My New Home

I haven't done any drawing this past week because I've been moving my online home. You can now find me at http://capappasart.com/. I've been thinking about it for awhile but decided to just go ahead with it. I originally started this blog after my original wordpress blog broke, but I really don't like blogger that much. Wordpress offers a lot more flexibility, plus, I wanted a new domain. Someday I might hire somebody to make it really nice. I imported all my posts there and it worked pretty well except for one comment that I accidentally deleted.

I am still working on setting everything up the way I want it. Overall, I want something that looks clean and simple. I did make my first post there and write a new about page as well as a page just for links. I'd love it if you'd come to visit.

The Whippet Essence

These are some sketches of Reuben and Olivia, some Whippet dogs that I have gotten to know over the past few months. Whippets are extremely fidgety dogs and they have a lot of energy. This makes sketching them while awake both challenging and rewarding. I wish I had more opportunities like this to sketch living, moving things. I have a fear that my drawings might become cramped or static if I don't get the practice.

The Hall of Justice

I made this quirky drawing while in the Jury Pool waiting room (it was too big to scan at once so I had to stitch two scans together). I had only been called in for Jury Duty one other time, and not in this particular courthouse. By the time I drove into the city, found the courthouse, figured out how the parking garage worked, went through security, and found the waiting room, I was feeling quite out of sorts. I had a lot of energy in the beginning of the day and worked on this sketch from 8:00 until about 10:30. Then my arm began to ache so I settled into my chair and did...nothing. Well, I did watch a few game shows and then some soaps. I also eavesdropped on a conversation between two public school teachers bellyaching about their benefits packages. They ended up sending everybody home and never used a single one of us for a jury, but it was not a wasted day for me. In my opinion, I got an interesting spread in my sketchbook and some time off to think.

Here is a blog post by Roz about her jury duty sketching experience. New Englanders aren't always the friendliest people so I didn't want to run the risk of drawing anybody while in an enclosed space, but it would have been interesting for sure.

Provenance: Book Review

In my last post I wrote about how I was trying to spend more time offline. One of the things I have started doing is visiting the library and reading more books. I struggle with books because many that I pick up are duds and either bore me or depress me so I never end up finishing. Sometimes I like to read a book that someone I trust recommended to me because I have more confidence that I will actually like it.

Recently, I read the book Provenance by Laney Salisbury and Aly Sujo about John Drewe and John Myatt who carried off an elaborate art forgery scam for years in the 80's and 90's. Even though it is a nonfiction book I found it very entertaining and it felt more like reading a novel to me. John Drewe was the classic con man sociopath type who convinced everyone that he was a physicist and involved with the upper echelons of the British government. John Myatt was a single father who trying to make it as an artist by selling paintings "in the style of" famous artists but barely paying his bills. Eventually, Drewe convinced Myatt to paint outright forgeries while Drewe sold them at auction making a huge profit. Even though some of the paintings were quite bad, Drewe was able to convince people that they were originals by infiltrating into museum archives and falsifying documents to create fake provenances (hence the title). Eventually, it all came crashing down when some persistent art experts became suspicious after catching a few sloppy mistakes and Myatt ended up cooperating with the investigators.

As someone who went to school for history, I really appreciated all the research that the authors did to come up with this book. I also developed a loathing for this John Drewe character who really ended up doing a lot of damage by contaminating historical archives, not to mention all the forged paintings that are still floating around out there thought to be originals. John Myatt was the most interesting to me. It's true that he was in a vulnerable place when Drewe led him astray. However, I still wonder what goes on in a person's mind when they get caught up in something they clearly know is wrong, yet ignore their conscience for years. He did end up going to prison for a couple of months and actually used this incident to launch a legitimate art career painting "genuine fakes."

One thing I would have liked about the book is if they would have included a photo of Drewe and Myatt so I could have pictured what they looked like. Likewise, I would have liked to see some examples of the forged artwork. The artwork that Myatt was forging was of modern artists that I personally don't have much interest in, but I still would have liked to see some examples. I did some googling and did find this article which shows some pictures and also Myatt's website.

Spending Time Offline

About a year and a half ago I stopped watching TV at home. It was mainly because I moved and the TV was in a very cold room, which was uncomfortable and I had to go out of my way to turn it on. In the beginning it was such a relief not to spend mindless hours in front of the TV. I started to do other things again, like read books, draw more and cook for myself. After some time though, I began replacing the time I spent watching TV with time wasted online. The effect was the same. I was passively consuming instead of actually doing things. I've come to realize that I need to reign myself in once again.

I've recently come across some articles that dealt with this topic. Michael Nobbs featured this guest post by Laura Barnard on how to find offline inspiration. It has some good ideas, especially the library idea which I have used a lot myself. In this post, Kate wrote about trying to set a routine working in time that is banned from the computer entirely. I am thinking about trying something like this out myself, maybe by pre-posting blogs so I don't even have an excuse to turn on the computer. I will let everyone know how this all works out.

I made this drawing after I made an impulse purchase at the mall last weekend. I never did have my own Christmas tree but I am planning on it in the future, so clearanced ornaments aren't that bad after all. They are pretty cute too, and I might make a sketch of them.

Bolinas, CA - Virtual Paintout

Shoreline Highway 1, Bolinas, CA

The February location for the Virtual Paintout is the San Francisco Bay Area, to honor Google who made it all possible and celebrate the one year anniversary of the blog. I have to say that originally February's location wasn't horribly inspiring to me. I've never been to California before and perhaps my mental image is a bit skewed, but the first thing I think of when I imagine the state is a fiscal disaster zone. I must have seen the demon sheep ad too many times. Anyway, I was pleasantly surprised when I was looking around Google Streetview. I think I might like to visit California someday just to see all the natural beauty. I was amazed at how many green plants there were everywhere. This particular view reminds me a lot of something I might see at home (and I admit that Massachusetts doesn't have that great of a reputation either).

Emotional Maintenance

Today I am feeling a bit thoughtful, so please forgive me for launching into a discussion on mind-body interactions. (But hey, you might find something useful here though.) First, about the drawing. I drew this from a photo I snapped while visiting Cape Cod this past October. I took a ton of photos of seagulls when I was there, but none of them were particularly good, partly because of all the rain. I wasn't really too happy with this drawing at the time and I just found it while organizing my scans on my computer. But it wasn't so horrible to leave it unseen, so I thought I'd show all of you.

For the past two days, I've been babying and pampering my arm, but it has still been bothering me. I think a small part of me was thinking that I'm having a physical problem like radial nerve entrapment or something scary like that. I have been paying attention though, and the pain always gets better when I am doing something or talking to someone that is making me feel happy and relaxed, which is classic TMS. This morning I decided that I was going to try to do things even if they were simple because I was sick of wasting time all day. I can say that even though my arm isn't all better, it isn't horribly worse either, and it feels good to be active.

The books on the subject say that if one is having a relapse of TMS, there must be some sort of very powerful suppressed emotions in the subconscious and you have to go to a psychotherapist to get over it. Something in me rejected that because 1) I am not a fan of Freud and 2) I never suffered anything really bad like childhood abuse to lead to such horrible repressed emotions. I have had quite a nice life actually.

I have begun to think that it is more important to take care of emotions as they arise as more of a maintenance program to keep myself pain free. Two years ago, I realized that my pain was caused by negative emotions and the pain went away, but I mistakenly thought that I would never have a problem again. I didn't realize that the same problem would crop up if I didn't change my ways. Now, two years later, I have allowed all sorts of tension to build up in me again and I am in the same position as I was before. Now I am looking for ways that I can take care of myself in such a way that this doesn't become an ongoing problem.