My first vaccination day; up early and entered the Vaccination Centre (pharmacy) ten minutes before my appointment. Shown to a seat which formed a queue and asked a few basic questions, within 3 minutes I was moved to be injected, handed the leaflet and left, leaving 3 minutes before my actual appointment. All super efficient and lovely people too.
At home I read an unfair bad review of Flatspace IIk, criticising the controls with little mention of the free game (which uses the same controls) or that a controller can be plugged in to be used instead. Hundreds of people have played the game over the years, including many that (thankfully) persuaded me (insistently!) to release it on Steam at all, yet after 4 years there are only 15 reviews, and, as usually happens, they are often only written to complain about something rather than accurately represent the majority. I've had zero game sales in a few weeks, and just one review like this can cruelly and unfairly end a career.
Then I wondered what to do with the day. I'd completed the videos. The Dream of the Tao video is just too simple... just recycling footage is too easy, so I'll not do anything with it... yet. The irony is that I've deleted it from my art channel - it does have the music after all, so if it's anywhere it really needs to be a good one AND on my music channel.
I made plans for my paint tube rack, but I thought it best to take it easy today so I decide not to saw the wood - although I have, as of now, zero vaccine side effects. I remain convinced that Vitamin K (which I take every other day) is one key to coping with Covid-19.
I decided to paint, and added the glaze layer to Land of Beauty and Sorrow, an idea from 2018 that I underpainted on May 22nd last year, so this tiny panel has taken a long time:
It has done me a great deal of good to work on painting again, though I struggle with headaches and eye strain now. This one had so much detail in the underpainting that I didn't have to do much during glazing (more detail in an underpainting is almost always good - I tested this, the more, the better, the only exception is very fine lines, super-thin hairs, for example, which need very liquid paint). The glazing didn't add much and at times I wondered why I was glazing a flat colour with another, but the finish and glow is improved a little - this is unique to oils. I told myself that there are two things I don't respect in other artists: those who cheat (trace, or use projectors rather than draw, singers who pitch-correct etc.) and those who use acrylics because they are easy, and look worse in real life than oil - but look as good if not better in a photo or on a 'fake' computer screen - which make them double cheating.
I listened to some of Vulnicura by Björk while painting, an album I love, and L'Enfant Assassin des Mouches, another great work. I was reminded that Vannier defined Gainsbourg's sound on Histoire de Melody Nelson to such an extent than its more his work (musically) than Serge's.
