Watercolors 3 and 4

Over the last week or so I've gotten a couple more watercolors done. Both are small 6" by 9" on 90 lb (thin) Artist's Loft paper. The first was a simple practice sketch, and the second I put a lot more effort into.

Watercolor #3 was a quick sketch of a pair of rune-covered standing stones suitable for our Dungeons and Dragons games. If we can ever play again... This was intended as an exercise in shading, and was a good learning experience. The whole thing took less than an hour, in several short sessions. I've been playing around with letting things dry in between different layers to see how the paint reacts. My skies are still very streaky with horizontal lines, which I think is because I am using too small a brush. For large areas like this I need to be using a larger "mop" brush. I'm not sure I have one but if not that's an easy enough fix.

Runestones for D&D

Watercolor #4 is loosely copied from an oil painting YouTube video by Yasser Fayad of an Egyptian village. I like his paintings a lot, and this was very evocative for me.

First I blocked in some of the basic colors, and then spent some time shading the buildings.

Sky, tree and houses

Then I put a bluish-green wash on the horizon to be the base for hazy trees in the background. In oils or acrylics, this would have been accomplished differently, but with watercolors I am learning to understand where the light areas need to be preserved, since you can't go back and paint light over dark. Very different planning from oils and acrylics...

Horizon wash

Then comes blocking in most of the remaining colors, although at this point I have no idea how I am going to get a stream effect with watercolors.

Blocking in remaining colors

Lastly comes fiddling around with shading, details, and doing something with the little stream. "Bleh" on the stream, but what's done is done.

Calling it finished

After a while, I had to put down the brushes and call it finished. There are some things that no amount of fiddling with are going to make better than they are, and it is more important to move on to another painting than to invest more time in this one.

Overall, I'm very pleased. As always, good bits and not so good bits, but I need to keep telling myself this is only the fourth watercolor of any kind I have ever done. Every one is a learning experience, and having done some actual painting myself, it makes watching YouTube tutorials much more meaningful in terms of understanding what they are trying to teach.

On to the next one...

Hoarding for Covid-19

A big topic of discussion, media reports, etc, has been the widespread panic shopping and the hoarding of supplies that people are doing for a quarantine at home of indeterminate length.

Our intrepid mail carrier showed up today with these. I'm not sure I'm doing the hoarding thing correctly...

Self-Quarantine Supplies

All kidding aside, I am grateful for Amazon, eBay shops, and any and all other online ways of getting the things we can no longer go out and easily get ourselves (if at all). I'm even more grateful for the USPS, UPS, DHL, Amazon and other carriers, truckers and delivery folks that get those goods from one place to another. Plus airplanes. Trains. All that.

This is Day 30 for us, and in that month, I have been to Costco or Wegmans maybe 5-6 times (more frequently earlier, less so recently - we're now trying to do only once a week for groceries). I've been to a Walgreen's once to do a propane tank swap. I've been to a Sherwin Williams paint store twice for a curbside pickup order where everything is done on the phone and then they put stuff in my trunk without anyone getting near anybody else. I think that's it.

We've also ordered a bunch of stuff from Amazon, and I've placed a couple of online mailorders for art supplies with Jerry's Artarama. And a couple of small purchases from eBay shops.

Even with that little bit of contact with the outside world, we're still suitably paranoid. Anything coming into the house gets wiped down with Clorox wipes (while we still have them) before they go anywhere else. It would be comical if it wasn't so serious. Our "decontamination station" is the laundry room. Dirty stuff goes on the top of the dryer. After getting wiped down it goes on top of the washer. Then it sits there for a while marinating in its Cloroxyness before getting put away.

Overkill, perhaps, but I don't think so, and we are still all healthy. Knock wood.

Covid-19 Claims a Friend

I found out from a colleague at work that we lost a friend in Florida last night.

I'd known this person for about 20 years, and would consider him a friend and mentor. We worked together a lot over the years, as he held a number of leadership positions within the area that I support. The last time I saw him or spoke to him was at our national sales meeting in Washington DC in late January.

