Completion of the Summer Holiday underpainting yesterday:
The other paintings in this triptych were painted with lots of detail with an optional glaze, as I was not sure if any refinement would be needed. Songs of Saint George, I imagined, might benefit from a glaze to the green hand, but now it looks fine, and touching it with the dangerously powerful Azo Yellow might be a mistake. This time though, I will nee da glaze because the tiny fly will need some hairs and some metallic green, which requires a transparent layer.
I'm in a positive mood as the things that have broken recently: my watch, shaver, SY-85 synthesizer, MDS-JB980 MiniDisc player, and now Marantz CD5005 CD player, have now been replaced or repaired or refurbished. The CD player developed a fault only having moved it a few days ago to fix the MiniDisc player. I opened it and cleaned the lens, no effect. I noted that the whole assembly was on springs and hovering like a proverbial Princess with her Pea, and the lens assembly nervously hovering separately on springs, so I pushed everything gently to spring it back into place. I tried again and it was magically fixed. The unit is 3 years old and has, so far, played everything flawlessly, so it was odd that it should break. The drawer mechanism is belt based so I'll probably have to replace that one day (well, will unless something else breaks first), although unlike the MiniDisc deck there are no YouTube guides. Oddly, the Marantz unit had handwriting in permanent marker on the circuit boards, so perhaps it is hand assembled. To break so easily did not impress me.
My artistic focus now is on frames and the technical aspects of this, I want these to be the best, so will start to document procedures. All skills are mastered by writing, recording, documenting. I'm still full of painting ideas but have limited time. One of my main goals for the month is to revisit my IndieSFX sound effects, which are not on sale anywhere and doing nothing. There is a lot of software I could list on itch or Steam too, and these might give me some needed income. Ideally, everything should be out there in some form. I've put so much work into things which are unseen, unheard, unknown.
Today we will rehearse for the Wonderland performance in Knutsford Library which will take place next Thursday. How I'd love a new synthesizer, too. Time marches on. I'm already looking to the October, the end of the painting season and the start of the music season.
