ardenstone » Christy

My Digital (Re)Emergence

Ardenstone — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 19:31:02 +0000

So here I am, you know, updating my blog for the first time this year. Fortunately it’s only June so it’s only a tad late. The one line summary is that life is great and I’m married.

More details:

I somehow managed to get hitched to the most beautiful woman in the world. I’m still a tad dazed at my luck, but my plan is to enjoy the fact indefinitely. We’re collecting a list of pictures folks took on our wedding website.
Christy had an art show recently which went fabulously except that she sold a bunch of her work before we managed to snap any good photographs. It was an amazing show, and, I suspect, the first of many. Very exciting.
We’re planning a honeymoon to Machu Picchu. Have any advice? We’d love to hear it.
Given that my job involves thinking about student and staff access to online University resources, it’s really time for me to get back into the online world. About a year ago I stopped checking several of my email accounts, stopped logging in to FaceBook, LinkedIn, stopped attending various organizations, etc. My work load hit about 80 hours/week (some weeks less, some weeks a chunk more) so I walked away from a lot of things. Not a particularly well mannered way of organizing my life, but it’s what I did. This weekend I’ve started slowly picking those pieces up once more and trying to re-integrate various digital networks into my busy-but-thankfully-not-that-busy life. I’m still gearing myself up to take on FaceBook.
New tools I’m using:
- Digsby is looking like a really lovely way to push a wide array of digital clutter into a more central feed.
- MyPunchBowl is a competitor to e-vite and it’s about a million times nicer. I’m using it to organize the Bourbon Shootout and it has features like a Potluck list (what goes better with a bourbon tasting than a potluck, after all?) that I like. I do miss evite’s mix of reservations and response messages all on the same page, though. The Guest Management (a title I cackle at every time I see) screen is ok, but a little to pared down for my tastes (very web 2.0). Anyhow, I’m still on the fence as to whether it’s too much or not, but it’s lovely to see an alternative.
- I just installed, wp-to-twitter so this post will be the first test of the blog being syndicated on Twitter. Coincidentally, this will be my first twitter post. I signed up for twitter due to a lot of factors, but mainly I’m going to blame Tavern Wench.
I’m totally looking forward to The Bourbon Shootout. Details will follow.
Also seeking things like a new digital camera, a website for Christy to put her art on, any bright ideas about how to present University resources to prospective, current and future students in a way they’d be interested in (we have a couple of exciting projects underway), new hikes to take in San Diego, etc.

So, how’s life with you?

“Lilies”

Ardenstone — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 03:05:34 +0000

This is another one of Christy’s special “sketches” made by putting oil pastels on top of india ink and then scratching down with a razer.

This is the first one she’s done that wasn’t about people. Instead, she took pictures of the lilies around our apartment complex through the winter, and then based the sketch on those. It’s pretty fun, and she knocked it out from scratch to finish this afternoon!

“Why Do My Hands Hurt So Much?”

Ardenstone — Sun, 06 May 2007 17:30:12 +0000

This piece is also titled, “Self Portrait As A Zombie.” It’s the last in this series of three sketches (“Sick” was the first and “Everything Hurts” the second) all using layers of India ink and pastels, then scraped off with a razor blade.

Zombie Hands! Otherwise known as: one of many reasons joint pain sucks.

“Everything Hurts”

Ardenstone — Sun, 29 Apr 2007 18:21:03 +0000

“Everything Hurts” is another sketch by Christy done in two sessions over a weekend. For a while, every joint in her body was causing her pain.

A detail shot:

Finally, a shot of Christy modeling after the sketch was done:

Sick

Ardenstone — Sun, 22 Apr 2007 16:16:52 +0000

Christy has had a rough few months, and a couple of weekends ago she took a break from the portrait to do a quick “sketch” about that period. She titled it “Sick” and created it by adding pastels on top of India ink, and then used a razor blade to draw by scraping the pastel off.

A zoomed in shot, showing some of the detail:

I added another version, taken in the sun, after the jump.

Another shot, this one taken in the sun to show better detail:

“The Epicurean” time lapse

Ardenstone — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 05:02:33 +0000

The main reason we took pictures as Christy was working on her portrait of me was so I could try and give setting up time lapse a shot. We had some difficulties since the aisle floating around a lot during painting, and the camera was also in use between paintings. We rigged up some masking tape to mark where the aisle should go, and how things were positioned, and this helped a lot. Unfortunately, things still shifted from shot to shot, especially when one of us would forget to set everything up right before snapping that set of photos. Even worse than these was the lighting. With our sliding glass door in back of the aisle, the painting would look totally different during the day or night. We could usually get away without a flash, but we never had enough light sources to really show the depth of color without it. Unfortunately, the flash almost always added glare (using a tiny hand-held camera with fixed flash), so I tried to use mostly ones without the flash.

All that being said, I hacked together what kind of time lapse I could. This shows the process from poorly assembled, stock canvas, through disassembly, rebuilding and painting. We hope you enjoy it.

Weekly painting by Christy #9

Ardenstone — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 16:05:57 +0000

It’s done, and a heck of a thing it is, too. Here we are in the home stretch:

and then she finished it up, added a signature, and the thing is finished. In reality this took her maybe ten sessions total, which seems like working at light speed to me. I’ll have a time lapse version of all of these posted in the near future. For now, enjoy the finished product:

There’s more art to come (she did another piece the other weekend), but for now we hope you’ve enjoyed watching it come together!

Weekly painting by Christy #8

Ardenstone — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 03:38:38 +0000

This is the second-to-last week for this series as it’s almost done! The finished product isn’t much different than these photos, and this week I’m actually posting the same painting twice. Once without any flash and once with a soft flash on. The flash distorts the colors, but brings out a ton more detail which indicates I really need to set up a different lighting situation for the final shot. Something to do this week…

Without a flash:

With a soft flash:

Weekly painting by Christy #7

Ardenstone — Sun, 25 Mar 2007 18:09:36 +0000

Well folks, it’s Sunday morning and I should be studying, which means it’s time for the latest installation of Christy’s painting! She started working on the skin, so zombie status is fully revoked:

This second picture is a bit dim, I’m afraid. Still, you can see she’s adding in shadows and lighting effects:

Weekly painting by Christy #6

Ardenstone — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 17:29:37 +0000

The eyes are filled in which does wonders for my return from zombie-hood. There’s also some highlights (shading?) of the skin.

Christy has been excited to work on the martini glass, especially the bright blue (Magellan) martini. The concept of painting vibrant liquids with oil paints hurts my brain a little, but even her early “sketching” is looking great.