From what I was told, my friend retired from our company in mid-March. In the craziness of the past month, I wasn't aware of this. A couple weeks after retiring, he wasn't feeling well and had Coronavirus symptoms. He tested positive. Two days later he was in the hospital. Eight days later he died. He hadn't even been retired a month. I'm heartbroken for the wife, sons and granddaughters that he leaves behind.

You will be missed, my friend.

10 Minute Marker Sketches

As long as I am going to document my 2020 quarantine art journey here, I might as well post some of the things that I would be less inclined to show the world if I were being more selective...

One of the things I keep telling myself is that the only way to get better is to practice. And that some of that practice will be pretty bad. And some might be kinda OK. If I am lucky, some of it might even be decent.

So with that in mind, about a month ago, I challenged myself over the course of an hour or so one evening to use my Tombow (watercolor) and Copic (alcohol) art markers to make a few simple impressionistic sketches. The self-imposed ground rules would be that I would limit myself to no more than 10 minutes for each piece, measured from the time I pulled out a new 6" by 8" sheet of Strathmore Marker paper to being done and prohibited from adding anything else. The results were...varied.

The first was sun setting over water. Not good. Not bad. Just uniformly mediocre.

Sunset Sky (#1)

The second piece was a mountain lake with sun setting behind the mountain. I like everything about this one with the exception of wishing I had skipped the sunset part, which ruins the piece (to my eye). Not a bad idea, but poorly executed.

Mountain Lake (#2)

The third piece was a fantasy inspired tower on a rocky promontory overlooking the sea. I like everything about this except for the tower itself.

Tower by the Sea (#3)

The fourth piece was a view of distant fields. This is inspired by the oil paintings of Stuart Davies, whom I have been watching on YouTube. This is like #1 in that it doesn't feel overly good or bad to me - just uniformly mediocre. Although I do think I like the sky better than the land.

Distant Fields (#4)

The fifth one of these is my favorite, by far. It is inspired by a real place, and very vivid memories from throughout my childhood and young adulthood. Brother Dave would hopefully look at this, read the caption, and say "yeah, I can see that." Hopefully. We've both seen that view often enough... In addition to being a real place, I think this is the best of this bunch from both a composition and execution standpoint. I like it a lot.

Sunset over Ordinary Point (#5)

So there we have it. Five little pieces of art. I would have to say that this was a very useful exercise, and one that I will be repeating again in the near future (and possibly on a routine basis). Nothing beats practice, in any endeavor or artistic medium, and the result of this specific iteration is one little marker sketch that I really love.

I claim victory.

Homemade Focaccia

With time on our hands around the house, we have been doing some baking, both for the fun and for the end result. Amp and Julia have made banana bread and oatmeal raisin cookies. Amp and Grace have made lemon pound cake and lemon curd to go with it. I am not much of a sweets baker, but do have an interest in baking breads. Until my "once every 5 or 6 days" food shopping trip at 7am this morning, I hadn't been able to find yeast. Today I found it.

Tonight I gave a little bit of assistance to Grace in making homemade focaccia. It's an easy recipe, with the only down side being that you need to plan ahead, as you have about twenty minutes to get the yeast started, and then two rises of about an hour each, followed by 25 minutes or so to bake.

After the first rise and in the pan

The first rise is in a ball in a bowl, the second is after flattening and stretching the dough in the pan.

Rosemary focaccia

A simple brush with olive oil, sprinkling with rosemary and kosher salt, and then into the oven.

This is the first time we have made this, and it is out of this world. Plus the whole house smells wonderful.

Basement Repaint

Well, I guess being stuck in the house is good for getting back in the habit of blogging.

After I finished working today, I cleaned up after finishing painting the basement, and took a couple of pictures of the uncluttered tidy end. Behind and to the left of the top picture is my hobby and gaming area (which is currently a mess). Purging things I don't need or use anymore, cleaning and straightening that area comes next.

