Alan White, RIP

Sad to hear that Alan White, drummer for Yes, died recently at the age of 72 after a brief illness.

White replaced Bill Bruford when Bruford left Yes. He also drummed for numerous other musicians, including Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood, and was the drummer on John Lennon's song Imagine. So there's some immortality for you.

Alan White was the drummer for the one Yes show I saw live, which in retrospect is not the one Yes band lineup that I would have liked to have seen if I had to pick only one, but it is what it is. I saw Yes at the Spectrum in Philadelphia on April 30, 1984 as part of the 90125 tour. I was wrapping up my senior year in high school...

The classic Yes lineup was Chris Squire on bass, Steve Howe on guitar, Bill Bruford on drums, Rick Wakeman on keyboards and Jon Anderson on vocals. 

The 90125 tour lineup was long after Bruford had left and been replaced by Alan White, and after Steve Howe left and was replaced by Trevor Rabin. Wakeman was also long gone and replaced by keyboardist Tony Kaye. Original members Squire and Anderson remained. It was a great concert and a great band, but there is no arguing that the Trevor Rabin years were a very different version of Yes as compared to the Yes Album and Fragile days, or Close to the Edge. I liked it then, and still do, but it was...almost not Yes.

White was the dummer for 3,070 live Yes shows according to Wikipedia. And I saw one of them...

Of all these Yes folks, I have seen Anderson, Squire, White and Rabin once (in 1984), Steve Howe twice but both as a member of Asia (once on 8/27/83 at the Spectrum touring for the Alpha album, and once on 10/20/12 touring for the XXX album at the intimate Keswick Theater in the 4th row - 29 years after the first time). I've never seen Bruford or Wakeman live.

Anyway, yet another one from my early years is gone. And Chris Squire has already passed. Tempus Fugit.

Senior Prom, part 1

Tonight was Grace's senior prom.

Senior Prom

We had a whole host of kids and their parents over to our house for pictures beforehand, some of whom I have never seen before. Which is fine.

Mandatory Boutiniere picture

The excitement in the kids was palpable.

Grace and Aidan

The weather sorta mostly cooperated. At least enough for everyone to sneak in outdoor pictures on the deck as well as in the living room.

As reported by Grace, much fun was had by all. More to come on that.

Northeastern (and Bust)

Going into college application season, Grace had a bunch of schools that she wanted to apply to, for various reasons, and a smaller subset of those schools she really wanted to get into. She had a bunch of safety schools.

Northeastern and Brown were at the top of her list for neuroscience. Villanova and Bryn Mawr College were also in the upper tier.

She had many acceptances, some acceptances and denials in the top tier, and a waitlist or two.

Weighing her options leading up to the universal May 1 acceptance deadline, she chose the University of Delaware's Honors College option, and scholarship.

Today, two-plus weeks after pretty much every college's acceptance deadline, she received word that she had been moved from waitlist to "accepted" at her initial number one choice, Northeastern University (in Boston).

For the mere pittance of $80k per year, and with the requirement that she spend the first semester of her freshman year in an overseas program because the school was overbooked and couldn't accommodate her on campus, she could have the privilege of attending Northeastern. And when she returned from overseas for the second semester of her freshman year, they could guarantee her student housing but it might be in a hotel, not a dorm.

This was her strong number one choice going in.

I know that she had to have some pangs of regret when she read their acceptance letter to me off of her laptop, but it's way too little too late at this point...and no longer an attractive choice.

Go, Blue Hens!!

So Close to Graduating

The ramp-up to Grace's graduation has been a surreal time. There are AP exams. Days of watching movies in class. College tours. Choosing a school and accepting college admissions. Senior Awards nights. Band banquets. Drama Club banquets. Graduation parties. Lots of "lasts". Last Drama performance. Last band concert. Last chorus concert...

Drum Major Grace

But every now and then a small thing hits me like a ton of bricks.

I was recently sent the above picture taken by "T-Bone", the beloved official photographer of many Garnet Valley sports teams and related organizations, including the marching band...

Grace told me she likes the picture but her hair is weird. I told her "that is backlighting", and with a wanna-be artist's eye, it's what makes the picture.

Maybe she understands.

Maybe she thinks her hair still looks weird.

I think it is one of the best pictures we have of her high school years...

Sunrise Over the Hills

Enough is enough. No more tweaking this painting

Sunrise Over the Hills (oils on canvas, 20 by 30)

I'm relatively pleased, but one way or another it is time to move on. 

Sunrise, Part 3

A few more tweaks today. 

Sunrise Over the Hills (oils on canvas, 20 x 30 inches)

Break up the sunrise blob. Fix the foreground a bit.

Not quite there yet but better. I've enjoyed painting with this limited color palette.

Happy Painting part 2

I took about 10 minutes this evening to tweak a few things with this work in progress.

Sunrise Over the Hills, part 2 (20 x 30 oils on canvas)

There is still more to do, but it is getting closer to what I want. Small steps...

The white/yellow/pink glow on the horizon needs to be broken up by light turquoise sky. The foreground needs work. The left side needs more "woodland clutter". And so on.

Onward we go...

[PS - It is interesting to note that the first/prior post on this painting was photographed later at night with the dining room light on, resulting in an artificial "orangish" color shift. This photograph was taken in daylight with no artificial light, and is thus far more reflective of the actual colors...]

Happy Painting

At the end of an often-long day, I paint because it relieves stress and makes me happy.

Sunrise over the Hills (oils on canvas, 20 by 30 inches)

This makes me happy.

Lukas 1862 oils on a fairly large canvas. This is layer 1. Layer 2 to come.

This was painted almost entirely with a limited palette of turquoise greens, dark earth greens and some blues and grays for the sky. Plus the sunrise colors, of course.

Stage 2 will mainly be to refine the sunrise and fill in the trees on the lefthand hillside. We shall see how it goes...