Tonight everything went wrong...

I mean it, everything! Brought home the DVD burner to find out only that I didn't get the license for livestate recovery so cannot split backup in DVD sizes... but didn't want to wait until tomorrow, so checked out Iomega backup hoping to work with DVDs from there... nada, not in the “wunderbar” install that IT gives us.
Resort to use the whichever software came with the dvd.. nicely in its sleeve, and nicely broken! Fantastic.
In the meantime setup the blog for my family and played a little there - that actually took a lot of the evening to calm me down from the backup attempt.
Hope they'll take to it. I know my Dad would love such a thing. Might take up in winter a lot better though - none of them stays at the pc if they just can help it with the nice weather they get there!
Ah well, will play with Zeebee a little, he's feeling right down neglected poor thing!

Female nude - back. Imprimatura

This is the first layer - obtained by using Raw Sienna and Titanium White with a medium of 1part stand oil and 6 parts turpentine.
I used a large brush, and then the fan brush to even out the brushstrokes.
It took 2 weeks to dry.
This was applied onto an extremely smooth board (mdf 5mm sanded to death and with 5 coats of Gesso, each sanded smooth - last sanding performed with wet & dry sandpaper).
The result here isn't interesting at all - the real thing though is already something I didn't see before, it has a really beautiful translucency. I might have to get a proper camera - for now I have to rely on the phone pictures... not exactly ideal.

Female nude - back. The drawing

This is the drawing - the first one I've ever completed with charcoal.
I believe that I changed the original enough, giving also details that were not present in the original picture, and therefore maybe I can call it my own without breaching anything.
It won't matter anyway, given this is a learning project, the results of which are all yet to be established ...
Here is the same picture taken with the new digicam - just to see if there is a difference with this and the previous one taken with the phone.

Female nude - back. The Grand Masters Technique Project

After much reading and scouring through various sources, I've decided to try and do it for at least one painting. If the first attempt will be encouraging, I will use this technique in my real painting.
So this one here is a picture I found on the internet (in a dubiously "arty" site...) given I wanted specific details: nude female, but with no complex details like limbs, head, face, etc.

The 3 roses

It took some courage to upload this one. Mainly because I really don't like it but I got to face reality - given I still have to work on it (the blue rose has not nearly enough highlights) I might as well force myself to look at it enough to come up with some kind of correction.
This is almost mine - that is: I found 3 separate pictures of 3 roses by Benni. I liked the design but not the brushwork, and the background, so I collaged them as I wanted with editing tools and changed the roses color (I'm not going to do a black rose..)
Can't wait for this one to finish, as by now I'm well bored with the "roses project".

Dali's black woman

This is a detail (somewhat altered intentionally) of the black woman in Dali's "Marche'd'esclaves avec apparition du buste de Voltaire".
I was entirely fascinated by the awkward curve on her shoulder and in my version I accentuated it even more. Given it's the first attempt at a body form it's not terribly bad, but as you can see my being a beginner shows up very much indeed :-)

Dali's landscape

This is the third painting - the landscape that sits at the bottom of Dali's Meditative Rose.

Dali's Rose

With this I begin the real deal with oil painting. So this is the Rose project, and for this I couldn't not choose the Meditative Rose by Salvador Dali', my very favorite painting.
I "decomposed" the original painting in 3 boards: a square one is the rose, then there's a small one for the sky, and a third for the landscape.

Last weekend

That's a perfect example of a weekend that has gone by with lots of fun, but without doing what I really wanted to do... auch.
Out on Friday with the gang (Braidy’s as always - not that the choice is enormous locally) - ended up doing the first pub crawl in Blanch... at the end the 4 of us left toddled over to the 12thlock as Security Response was there and we can't have Orla getting away without spending Fri night with us now, can't we?
Saturday I recovered pretty quickly and was up and about (clear head!) only at 9 or so.... amazing. Lazing about, planning on what to do.. undecided between painting a shelf to put up on Sunday, or sowing those carrots that keep looking appealing to my good heart from the picture on the packet.
Ah well, decided I did need some gardening tools after all, so after a couple of hours of lazing and daydreaming went out.
Patatrack!, the usual call on Saturday that throws everything out of the window - BBQ in the afternoon at 5... wow, way too early to begin doing anything useful!
Okidoki, never say no to a nice gathering, right? So the shopping transformed into a meat/beer shopping.
Back home, organized the marinade and stuff.. then became a human being (yes, long hair are a nightmare in that respect) and off I go.
Back again at a respectable 2am - at which stage Zeebee was snoring already and not in the mood to share my bed with me..
Ended up sleeping cross-way as always, until he decided to leave just enough room.. ah, bless him!
Sunday... well, different story altogether - didn't emerge till 2 and spent the day entirely jolly-relaxing and looking dismayed at the mysterious mess my place found itself in - and Friday morning it was sooo tidy!! How do I manage to do this amount of mess when I'm not even home is beyond me!

TheJollyZone

I surrender to the multitude... TheJollyZone is php no more... and today the JollyZone blog is born.
No idea if I'll use it - much less if others will...
One day I'll get the JollyZone back to its feet and restore all the original site - which by now is way too much scattered all over the place and I can't be bothered to make sense of it all :-)
Bogglers' laziness in web design suits me to the ground :-D