Basement (non-hobby/gaming area)

I'm happy with how this turned out. I liked the old color too, but that had been on these walls for about 20 years, which is hard to believe.

Basement

Next project up is to repaint the basement bedroom, which is through the door to the left of the guitars. I already have the paint for that. Then probably the dining room. Then... Then... Then...

Watercolor First Efforts

In looking at various painting demos and tutorials on YouTube, I stumbled across a watercolor artist named Peter Sheeler who does a lot of straightforward but very evocative "line and wash" watercolors of landscapes, lighthouses, farms and similar rustic subjects.

For a first attempt, I pulled out an old set of watercolors that had been in a drawer in the kids area of the basement for a few years, and tried to follow along with a simple country road scene. I'd have to say I was very pleased with the result. Watercolors are very different from the recent oil and acrylic paintings I have tried, and it took some getting used to how to mix the colors, how much water to use, how things blended on the paper, etc... These are both 6" by 9" paintings on cheap Artist's Loft basic watercolor paper.

Country Road (after Peter Sheeler)

My second attempt was a little more ambitious, and included a house, lighthouse, water and an evening sky. This was painted on the same paper as the first, but with a much better quality assortment of Turner Concentrated Artists watercolors mail ordered from Jerry's Artarama. Normally I would just drive the half hour to the Jerry's store in Newark Delaware, but....

I am pleased with the result here as well, but there are some things that I messed up that nag at me. I need to maintain reasonable expectations and just keep practicing without getting discouraged. As noted with the oil and acrylics, I have a better eye than I have skill at this point.

Key lessons here include the ordering of putting down certain colors. Sky becomes a green mess if you let your yellows run into your blues (which fortunately could be somewhat fixed by adding some magenta into that area once completely dry). Build shadows carefully. And perhaps most importantly, once a given area of the painting has begun to set, don't go back and fiddle with it, or you will end up pulling the wet paint out of the middle of an area and leaving a ring of dried paint around the edge. I really messed up the shadows in the water to the left by doing this, but managed to fix the worst of it by going back and evening out the colors after everything had completely dried.

Lighthouse (after Peter Sheeler)

I still have a lot to learn, but this was a lot of fun. It was also the most accessible in terms of being able to start painting with only a few minutes of set up, and can be done at my desk, the kitchen table, the island, or really anywhere. Required table space is tiny. All of which makes it perfect for those times when you have a little bit of time, but not enough to get into something more involved.

Covid-19 Day 23

Today is Day 23 of our Covid-19 self-isolation/quarantine. Most importantly, we are all still doing fine.

Amp goes to work three mornings a week, which worries me a little. I work a full schedule at home. The kids now have online learning for school, with assignments, due dates and all that. After a couple weeks of optional review work, I think both are actually glad to have something that puts some structure back in their days (although they might not admit it).

Ryder getting some Spring sun

I go to the food store, Costco or Wegmans, about once every 5 days or so. That worries me too. Lots of things worry me, but perhaps not as much as I would have expected. I guess you get to a point where so much is out of your hands that you just resign yourself to seeing how things play out one day at a time.

On the bright side...we are spending a lot less on gas and putting very few miles on the cars. We are spending less on eating out, and are actually eating better since we are making our own meals and not eating any takeout junk. We're spending more money on groceries since all meals are in the house, but we aren't spending money on much else. Some necessities and not-so-necessaries via Amazon. Some mail order fabric and sewing supplies for Amp. Some art supplies for me. Grace is helping me cook, and baking with Amp. Julia is doing more chores. We are playing some games and watching TV and movies as a family, which we hadn't been doing too much of before.

We are also getting some stuff done around the house, notably finishing up repainting our finished basement. It's a large space, which I started a couple of months ago and got perhaps 3/4 done before getting sidetracked. And then this all happened. Last weekend I got back to working on the last small part of the main area, and then the stairwell. All that is left at this point is some trim painting which I expect to finish tomorrow. Stairwell trim may have to wait until an evening next week.

