Monday, August 18, 2003

DVD Review: Gaudi Afternoon 3 stars We watched Gaudi Afternoon last night. I wanted a day to consider before writing a review. This film is set in Barcelona, which adds to its interest. Closed captioning is absent, which made it harder for my partner to follow. My overall evaluation is that the film is interesting. It's different. There are quite a few surprises, most of which will offend anyone who's homophobic. It's not a Hollywood copycat film. So what's my reservation? Maybe the film is a bit cynical. It's not up to my Cinderella standards? It's more than that. I'm not sorry I saw it, but I wouldn't choose it for sheer exuberant entertainment - nor for expanding my understanding of life. So I'll give it a 3 star rank.   9:52:01 PM    comment []

playing with tiny icon sized photo thumbnails Today I did a lot of work on my new website. When I started to make thumbnail size images in Paint Shop Pro, I ran into a new problem. Some paintings I'd scanned into PSP, then rotated, seemed to have PSP confused. PSP thought the width was the height, and vice versa. So resizing was a mess. I decided to try it in PhotoShop Elements, which came with my Epson scanner. Elements got the width and height correct. Plus, the Save for the Web feature is really nice to use. The previews and choices are just right. Some of my experiments were with tiny icon sized thumbnails to use on ebay, as an icon for Wet Canvas posts, etc. Also, I've noticed on some other art websites that a row of tiny thumbnails at the bottom of a page can be enough to give the viewer enough of an idea of pieces. Of course each one is a link to a larger view. I'm talking about TINY, here. Here's a sample, cropped from a new acrylic painting on canvas: Even a tiny one like this seems big enough to give you an idea of whether or not you'd like to see a larger view. And each one is about a kb in size, a 1 second download or less, with a slow connection. 9:44:13 PM    comment []

Unresolved right now I'm feeling annoyed at finding myself enacting little arguments in my mind. It's as tiresome as listening to other people argue on and on. So I decided to explore. I did some free writing, letting my hands answer. What’s unresolved for me right now, about how to live life?  How to balance process and going with the flow and present moment, with wanting a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction.  How to live an art life, from the inside, full out – and also earn a living – or whether or not “earning a living” really applies.   How much to go with my natural energy flow and impulses, how much to plan and structure and schedule. Why don’t I have more friends? Is this something I need to do something about?  Focus on just bowls? Then add cartoons, collages, paintings later? Or get all of them going asap?  Are the bowls really my main focus or do I want a more even balance? Responses: Writing this list, it seemed to me that some answers might come by discovery. For example, I might discover my focus as I make my website, rather than having to know it beforehand. It’s the opposite method from that usually recommended, but it could work. For many years I've found that by reorganizing my bookshelves without any plan, I could discover my true focus for that period of time.   Also, it could be interesting to do a sort of “trial run” with angle answers to see what I’d decide if I had to decide right now – trusting my hands again. I don't remember whether or not I've mentioned this before. It's a little like hand kinesiology or using a pendulum, but when I have paper and pen handy, I like it. I discovered it when I was exploring how different specific angles (30 degrees, 32 degrees, etc.) corresponded with specific thoughts I entertained. I'd think a specific thought, then let my hand draw whatever angle it wanted to draw.   I learned a lot that's applicable to my artmaking. As a side benefit, I discovered that a positive thought led my hand to make an angle going up from the horizontal midline. A negative thought led my hand to make a downward angle. So this gave me a quick decision making tool that even shows me how much the thought is positive or negative.   9:13:13 AM    comment []