Waiting for paint to dry
Mar. 16th, 2010 09:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
altivoQuite literally. Cleaned up the sketch of barn and horses for the color study, and started painting. Because we are limited to only three pigments, there is more time spent mixing than actually applying paint. And because I am cautiously building up the colors in layers, a lot of drying time between washes.
Managed to get a decent approximation of burnt sienna out of the palette. Not a bad gray either, almost Payne's but not quite (a bit too bluish due to lack of any real black.) Now if I can create a burnt umber color I'll be in good shape. Yellow ochre wasn't so difficult. Doing what is essentially a landscape, earth tones are essential.
Gary is busy projecting our farm buildings onto Google Earth. It seems far too fiddly to be worthwhile, but that's the assignment. He's been at it for days, and still has to do the house roof line.
Got a fair amount done at work today in spite of a lot of distraction trying to get audiobook files loaded onto my boss's new player. She bought a Sansa Fuze (marketed by Sandisk) and all I have to say about it is don't get one. Documentation stinks, support is non-existent. They don't supply drivers with it, you can't download them from their web site either. You have to install Windows Media Player 11 or else iTunes, and the actual needed drivers come with those. Incredibly stupid. She really wanted Audible files, which will play on it if you can manage to get them loaded, but Audible doesn't warn you that when they install their manager, they assume that you already have the drivers in place from WMP or iTunes. Once we figured that out, which took several hours worth of downloading and rebooting repeatedly to satisfy Windows Update, then Audible complains of "an error" when it tries to install the audio onto the player. No explanation of what the error is, just "an error." Oddly enough, the files were actually there when she looked and they are apparently playable in spite of "an error," so she was satisfied. But it wasn't worth the effort in my opinion. I tried plugging the player into Linux and, amusingly enough, without any special driver, I could see the files on it and could have copied MP3 files directly to it. Windows, however, has to be really obtuse about requiring special drivers and only letting you use iTunes, WMP, or the Audible Manager to get files onto the thing. Windows Media Player is the most obtuse, badly designed user interface I have ever seen. (And that's saying a lot, because I've seen some real nightmares on the Macintosh in the past. Anyone remember Kai's Photo Soap?)
The temperature broke 60F today, probably the first time this year. Birds are going bonkers singing and squawking at each other. Still no crocuses, but the daffodil shoots doubled in height. We did see snowdrops blooming in Woodstock over the weekend.
OK, time to go brush the salt off that painting I think.
Managed to get a decent approximation of burnt sienna out of the palette. Not a bad gray either, almost Payne's but not quite (a bit too bluish due to lack of any real black.) Now if I can create a burnt umber color I'll be in good shape. Yellow ochre wasn't so difficult. Doing what is essentially a landscape, earth tones are essential.
Gary is busy projecting our farm buildings onto Google Earth. It seems far too fiddly to be worthwhile, but that's the assignment. He's been at it for days, and still has to do the house roof line.
Got a fair amount done at work today in spite of a lot of distraction trying to get audiobook files loaded onto my boss's new player. She bought a Sansa Fuze (marketed by Sandisk) and all I have to say about it is don't get one. Documentation stinks, support is non-existent. They don't supply drivers with it, you can't download them from their web site either. You have to install Windows Media Player 11 or else iTunes, and the actual needed drivers come with those. Incredibly stupid. She really wanted Audible files, which will play on it if you can manage to get them loaded, but Audible doesn't warn you that when they install their manager, they assume that you already have the drivers in place from WMP or iTunes. Once we figured that out, which took several hours worth of downloading and rebooting repeatedly to satisfy Windows Update, then Audible complains of "an error" when it tries to install the audio onto the player. No explanation of what the error is, just "an error." Oddly enough, the files were actually there when she looked and they are apparently playable in spite of "an error," so she was satisfied. But it wasn't worth the effort in my opinion. I tried plugging the player into Linux and, amusingly enough, without any special driver, I could see the files on it and could have copied MP3 files directly to it. Windows, however, has to be really obtuse about requiring special drivers and only letting you use iTunes, WMP, or the Audible Manager to get files onto the thing. Windows Media Player is the most obtuse, badly designed user interface I have ever seen. (And that's saying a lot, because I've seen some real nightmares on the Macintosh in the past. Anyone remember Kai's Photo Soap?)
The temperature broke 60F today, probably the first time this year. Birds are going bonkers singing and squawking at each other. Still no crocuses, but the daffodil shoots doubled in height. We did see snowdrops blooming in Woodstock over the weekend.
OK, time to go brush the salt off that painting I think.