One last basement section to paint

I've also done a couple of simple watercolor painting "sketches", which is another first for me. They aren't horrible. Rudimentary beginner exercises, but not horrible. I find it fascinating how different my limited recent experiences in painting with oils, acrylics and now watercolors have been. I like different aspects of each, and will continue working on all of them as time allows.

As of now, I've got lots of time...

Oil and Acrylic Painting

I have always wanted to learn to paint (especially in oils), but as with many other things I would like to learn to do throughout my life, the actually doing it part seems to always be "some day". Well, there's no time like the present, and I ain't gettin' any younger.

Taking advantage of sales at the local Michael's and the awesome Jerry's Artarama store in Newark Delaware, I bought enough basic supplies to attempt both some oil painting and some acrylic painting. With a  limitless trove of YouTube advice and tutorials, including all 30+ seasons of Bob Ross' Joy of Painting series, off we go...

Painting #1 (oil on 9x12 canvas panel). My first ever attempt at a painting of any kind (mid-February 2020). It was done in one sitting, and was when I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. I bought some oil paints and sat down to paint something. This was the result. I tried to do a Bob Ross style painting, but without any of the tools to be able to do the Bob Ross method, which is a very specific technique. It's beginner-friendly. If you have the right tools and supplies. Which I didn't (at the time). The best I can say of it is that parts of it aren't terrible, and more importantly I learned a lot about oil paints. Mostly about what you can't do, which frankly isn't a bad place to start.

#1 - Mountain landscape in oils (small)

Painting #2 (acrylic on 8x10 stretched canvas). Having done a rudimentary oil painting, I tried an acrylic one next, intending it to be some sort of wizard's tower or sage's abode for our D&D campaign. It was an interesting contrast, coming only a day or two after the oil painting experiment. While oils dry in 4-5 days, causing their own set of specific behaviors on the canvas, acrylics dry in no time at all. You can blend oils for days on the canvas. You can blend acrylics for minutes, then things start to get tacky and the paint begins to "break" if you go back over it again while partly dry. Layering is obviously much easier, as a part of the painting can dry while you do another part, and then you can go back to it for the next part without muddying the paint underneath. Once again this was a learning experience in a new medium, and there are some things I like about the painting and a bunch that I don't.

#2 - Sage's abode in acrylic (small)

Painting #3 (oil on 16x20 stretched canvas). My first attempt at a Bob Ross style wet-on-wet painting. It is similar to Season 1 episode 13, although not an exact copy. His technique is remarkably easy to get a passably good result for an absolute beginner, but there are definitely some things to get used to and some things that Bob mentions but perhaps doesn't stress to quite the degree that would have been more helpful to me. Overall, I am very pleased with the result. I like the sky, I like the mountain well enough, and I love the pond and the shoreline. The trees and bushes are OK in places but not so great in others. All in all, I like it.

#3 - Bob Ross copy in oils (medium)

Painting #4 (oil on 14x18 stretched canvas). A few days after Bob Ross attempt 1, I did this one. I wasn't painting from an episode or a picture, I just sat and did whatever came to mind. It is mostly the Bob Ross wet on wet method with a few other things that I wanted to try. Overall, I am pleased with this one as well, although the distant line of hills is too washed out with nothing in the middle ground to tie it better to the foreground. This one pointed out the need for giving some thought to composition rather than just sitting down, picking up a brush and jumping in. In this method of painting, you paint from back to front, and once you have done the foreground, you can't really go back and fix things behind it that you would like to. So a valuable lesson learned in composition and planning.

#4 - Bob Ross style landscape in oils (medium)

Painting #5 (oil on 8x10 stretched canvas). I had about an hour one evening and wanted to do something a little different, so I used a picture I found online to copy this little impressionistic landscape. It's simple and far from perfect, but I kinda love it.

