Another awful night of stomach agony. This reminds me how blessed I've been over the past year not to have experienced this so much. This led to a day of great tiredness, seeing the world through a strange mist of fatigue and confusion. The digestive system so closely reflects the mood. Historical cures for mental disorders were always purgatives or diet related for good reason.
Still, I got many things done.
First, I de-framed 'The Love Affair' in preparation to restore and fix its frame. I've got 20 or so old paintings with visible screws in the frame, and my aim is to remove and reframe all of them. Here's the de-framed work:
This frame is a complex work of rippled plaster, which makes it easy to remove any evidence of screws perfectly.
Then, fixing my tripods. One of the tightening bolts is held by a nut behind some thin and brittle plastic such that if you over-tighten it, it strains (and in this case breaks) the plastic. I glued the broken plastic and added a second flanged nut on top, then applied Polymorph all over both. This is much stronger. The metal bolt ideally needs a rubber tip or better grip for the cylindrical shaft, but for now this is at least a bit better than before.
I also announced a Taskforce sale, in honour of 30 years since the Amiga version appeaed in CU Amiga, then looked at some painting ideas with an aim to paint lots this year. I re-awakened one that I've started before and set to sleep in 2021; 'Oliver Cromwell Not Dying Twice'. Here's the idea:
I sketched out a bigger version back then, and kept that sketch to reuse the paper, but looking at it today, I decided again to paint it! I made some changes to the 2021 sketch and restored the carrot fronds in the hat (the 2021 version made these a limp carrot, but Cromwell is a fearsome and proud vegetable villain). I added a second character on the 'hill/shoulder' on the right, a frightened protagonist and defensive mother tree.
My plan for the next few days is to sketch out and plan more works, and complete the Descartes painting. I need money and will orient my activities more towards sales; paintings, CDs, books, software. I'll reduce the amount of music promotion and reduce live performances.
This evening, I went to mum's sister to do some woodwork. A new skirting board needs four cuts: 3x 45-degree vertical cuts, a common cut in skirting boards. I used a power-plane to do this, which is very smooth and can be very accurate at such cuts. The fourth cut was, unusually, a curved cut with a coping saw (a 'Charlie-Chaplin-cane' cut) to match the profile of the board itself. For the room itself, this should really also been another 45-degree cut, but the work is to replace an old rotten board, so it needed to be cut the same.
A busy day ends. Deb is recovering slowly from her cold. I wonder if I'll be able to see her soon.
