For the last week or so I’ve been busy. The DayJob has demanded more than it’s usual 40 hours per week, AJ Ning has required an untold amount of time (read the rules please,) and I’ve just started up a class. All these things, sans the DayJob, are all things that I love and have necessary and needed bits of required attention but I don’t always suspect the shear amount of time that they will require. IN this case, AJ Ning has required an extraordinary amount of attention these past few days, in that a lot of people simply aren’t reading the rules, and then I (or one of my fabulous mods) have to fix the issue and send an email of “uh, so, you messed up, we’ve fixed it but please don’t do it again.  Then I’ve got the class and it’s required and expected amount of work. Add to that pile of stuff to do the DayJob’s extra stuff and then pile on some severe allergy issues and you got the makings for a week from hell.

Don’t get me wrong, I love AJ Ning and my class but last week, due to mostly the extra coming from the DayJob and my allergies, I felt a tad overwhelmed. I was also super irritated by my screwing up the recording of my class. Seriously it was a pisser, especially when the class went so damn well.

So this weekend I slept in and caught up on some MUCH needed rest and hit the 3 canvases I’ve got rotating through my easel. I’ve finished 2 of the 3 plus a board. I then did my thing and added another canvas to the mix and really look forward to watching that canvas develop over time.

IN addition to the all the other stuff I’ve been working on I’ve realized I’m going to need to invest in a new camera- either a new SX#IS series or a for real DSLR. *grumble* I’ve also learned that to do some of the stuff I want to do I’m probably going to need to invest in either a mac or a better laptop and a terabyte hard drive.  Every single video I’ve done takes up massive amounts of hard drive space. Not to mention that all the photos I’m taking for my new redbubble account are freaking massive. As well as the stuff I’m taking for the classes, it’s all big stuff that gets smaller the more I work on it. My 250g external is nearly full as is the 250 gigs on my laptop. I’ve got another 80g external to use but a terabyte will be needed in the future. I have about 7 years of bookbinding photos, articles, art and videos stored up in there. I suppose that the 500g of stuff I’ve got stored up isn’t bad considering its 7 years work.

Back to the canvas. Having not painted in nearly a week, it was good to look upon my 3 canvases and board with fresher eyes. Eyes not irritated by hours of work but eyes adjusted to regular life and looking upon each canvas as a puzzle. Pieces fell into place, a layer of glaze here, a layer of this color there, some thinned white here, etc. That went on until 2 of those canvases were finished. I’ve still got a big puzzle piece going but it’s manageable.

Painting, it makes you feel good.