#5 - Impressionist landscape in oils (small)

Painting #6 (acrylic on 8x10 stretched canvas). Another couple days later I wanted to keep up with practice, and started this small acrylic landscape. I worked on this off an on in small 10-15 minute increments over the course of 4 or 5 days, working from a photo I had found online in a Google image search of something simple like "fertile fields". The photo didn't say where this actually is, but it reminded me of lots of places not too far from home, or someplace farther removed but that I have been to like the Shenandoah Valley. Another good learning experience. By this time I am learning that I need quantity of practice, not quality of end result. In other words, paint a lot to get better.

#6 - Landscape in acrylics (small)

Painting #7 (oil on 18x24 stretched canvas). A fail. This was going to be another Bob Ross-ish mountain scene following along with another YouTuber who paints in similar style. The sky came first and was fine. A big mountain came next and completely went off the rails. I have waited until this dried, and have begun painting over much it so that I can re-use the canvas and start again. Or at least start the mountain again using the same outline. More lessons learned.

Painting #8 (oil on 18x24 stretched canvas). There is a wonderful YouTuber artist named Stuart Davies who does amazing tonalist/impressionist landscapes in a very particular style using a very particular technique. This is not an attempt to follow his technique, but to do a similar kind of painting using more traditional brushwork. Parts of this one I really like, and parts of it I am less thrilled with. But there is nothing about it that I hate.

#8 - Landscape in oils (medium)

I have started another painting or two, and given the current situation, will probably be bored at home and in need of something to do for a while, so I hope to get in a good amount of practice. Having gone over my rudimentary efforts to date, I'll probably go over what I have learned so far and various other thoughts in another post soon.

Surreal Times

I haven't written anything in quite a while, but I will have a good bit more time around the house in the coming weeks, and certainly have plenty to write about.

The Covid-19 Coronavirus is certainly topic #1 in our daily lives these days. We have watched things escalate in recent days to the point that the governor of Pennsylvania has closed all public schools for the next two weeks (at least), and my employer has said that if you can work from home to do so for the foreseeable future. All school activities are cancelled, including the music program's trip to Hawaii in the first week of April. I am a board member of the band parents' association that has organized the trip, and to say that a lot of work has gone into this would be an understatement. Mainly though I am disappointed for Grace. We may reschedule into the summer, postpone to next year, or....who knows.

As for coronavirus end-of-the-world preparation, people are in full panic-shopping mode. As a family we don't typically keep a whole lot of food on hand, buying what we need when we need it. Stopping at the grocery store on the way home from work yesterday to grab something for dinner, I was greeted with the following sight:

Blizzard-mode at the grocery store

From a work perspective, I work for the largest clinical laboratory in the US, and one of the labs that the government has turned to in order to ramp up coronavirus testing capacity. The country is underprepared and behind the 8-ball at the moment, but the combined capabilities of us and the other major private labs should help make a difference soon. We are fierce competitors on the street every day, but today we are all working to expand testing capacity as much and as soon as possible. I work on the business side, not the medical side, but it is nice to get a reminder every now and then as to what we actually do, and the impact that we can actually have...

As for us personally, the kids will be off school for two weeks (at least), I will be working at home, Amp will be working onsite under restricted-visitor conditions, and pretty much all of our usual activities will be cancelled or curtailed. Depending on who you believe, one or two people at our high school have tested positive for the virus, which potentially opens up an unlimited pandora's box of community spread. The drama club performed four shows of Seussical the Musical last weekend, following which an exhausted Grace had a low grade fever and other flu-like symptoms for a few days. And I have some sniffles and a cough. So...probably nothing unusual. Probably. Mom is locked down in a nursing home at the age of 88 with a cough and a low-grade fever.

Despite recent damage control press conferences, our government's reaction to this threat has been not-enough not-soon-enough bordering on incompetence. Hopefully the price to be paid for our ineptitude isn't too severe. But it probably will be.

On a more positive note, Seussical was a great success, and Grace had a really nice role as Thing 1. It was perfect for what she wants - being a featured dancer, a good amount of stage time, goofing around, singing in ensemble numbers, and being the drama club's best tumbler. Proud papa... More on this to come.

