Wuzzup?
I have been following my New Year’s resolution pretty steadily. Painting, photography, study, socializing, reading, and doing things I enjoy. Somewhat scheduled, somewhat not. I kept a record for about a week of what I did in the morning and afternoon – in between which was lunch and a nap usually – and thought about how I felt about my day. In general, I found I enjoyed each day a great deal more. I didn’t do the same things every day (other than the usual boring daily routines), but found I did enough to find satisfaction.
Doing some watercolors was satisfying. I hope to do some later this morning before heading out to meet up with a friend. I haven’t done any gouache this year, but that is also on the agenda. Here are some of the paintings.
I also read some fiction – a favorite novel from the 1940s – and started some nonfiction, a book about photography I received as a Christmas present, Behind the Camera. It’s nice to sit outdoors with a book and a cup of coffee or tea, put my feet up, and read. The weather has varied from chilly to warmish, and so have I!
Add to that, I have been learning about a camera which I recently bought: a used Pentax (Honeywell Asahi) non-MLU (mirror lock-up) 6×7 camera. It has been frustrating and fascinating. First, the thing weighs in about 5 lbs. Lugging it around is amusing. I pulled out a tripod. It takes 120 film, and you get ten 6×7 images out of it – supposedly. Out of the 10 exposures I made, only 3 came out, and all came out under-exposed. No idea why.
As a result of these mishaps, I loaded up more film, and logged every picture I took. And did it with a second roll, too. I bracketed my images as well as varied exposure factors to get the same picture exposures (i.e. 8 @ 1/30 then 5.6 @ 1/60) using Lomo Color Negative 100 film. I took the two rolls yesterday morning, and dropped them off around noon.
Here are the three images from the first roll, which is Portra 400 – what a waste!
I am really curious as to what comes back from the photo lab – hopefully fairly soon. If these are also dismal failures, back the camera goes to the vendor!
So, nothing exciting in my life, like flying to Paris for lunch on a whim. But, some satisfaction, and some frustration, just like real life!
Ink, Yarn & Beer 
I love your paintings, they are my fave posts of yours. Re testing the new old camera, try cheap film til you get the hang of it.
Thanks for the compliment, oh Ms. Fraggy. I do appreciate it. Truthfully, painting is a first love – photography an intellectual exercise and a way to catch the world around me, though how well, no idea. And I used Lomo film for the next rounds of film through the Pentax – I have never had a camera mess up like that one (or messed up by myself) first time around. Other oldies do get weird, but can usually be figured out, though my Trip 35 may be rather unhappy these days . . . stay tuned as the film shall be discussed in the not-too-distant future.
Beautiful paintings! How do you find time to do all you do??
Ummm, Anne, I schedule it??? 🙂 Glad you like the paintings!
Anyway, it sounds like you havent the time to fit Paris in.
Oh, I can wing it!