Just turned on my webcam, you can watch me paint Tori, Ten & Emily’s eyes this afternoon! I’ll be back & forth again, so I apologize if I’m not there when you look, hang out and I’ll be back!
(Webcam link in left menu under the calendar!)
Work in Progress #2 : Ten & Tori
January
24
2005
You can see how I wrapped the flag so that it covers all three portraits!
Here are the completed flag backgrounds on Ten & Tori:
Work in Progress #2 : Emily
January
24
2005
I hope my client loves the flag background as much as I do! Man this is cool to paint and give it that flag-wavin’ dimension. 🙂
Work in Progress #1: Possy III
January
24
2005
I’ve still got the webcam on in the studio, just finished up the background on this lovely remake of PossyII.
Webcam ON
January
24
2005
I will be painting on and off all day today, if ya wanna stop in and watch!
(See sidebar for link)
4:30 AM
January
24
2005
Stupid dream!
I thought I was going to get some sleep. Yea, right! I was having this God-awful dream and then suddenly, on the verge of tears in it, I guess I forced myself awake so it would end. Now I’m awake, but the dang thing is just replaying in my head!
Coffee. Need…lots…of…coffee.
When I was a kid, I had a foolproof method of going back to sleep after a bad dream. Worked every single time. I’ve even shared it with our girls, and it seems to work for them, too.
M-I-C… K-E-Y… M-O-U-S-E!
The opener for the Mickey Mouse Club! I would close my eyes, and picture the beginning of the Mickey Mouse Club. I’m pretty strange huh? It always worked though. I was one of those kids that had monsters peering through the slats in the closet door, and I had a big alligator under my bed. (That made getting out of bed fun!) I had to do something, right?
Some of my worst dreams when I was a kid involved wading through this impossible texture. It was like sand in a sandstorm in a tornado, with gel or some kind of liquid compound that made everything impossible to get through. Thank God I don’t have those anymore. Blech.
Now I get to have dreams where every one of my insecureties plays out before me like a 3-d movie, and I’m in the front row without popcorn or a drink. In fact those tend to have a character or two in them from life, of course, that reaches out of the screen and pulls me right into it. People that I trust, even! So now you guys know why if I get upset with you for no apparent reason. #1, you’ve kept me up all night. #2, quit playing off of my insecurities! Meanies.
I did hear from Mark lastnight, he’s doing ok. Their schedule changed at the last minute, you’d think after 18 months that would be something I’m used to, something that is so commonplace that I don’t freak myself out. I know that “Gno-Gnus is Good Gnus”, but what can I say? I’m a ‘wanna-know-it-all’ kinda girl.
Anyone else have too-real dreams that keep you up all night? Make your heart race or wake up weeping?
For Kris:
Silly Doc, Hoaxes are for kids!
January
23
2005
When I saw my chiro this week, his initial reaction to my weight loss was kinda funny. Eyes popping out of his head, he asked if I forgot the other half of me at home. Well it’s a nice compliment, sure! In a funky and twisted way, this once super-fat girl is thinking “man, I musta been huuuuuge!” Well, that’s just how my mind works.
He’s a very natural, health oriented kinda guy, so he was very interested to talk about how I lost 52 pounds, what I ate, what I drank, all that jazz. Then he throws this tidbit my way that really made me feel like “wow! I’ve done an awesome thing!” that has now been dispelled. Dammit.
He told me that in every pound of fat, we have 100 miles of capillaries. (Approximately) That calculates out to 5,200 MILES of capillaries that I’ve removed from my circulatory system and how much strain I’ve taken off of my heart. Being that I used to have a few valves going bad, it kinda reaffirmed that last echochardiogram I had in November, which took me from having 3 degenerating valves to just 1, with a fibrillating wall (or something). So the weight loss has done incredible things for my heart, indeed! BUT, not 5,200 miles worth.
Now for those of you who have heard that saying before, I am going to link you here, which will give you a nice huge pageful of scientific type information. Here’s the part about how many miles of capillaries are in a pound of fat:
“How many miles of blood vessels are there in a pound of fat?” People write me about this every once in a while. Let’s figure it out. Assume an adipocyte is 50 microns across; it’ll vary from 10-100 depending on how fat the person is. The fatter you are, the less vascular is your fat, which is one more reason that this whole inquiry is silly. In a section of body fat, which I examine often enough under the microscope, the capillary (there has to be at least one) that supplies each fat cell is not usually visible, so I’ll assume one per adipocyte. Put a single capillary between each pair of fat cells and that’s about 20 capillaries per millimeter, or 500 capillaries per inch. Assume a pound of fat is a cube 4″ on a side, which is good enough for junk science, and that is 2000 capillaries crosswise, for a total of 8000 inches. Multiply by three for three dimensions, and this is 24,000 inches or … well, go figure. That this questions is fundamentally wrong-headed can be understood by anyone who considers whether moving a certain total number of cars through Kansas City would be easier with more highways or fewer highways. Further, vast majority of these capillaries are comletely closed at any moment during your life, and not carrying any blood. The real question isn’t, “How many extra miles of blood vessels?”, but “How much rougher is it on my heart to be fat?” Think about walking around carrying 100 lb of weights everywhere you go. The truth is that “education” and moral exhortation do not cause people to lose weight; overeating is programmed just like scratching when you itch. “
24,000 inches is only 0.3 miles. So the whole thing must have been devised by some master exaggerator! Ah well, it’s still a great thing to do for your body. 🙂
My other tidbit for the moment is my header for the day, which is meant more as a “Confucius say” than anything. I thought it funny, because someone out there has been following me around for quite some time, and even mentioned that they hope they’re not wearing stiletto’s when they step on my toes. Heh. I just built a bathroom, I think I can take on a pair of stilettos, eh?
Cat Portraits : Works in Progress
January
22
2005
Yeah! I remembered all of their names without lookin’!
I’ve enhanced the red stripes on the flag backgrounds of Ten, Tori & Emily. I’ll work on the white after the red is dry; sometimes it can take 2 days for red (aliz crimson) to dry.
Here are the backgrounds on all five of their paintings. Callie is the only one I may change, I’m not sure I like her bed color against the teal, but it didn’t photograph very well tonight for you to see what I mean.
Here’s Callie:
Nicki (beautiful gold to orange to brown gradient)
Ten:
Tori:
Emily:
Painting on Cam
January
22
2005
The webcam is on (link in the left menu), I’ll be painting on and off for the rest of the day.
Oh yea, today is Saturday. My server is going to be down later tonight – after 10PM I think for an hour or two. Just a lil heads-up.