Thing 1 is mine...

Amp has started a new part time job. Julia is rapidly nearing the end of her school years. Grace is growing up way too fast.

Ryder supervising me work

As for me, more of much of the same I guess. One thing that I am trying to do is work on some artistic endeavors. I have done some sketching and some painting. More on that later, but I have always wanted to paint, and I am finally doing some. To varying degrees of success.

Anyway, more to come. In the meantime, my sincerest wishes that everyone stay happy, healthy and safe.

Seussical the Musical

Garnet Valley High School Performing Arts Association's spring musical was Seussical the Musical. It ran for four shows from March 5 to March 7. In retrospect, we were lucky to get the show in before the school district shut down due to the Coronavirus pandemic on March 13. Many other high schools didn't get their performances in before everything went weird...

Grace was "Thing 1", part of the group of 6 Things that were on stage pretty much anytime the Cat in the Hat was on stage. In other words, most of the show.

Six Things (Thing 1 is mine)

She got to act, goof around, do tumbling runs, and dance. Lots and lots of dancing. In other words, pretty much the perfect show for her.

Cat and Things Chorus Line

Amp is in her seventh (!) year of working on costumes, and this is the third year that she is head of Costumes, and a key member of the core creative team. My pride in watching these shows is hard to describe. So much of the visual impact is because of the work of Amp and her excellent team, and I get to watch my daughter perform. First Julia for 7 shows, and now Grace in her fourth show (High School Musical, Annie, Hunchback of Notre Dame and now this).

Amp's Team's Costumes in all their Glory!

Our GVPAA director has done a great job of creating a community and a supportive atmosphere.

Grace and Horton the Elephant

The kids work ridiculous hours, but (for the most part) love every minute of it.

Grace and Maisey le Bird

The quality of the result shows.

Grace and the Cat in the Hat

And one of the great things about the program is that it is very inclusive, allows everyone to have their moment in the spotlight, but at the same time commands a commitment to excellence. They work hard.

Drama Club Sophomores

Grace's sophomore class is strong. Good actors, good singers and good dancers. Her friend group in drama club, coupled with her friend group in band and chorus, spans all grades, which is a nice thing.

Grace and Admirer

The GVPAA now does a late spring show (the third of the year), rehearsing after the spring musical ends (Seussical), and performing their shows in late May or early June. These shows include alumni, current students, and other community members. This year it was supposed to be The Sound of Music. Sadly, that isn't going to happen...

Grace with Lulu and Addie

Looking forward to next year, there will be The Addams Family in the fall and Newsies in the spring. Let's hope that can actually happen.

I'm already curious as to what the Director will pick for Grace's senior year. But I'm getting ahead of myself...

Ren Faire 2019

During the football game at Ridley last night, Grace texted me to say that some of her friends were going to the Renaissance Faire out toward Harrisburg the next day (today), and did I want to go? Being the needed mode of transportation, I said sure. Julia was interested in going as well, but Amp was busy with costumes for the play, so the three of us decided to drive out and meet up with her friends (and the parents that were taking the other group).

We had been to the Ren Faire once, quite a long time ago, but when I went through old blog entries to find exactly when that was, I was surprised. Turns out it was mid-September 2010. Grace would have been 6 and Julia would have been 12. Wow. We enjoyed it and had discussed going back at some point, but for whatever reason it never bubbled up to the "let's go" stage. But now it had.

It was much as I remembered it. As a matter of fact, I'm not sure if much of anything changed at all in 9 years. Ridiculous traffic getting off the Turnpike exit and to the venue, but efficient people keeping cars moving and into the fields that you park on. Lots of people in costume. "Period" merchandise to buy at generally steep prices. A wide variety of food options, none of them healthy. All sorts of venues of all different sizes for performers of all kinds.

