Category: Hobbies

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Hobbies

Bear Crossing 16

Ok, so I’m not exactly nailing the whole “post every single day” goal, but I’m trying, and it’s been a good month of plenty of posts. Yesterday was a late day at work, so I just couldn’t face any more internet for the day.

And just to get this out of the way, despite my “don’t wanna” state of mind, I got myself out of bed and off to Weight Watchers. I lost .4 lb this week–not as awesome as last week’s 3.4, but a loss is a loss. This week I’ll try to eat more veggies and less bbq sauce with my chicken.

For the rest of the day, I plan to work on a painting. January is almost over, and ideally I’d like to do at least one painting per month, so I keep progressing instead of letting all my expensive supplies go to waste. However, as I’ve mentioned before, it’s been hard to sit down and put something on canvas, partly because I couldn’t decide on a subject, and partly because I’m afraid of not living up to my last two awesome paintings.

To get over that, I’ve decided that today’s painting will likely be my worst painting ever, and so be it, ’cause this is a hobby, not a job. Who cares if it sucks?

For today’s suckitude, I have selected this photo from a vacation I took in 2008, in the White Mountains of New Hampshire.

Yes, this is a young bear crossing rt. 16 in North Conway, NH. Apparently he was headed towards the hospital.
Yes, this is a young bear crossing rt. 16 in North Conway, NH. Apparently he was headed towards the hospital.

I have done a preliminary sketch, and now I just have to slap some paint onto it.

Sketch of Bear Crossing 16
Sketch of Bear Crossing 16

Ok. Here I go. Time to paint.

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Hobbies Video

Improving my 8-ball game

Totally spaced on posting yesterday, sorry about that.

League was last night–another two-win night, not that great. Talking to Delayne made me realize I’ve been ignoring a valuable tool for learning more–YouTube. I’ve been reading a lot, and asking questions from the better players in the league, but really, how could I forget about the wealth of info to be found on YouTube?

Having since corrected my lapse, I’ve learned that my stroke probably sucks, I’ve been under-appreciating the importance of the tangent line, and I tend to aim too low for the ever-troublesome draw shot. Here’s one of the videos that I think is particularly well-done (despite the frequent misspelling of “possible”):

Who knows, maybe this is the season I’ll learn how to make a jump shot!

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Gratuitous Picture Post Hobbies

Portrait of Riley

This is the portrait of my nephew that I mentioned yesterday:

Portrait of Riley
Portrait of Riley, charcoal and acrylic (Xmas present for Nan and Todd)

It was not done free-hand, of course–I suck at drawing. Instead, I took an existing photo of Riley and used Photoshop to simplify the lines and brighten up the colors and contrast. After printing it out, I charcoaled the back of the paper, then traced the image onto the canvas. After that, it was just a matter of coloring it in–a challenge in itself, of course. I couldn’t get the perfect strawberry-blond color of his hair, and the shadows under his arm and chin refused to conform to my will. But I think it’s still pretty damned good for my first portrait ever.

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Hobbies Whining

My failure to paint

I wanted to paint this weekend, but I couldn’t settle on a subject, which is what I’m finding to be the hardest part of this new hobby of mine. That, and the fact that my last two paintings (the Japanese Maple and a portrait of my nephew) came out so good that I’m now afraid of future failures.

I have a Pinterest board where I save photos of things I might want to paint someday. When I’m feeling this urge to paint, I troll the board for hours, trying to pick one thing to commit to canvas, but I have undone myself, ’cause I want to paint them all. The ones that came closest to reality this weekend were a cat on a bicycle in the snow and a cat climbing up someone’s leg. I guess I was in a cat mood.

Sadly, neither became a painting this weekend. Instead I read more of Two Graves, and watched a lot of football. Maybe next weekend.

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Hobbies Links

Wine and Canvas FTW!

I’m a huge fan of Wine and Canvas. It’s a three hour class where you can order food and drink while an artist walks you through a really cool painting from start to finish. They provide the paints, brushes and canvas, you just bring an open mind and a sense of fun. I’ve been to four of their classes since, I dunno, June? And I’ve loved it so much that I’ve been painting my own stuff at my kitchen table. Seriously, it’s a great way to spend an evening, and at $35 a class, it’s a bargain, but today Living Social has class coupons available for only $17! I’ve already bought two for myself. Check it out and take a chance on a great new hobby! (Here’s the calendar for January in Los Angeles, see if there’s anything you’d like to paint.)

Results from three of my four classes: