Ah, the lack of blatherage

I'd say I'm sorry for the recent silence, but as I said not that long ago, I'm really not anymore. Better an empty blog than a lengthy whinge about the weather or my lack of sleep or my screwed up digestion or... well, anything that you've already heard too much of, to be honest.

Not even the fact that my three primary canvasses still have nothing on them but primary colours. Man, when I get blocked I get blocked. I mean, I even know what I want to do to finish those canvasses and it shouldn't be too hard, but they're still just sitting there. Ah well, maybe tonight I'll get out my lamp and do something about it.

Have I ever told you about my lamp, she says knowing full well that this is now going to become her post topic even though there's almost nothing to say about a lamp? I have a drawing lamp. Not a swing arm type lamp that I'd attach to my non-existent drafting table or anything exciting like that, but a stand lamp that I use for drawing. My apartment has crappy circa-1970 lighting (as do most crappy circa-1970 apartments, really), and it didn't take too long after I moved in to realise that if I wanted to do anything arty in the six months of the year when the sun goes down at stupid early in the day, I'd need a lamp.

So I went to Wally World and bought myself a floor lamp. I think it cost me twenty bucks, if that. It's one of those three-headed dealies (like this, but think mondo cheap) that I don't think you'd ever want to use for general room lighting, because unless you put the weakest bulbs in the world in it the glare would be absolutely unsettling. Not mood lighting, for sure. In fact, even with my apartment's virtual darkness I never even have the lamp plugged in unless I'm using it for drawing.

So why would I even want a harsh lamp, then? Especially for art? Well, it does have the advantage of having adjustable heads that I can angle to make interesting shadows, so it's actually kind of handy for still lifes. Or plants, which is what I'd use it more for. Time was, to get myself through the winter blahs I'd buy myself a cheap bouquet or flowering plant, set it on my table, and then just draw it every night as it changed and withered (well, not so much the live plants. I'd try to keep them going for a while, naturally). It always made for an interesting exercise in shape and shadow, the contortions flowers would go through before they gave up and dropped petal entirely.

It was good practice. I should start doing it again this winter.

Incidentally, a few years ago when my bathroom light switch broke and the managers took three months (no, I'm not kidding) to get someone in to fix it, the only way I could light the bathroom was by plugging the drawing lamp into an extension cord and parking it in the doorway (the cord wouldn't reach any further). Fun times, paying rent for service like that.

Does this win for Most Useless Post Ever yet? It's got to be getting close.



Aaanyway, I should be getting back to work. As a measure of how much social media has changed my job, work today for me partly involves tweeting about stuff coming in for a swap meet. No, I'm not kidding. Check the work feed, for which I've never given you a link...