We found the other group quickly, and spent some time as a larger group of a dozen or so before Grace and her friends wandered off, leaving me and Julia with the other parents. Which was fine. We watched several street performers before settling in to watch Circus Stella, a husband and wife team doing a circus acrobatics show. They were entertaining, and ended their show with some trained dogs doing tricks, which is always fun.

Circus Stella

We did some more wandering and some eating, and then settled in to watch Aaron Bonk do whip tricks and juggle swords and other sharp objects, adding fire for more fun. This was probably the most enjoyable part of the day, as he was extremely talented (holding several Guiness Book of World Records titles) and very funny. It drizzled a bit during this show, but that was the only tiny blemish on  an otherwise fun 4 or 5 hours.

Aaron Bonk - Whips, Fire and Swords

Grace had an interesting lunch: a Meat Sundae. This looked like an ice cream cone, but was made up of some sort of pastry/bread/roll cone, filled with a few tater tots on the bottom, then some sliced beef with gravy, then a scoop of mashed potatoes on the top. She pronounced it good.

Grace with a Meat Sundae

For comparison to the 15 year old Grace shown above, I found a picture of the 6 year old Grace from our last Ren Faire trip. It seems like just yesterday and at the same time a million years ago. Weird...

Grace at Ren Faire 2010 - Age 6

Julia had a good time with me and Grace had a good teenager time mostly without me. Hanging out with the other parents was fun, and we all agreed we should try to remember to go back again next year. With Mom next time...

Twenty One Pilots - Bandito Redux

Grace's favorite band is Twenty One Pilots, and when they announced they were coming around again on a later leg of their very long Bandito tour she wanted to go again. I had fun last time so I had no problem taking her. I ended up driving two of her older neighborhood friends, making us a group of four. The link to my post about last year's show is here. For a description of the show, reference that post, as this show was very similar to that one, with a few minor differences. But basically the same. And just as good this time as last time.

Don't drop Tyler...

Like last time, the crowd was young, and leaning female.

Finale - Trees

The energy in the place was amazing, and other than an interlude of a few slower songs in the middle, everybody stood all night. Which I suppose works better when you are 15 than when you are 50+.

Taking a bow on the crowd

The only bad part of the show was getting trapped in a back corner of the Wells Fargo Center parking lot and taking a long time to get out and on the road. Oh well. Small price to pay for an evening of fun and a happy daughter.

Next year if they are still doing the Bandito tour, we'll probably go again...

Homecoming Dance 2019

Continuing a very busy week, tonight was the Homecoming Dance. What started as a couple of friends coming over to our house to finish makeup and hair and take some pictures turned into a bunch a band friends coming over for pictures. And then a bunch of Drama Club friends. And then Grace had an escort to the Dance (yikes!). All of which was great.

Grace and Friends

We had friends...

Mandatory Back of Dress view

And more friends...

Drama Club sophomores

And Julia!

Grace (in heels) and Julia (not...)

And more friends...

Too dark for more outside pictures

And a lot of happy parents taking loads of pictures. On the deck, on the front porch, on the stairs inside, in the family room, all over the place. In every possible grouping and combination.

Grace and escort and friends

It was great. Everyone looked absolutely wonderful (and growing up way too fast). I've known some of these kids for a long time...since they were little. They aren't little anymore.

Hamilton

Julia's 21st birthday present was her favorite thing - tickets to see a Broadway show. We were able to get 4 tickets for the whole family to see Hamilton at the Forrest Theater in Philadelphia. This is something that we have all been wanting to do for a long time, but had been unable to get tickets in the ongoing ticket lottery for Broadway.

The tickets we got were fantastic (4th row of the balcony, right in the center), and the Forrest Theater is a wonderful old theater in which to see a show.

Hamilton

I won't bother with a lengthy review of the show, as they can be found all over, but I will simply say that it was terrific in every regard. The kids have been playing this soundtrack to death in the car since it came out and got popular, but actually seeing it onstage with the sets and choreography was obviously a whole different experience. Our cast for this touring company was fantastic, especially Edred Utomi as Hamilton, Paul Oakley Stovall as George Washington and Peter Matthew Smith as King George. Bryson Bruce as both Lafayette and Jefferson was also terrific. There really wasn't a weak link in the cast, and we only had one understudy (Tre Frazier as Aaron Burr); he was solid.

