time enjoying the scenery, hiking, and so on.   

The map itself was generated by the S&T software mentioned above.  I printed a copy of the map, then scanned it into the computer as a jpeg file.  There's probably a slick way of  grabbing  the map directly from the S&T itinerary and plopping it into the blog but I'll be damned if I can figure out how it's done.  Spent nearly 2 hours dicking around with copy/ paste, save to file, etc.  It's not the first time I've tried, either.  It is the last, though.  Piss on it.

Helix

White contains all colors while black is the absence of color.  That's what we learned in school.  In painting though, black is a color and it comes in various shades - or you can mix up your own custom shades.  Shades produced from 2 or more colors are called chromatic.  And that's the end of today's art lesson - which, most readers are thinking, is a good thing because they find the subject slightly less exciting than, well ......... watching paint dry.

On Cat's Eye I used flat mars black for the background.  The Helix background is a chromatic, consisting of dark blue, light dog crap (burnt sienna), and a dab of red.  Backgrounds don't come through well in photographs but viewed up close and personal, they make a considerable difference.  I'm using a different shade of black background on each of the nebula paintings.  When completed and grouped together on the wall, the different backgrounds should make the display more interesting.  To me, anyway.

Helix Nebula

Second in a series.

Acrylic on canvas; 16" x 20".

Helix, like Cat's Eye, is a planetary nebula, a star in it's death throes.  Helix may be the closest nebula to earth, a mere 650 light years away.  It's called Helix because astronomers think it's a trillion mile long tube and that, when viewed from earth, we're looking at it end on - looking right down the center of the tube.  How they came to this conclusion I haven't a clue.  Helix is large for a planetary nebula, somewhere in the 2-5 light year range in width.  Colorful little bugger.

Cat's Eye

Nebulae (the plural of nebula) are huge interstellar clouds of dust or ionized gases, mostly helium and hydrogen.  Nebulae used to refer to all objects that weren't obviously planets, stars or comets.  Now, with the Hubble and advanced science the term has become more specific.  They come in 4 flavors: emission, reflection, dark and planetary.  Emission types generate their own light with high temperature gases, while reflection types are dust-based and reflect light from nearby stars.  Both are star incubators: Mr and Mrs Ion get it on and out pops a brand new star.  Oh, isn't it the cutest 'little' thing!  Bright, too!  Pass those cigars around! 

Dark nebulae, also dust-based, appear mostly in silhouette because they are parked in front of a light source.  The gaseous remains of dying stars are called planetary nebulae, although they have nothing to do with planets.  They neither make planets nor consume them; they just happen to look like planets when viewed through a wimpy telescope.

Nebulae are, in my opinion, the most colorful and photogenic items in the cosmos.  And therein lies the reason I'm writing about them here; my latest art project is a nebula.  Semi-abstract art appeals to me and I've been casting about for inspiration, something a little different but not overly weird.  Nebulae fit the bill.  Yeah, yeah, I know: a painting that obviously duplicates an actual object is not abstract.  In this case, the abstract artwork was done by Big Mama and she did one hell of a job.  Unlike Brownie in New Orleans.

 

Cat's Eye Nebula

 Acrylic on canvas; 16" x 20"

Cat's Eye, my favorite nebula, is a colorful, attractively-shaped planetary type.  I'm doing a series of 3-4 nebula paintings.  When I'm done, I'll encourage readers to select their own favorite.

Doggerel lll

Not much that's newsworthy here so I'm posting another doggerel.  If you're new to the blog and like this one, a couple others were posted in September, 2011.

GRAVITY

Gravity keeps most things in place,
Instead of drifting off in space.

Lacking it, we’d float away,
Unless tethered night and day.

Food would rise up off our plate,
Dogs and cats would levitate.

But gravity has a darker side,

That assaults our bodies, wounds our pride.

Bodies hard, straight, athletic,

Gravity strives to turn pathetic.

What once was a taut hard belly,

Evolves into a bag of jelly.

Offsetting all those sagging guts,

Are flaccid, drooping ugly butts.

Women’s breasts, once firm and pert,

Hang and flop like bags of dirt.

Hair that once adorned our head,

Heads south, comes out our ears instead.

Faces that once were tight and sleek,

Now flabby jowls and rubber cheeks.

Exercise though you might,

Gravity’s going to win this fight.

For this, Newton was dubbed a knight,

Now I ask you, “Does that seem right?”

It just makes be kind of sick,

Calling that twit ‘Sir Issac.’

Mike Delaney
7-6-05
All rights reserved.

Seasons

LHC seasons aren't your traditional 4.  There are 3 main seasons and one sub season.  Here 's a description of each one.

Snowbird
November through March.  It's a massive infestation of migratory Wobblies and Q-tips* from northern states and provinces.  Most of them come via highway and it takes them a very long time to get here because their top speed is 15 MPH.  Upon arrival they immediately clog up streets and supermarket aisles, much like hairballs clog up the drain in your bathroom sink. 

Shoulder
This is a two part season: April/May and September/October. It's a quiet time, a breather between the Snowbird and Heat! crowds.  You can drive the streets at normal speeds. You can do the grocery shopping without encountering roadblocks of shopping carts parked sideways in the aisles by Mr Oblivious and his cronies, while they conduct their monthly cost comparison of Depends vs Brand X. You can take pleasant walks along the London Bridge channel without having your eardrums blown by roaring boats and blaring music.

Heat!
June through August.  It's party hearty on the water time: sunburn and boats, silicon and steroids, ink and bling.  And beer.  Lots of beer.  Most partiers are vacationers from southern Cal and I guarantee you their en route speed exceeds 15 MPH.  Trish and I, like most of the retired folks who live here, leave town during Heat!  It's the beat feet and cheat the heat retreat, heading north a thousand miles or so to hang out where it's much cooler.

Spawning
This is the sub season; it occurs in March.  Spring breakers from all over the country flock into town to strut their stuff, tout their wares and drink.  And spawn.  Throbbing boat motors, throbbing rap music, throbbing glands.  The pollen count along the channel is horrendous.  Lots of young local folk polish up their boats, don their best water rags and join the melee, hoping to get lucky, maybe add some diversification to the gene pool.  It's entertaining to watch.  Some retired people like myself go down to the channel occasionally, taking folding chairs, snacks and a couple of cold ones to observe the mating rituals for awhile.

*Q-tips are seniors with both white hair and white tennis shoes.  Being a senior myself, it's okay to poke fun at them/us and ignore the political incorrectness of doing so.  Besides, as you've probably guessed, I'm not a fan of PC.  To me the PC movement is a group of twits desperately seeking new and creative ways to be offended so they can point accusing fingers at the alleged offenders and holler, 'Gotcha!'

Don't get me wrong: I detest bigotry in general and I try to be unbiased.  But, lets face it: humans are tribal by nature and it's not limited to ethnicity.  What are gangs, religions and political parties and on and on - if not manifestations of our tribal tendencies?  It's part of our programming and it's not going away anytime soon.  The best we can do is understand that we're bent that way, try to rise above it and avoid pointing fingers.