Affinity
Art, Fun, & Nonsense.
A most evocative piece by Rockwell Kent, click for full size.
Nightmare. Rockwell Kent, Lithograph. Subject: Nightmares, Suicide.
Click for full size. Most below the fold. In the last shot, I was trying for a lovely light reflection in the street, but all that showed up were the street signs, looking rather neon. :D
A stunning shot of a Cardinal, from Kengi. Click for full size!
© Kengi, all rights reserved.
Click for full size, text translations in the comments. The 3rd image is a surviving fragment of the original wall, featuring the Duchess. Hess could have done a much better job with the dress, and he left out those amazing braids!
Click for full size. As you can see, all effort was put into making Joanna Southcott as awful as possible. Ms. Southcott was a self-styled prophetess, and claimed to be pregnant at 64 years of age, and died shortly afterward. It would seem she was held to be nothing more than a con by the medical establishment, with little consideration that she might actually believe all the nonsense she preached. The depiction of her is certainly nothing at all like her actual appearance (there’s a photo at the link.)
A Medical Inspection. Or Miracles Will Never Cease. Thomas Rowlandson, Etching coloured, 1814. Subject: Obstetrics, Prophesy, Pregnancy, Anecdotes, Religious Mania, Joanna Southcott (1750-1814).
From Avalus, click for full size! Oh, and a reminder – Chemo brain! If you send me something and it doesn’t show up, please let me know!
© Avalus, all rights reserved.
© C. Ford, all rights reserved.
Much like Valleray, pictured above, I too am desirous of a long, long sleep. So, I’ll probably be around sometime Monday, but I don’t know when. Things will start eventually, and there’s plenty to peruse from this weekend, because I suspect most people had the sense to be out and about enjoying themselves rather than sitting in front of a computer. I will definitely be gone on Tuesday, because I need to get away from this house, this computer, this everything. We’re going to go travel gravel for a while.
Yesterday evening found me distracted again, chasing one tangent after another until I landed on Cornelis van Haarlem (1562-1638), a most talented painter. He was a Northern Mannerist, and given all the foibles of that particular style, he made his characters luminous and achingly beautiful, even when they were misbehaving. Click all images for full size. The first painting which caught my eye was A Monk With A Beguine, painted in 1591:
Een monnik en een begijn, A monk with a beguine, by Cornelis Cornelisz van Haarlem.
The detail and light are wonderful, it’s all so…lustrous. And reluctantly lusty. You can almost feel their consciences attempting to get the better of them, and failing. The story of the Beguines is an interesting one. I think there’s a lot to be said for such structures as the beguines, just sans religion. At the time, this was a good option for a lot of women, when they had few choices in life.
What grabbed my attention next was Venus and Adonis:
Venus and Adonis, by Cornelis Cornelisz van Haarlem.
You can see in Adonis’s face there’s some problem, one which has him quite emotional, while Venus has the solid air of confidence and casual comfort. Again, the details are astonishing in their beauty and light; the pearls are translucent.
I’ll add just one more here, The Fall of the Titans, which leads me to the conclusion that all men should have a dragonfly for their dick. Yep. Here’s a detail first, then the full painting:
Detail from The Fall of the Titans by Cornelis Cornelisz van Haarlem.
The Fall of the Titans by Cornelis Cornelisz van Haarlem.
Look at the faces, those expressions. Incredibly poignant, once you can stop looking at the dragonflied and butterflied* genitals. Also, dragonfly dick and the character at the bottom right are same person.
*Not meant in that way!
© C. Ford, all rights reserved. Bad flash, sorry. Click for full size.
Good tools are important. Having the right tools is very important too. I can highly recommend the Staedtler sharpener (mine is in obvious need of a clean). It works beautifully and renders a very sharp tip. Speaking of sharp tips, everyone who has worked with pencil, colour or not, is familiar with point breakage during drawing. This sends tiny bits of core all over the place. If you’re working in ordinary pencil, it’s not a major deal if it smears, as it’s easily erased. That is so not the case with colour pencils, Prismacolor in particular. Normally, I use a fox tail brush to clean, but these can cause problems with colour pencils, in that no matter how lightly you wield one, it’s still heavy enough to cause many a smear. The solution? Feathers. I use 3 types of feather. Not only can you pick up minuscule bits of pencil with them, they are very good to brush an area of your work without smearing. The turkey feather is the lightest, and excellent at picking up bits; the other two are stiffer, with more weight, and good for an overall sweep. If you have a bunch of bits and dust, gently press the feather down on them, and it will pick them up. Don’t forget to clean your feather after. Just using your fingers on the feathers works fine.
Living rural, I don’t have to go far to find feathers, but if you’re deep in an urbanscape, feathers of all types are easily found in craft stores. The benefit there is that you can buy feathers by the bag, so you’ll have more than enough for your needs.
ETA:
22 seconds in the microwave, kept all the info. Just sharpened it, seems to have worked. This was also a sharp reminder of a major failing on my part – not paying attention. I’m so colour focused, I completely ignore observing the condition of the pencil. Now that I had a very good look at this one, there are a number of gouges and scores, particularly on the ‘back’ of it, and there was a suspicious piece transparent tape, too. So, while it’s good to know you can fix your pencil up, it pays to be very observant of the pencil itself before you bring it home.
Click for full size. Text translation in the comments.
Cardinal.
Bishop.
Click for full size. There are five of these, so most below the fold.
Singular Effects Of The Universal Vegetable Pills… Charles Jameson Grant, Lithograph coloured. Subject: Proprietary Medicines, James Morison, Morison’s Pills, Vegetable compounds.