Hamilton - Forrest Theater stage

Julia was thrilled (as were all of us). Highly recommended for anyone who likes musical theater (or pop culture phenomena for that matter...).

Digital Art - Baby Steps 1

I've had some time the last few evenings to play around with the new Wacom Intuos tablet and Corel Painter Essentials 6, the free software that came with the tablet.

The picture below is the very first thing I have ever done, which is to follow along with a YouTube tutorial introducing the features of Corel Painter Essentials by way of a follow-along "paint a mountain scene."

Mountains -  A beginner tutorial follow-along

It's not high art by any means, but it's a passable pseudo-impressionist painting. I've seen worse.

The biggest challenge was to keep moving along and resist the temptation to keep stopping and trying to fix things.

Baby steps. But you have to start somewhere.

Digital Art

Wacom Intuos drawing tablets are pretty cheap. Photoshop is complicated. So I bought a new iMac.

OK, so there's more that comes before that and more in between. Something like:

Over the last few years I have become interested in digital drawing and painting.
Seemed like something that would be fun to try.
But there are so many different tools and software.
So start small.
Wacom Intuos drawing tablets are pretty cheap and still highly rated for beginners.
Drawing tablets hook to computers via USB, and the computer runs the software.
Software choices are endless.
Many of them free.
Most have their own fairly steep learning curves.
Abode Photoshop is considered by many to be one of the best for digital drawing.
Might as well tackle the Photoshop learning curve directly.
A good start might be to get an inexpensive Wacom Intuos and try Photoshop for a while.
Adobe software is now only available by online subscription/download.
Online subscription is the current version only.
The current version of Photoshop only runs on Mac OS one version higher than I'm running now.
I could upgrade my 2010 iMac one version and hope that Photoshop would run effectively.
Any Mac OS upgrades after that one bump are not possible on my old machine.
I've been looking at a new iMac for a while now.
There's a few other software things that wouldn't run well, or at all, on the old iMac.
iMacs are pretty cheap, relatively speaking.
So I bought a new iMac today.
And a Wacom Intuos Medium drawing tablet yesterday.
And a $2.99 per month iCloud upgrade to 200 GB of storage so I can get the 16,989 photos and 437 videos off the old iMac.

As of now, 14.07 GB out of 102.8 GB of photos and videos have uploaded to iCloud. In ~5 hours. There are 15,637 items to go. So... maybe 30 hours to go at that rate. iCloud bulk uploads like this are notoriously slow the first time. Or so they say.

I won't set up the new machine until the backing up of the old one is complete, as I guess I have a fear of confusing the iCloud by putting a new machine on the same Apple ID while it is doing all that work on the other one. Seems reasonable to me. It might even be correct, who knows.

This also addresses the many-years-overdue issue of 9 years of my family's photo history being on one hard drive with no recent backup. Which is a good thing. The backup, that is, not the 9 years of neglect prior to that.

When the new machine is set up, I'll download the Photoshop trial and give it a go. I have played around with the new tablet on the old machine (last night) with some free software that came with it. It's fun. But hard. I think I will enjoy the challenge posed by the learning curve with the tools, although I know that there will be times that I will get frustrated and want to throw the whole bunch out the window. Hopefully those moments will pass. Or maybe just the Wacom tablet goes out the window and I keep the nice new computer.

I'd add some pictures to this blog post but this old computer is really busy right now...

[As a footnote, the current Mac OS is Mojave. Before that was High Sierra. Before that was Sierra. Before that was El Capitan, which is what the 2010 iMac is running. It can be upgraded to Sierra, but that's the end of the line for that hardware (no High Sierra or Mojave). Grace's 2013 iMac is running Sierra. Catalina is the new Mac OS due out this fall.]