GJ Willis' Art Notes

happywaiting, originally uploaded by willisgirl.

The painting above is yet another picture I completed this month. I was trying to gain an understanding of how to do perspectives. I admit that my perspective painting is a little exaggerated to the point of being cartoonish. It was done on Bristol board with acrylic paint.

The rest of this entry deals with my Friday afternoon at the Hunt Valley Walmart.

Yesterday, I went to the Walmart at Hunt Valley because I ran out batteries. This time I needed them for my wireless Microsoft mouse and my walkman. The gray haired lady was there as usual however as if by magic there was just one person in front of me!

While at Walmart I actually made an appointment to see the optometrist! I think I made my appointment for next Friday afternoon. I don’t know for sure because the guy at the office never gave me an appointment slip.

At last I can be rid of my ratty red paint peeled glasses and join the land of people with tiny squinty framed glasses! I don’t like the look of those glasses because they make it seem as though the wearers are all struggling to see. However, it seems to be the only style of frame currently available. Thus, I can rejoice in the fact that I will not be alone in my squinty eyedness!

Also another exciting thing happened yesterday at Walmart. I was waiting outside the store for the #8 bus to take me downtown when I saw these two guys who I thought were just horsing around. Then one of them took off running then the other followed. I thought to myself, “Oh they're just racing! What a queer thing to do at their age.” They both looked to be in there early twenties.

Then the next thing I knew half the store poured outside to watch them. They all had concerned looks on their faces. Then I knew it wasn’t just a case of two guys horsing around. The only thing I could assume was that one of them had done something bad like shoplifted or kicked a small helpless infant. I do admit that I was pleasantly surprised to find that when the wrong doer of Walmart was finally apprehended that it was a white guy.

Today, I’m wearing a brown short sleeve Henley shirt with black shorts and black wedge healed clogs that I bought at Payless last year.

singerempty, originally uploaded by willisgirl.

The above picture is one of the paintings I completed this August. It's acrylic paint on Bristol board.

Today, the bus and light rail were both on time. So as a result of this I’ve been on time for an entire straight week! I hope that the MTA does as good a job next week as they did this week.

Last night I think there was some kind of a get together for people who are members of the crablogs web ring. I didn’t go because I’m lousy with social situations. Now, if they were going to meet at a concert or a movie theater on like they did with the artmob mail list then I would have come along.

The Crablogs get together was at some restaurant where I imagined they all sat around drank and swapped funny stories about working in the computer industry. I don’t drink and as far as talking goes I’m pretty laconic. Also my day job has nothing to do with programming computers. So even if I went I wouldn’t have much to do or say.

Yesterday, at work things were back to normal. The co-worker was back to saying, “Good Morning!” The general atmosphere was bright and cheery. The only unusual thing that happened at work was that Arnold wore a long sleeve shirt. As I’ve written before 99% of the time he wears a short sleeve button down cotton shirt. So whenever he wears a long sleeve shirt, I feel it’s blog worthy.

Today, I’m wearing an olive green t-shirt that I bought from Sears a couple of years ago. I got it because I liked the yellow-green flower design that’s emblazoned across the chest. This I believe is the only item of clothing I own that’s not from Walmart, K-Mart, or Value City. Along with the shirt, I’m wearing my black pants and black canvas Walmart tennis shoes.

newgypsy, originally uploaded by willisgirl.

This is one of the painting that I completed this month. It's an acrylic painting and it has no title just yet. Looking over it I may or may not decide to change the chair.

This morning there was what sounded like a cricket chirping rather loudly in the hallway of my apartment building. I first heard the chirping at around 5AM which is when I get up in the morning. When I first heard it I thought that maybe it was a security alarm or something like that going off. So I went downstairs to further investigate the chirping. When I made it downstairs to the front door of my building the chirping stopped. Then it started again when I went back upstairs to my apartment. I suppose those crafty little critters must be able to sense motion.

Yesterday, my dvd and soundtrack for Rushmore both arrived on the same day! I won them both on eBay a couple of weeks ago. So far it has been the only movie I’ve ever seen where after viewing it I wanted to immediately go out and buy the soundtrack. It had a nice bouncy faux 60’s sound that was irresistibly filled with piano, bells, and classical guitar sounds. The score was unique for a movie set in that era. There wasn’t any of that paint by numbers 60’s music in the movie. You know stuff like, Sugar Pie Honey Bunch’ Along the Watchtower or ‘Talking ‘Bout My Generation’ that seems to always show up in movies about that era. Former Devo front man Mark Mothersbaugh did an outstanding job scoring the movie!

An Odd Thing I’ve Noticed: Every time that Death Pool Dave or that guy from Stiffs.com comes on 98 Rock’s KML to talk about recent celebrity deaths Lopez takes the next few days off. Makes me wonder if it’s just coincidence or does having them on freak him out. As I’ve written before Lopez was recently diagnosed with cancer. The last day Lopez was live on air doing the news was Monday. Hmmmm, Monday, the last day the co-worker said ,”Good Morning!” Coincidence?

Today, I’m wearing a multi-colored print t-shirt. It has a diamond design that contains nearly every colour I use in my palette. The colours in the shirt are, purple (prism violet), blue(cerulean blue), pink(magenta), black(Payne’s Gray), and white(Titanium white). I’m wearing the shirt with stone washed jeans and tennis shoes.

The picture above is the watercolour painting I completed on Sunday. I used Prismacolor watercolour pencils. The subject matter is rare for me because I rarely do landscapes.

Today the bus and light rail were both on time. It looks like I’m going to be on time today! Hopefully, this trend will continue onto Friday.

Yesterday, the angry from chipper co worker was still acting out of character. Every morning she used to say, “Good morning!”, to everyone. She hasn’t cheerfully said, “Good morning!”, since Monday. It’s like the sunshine has gone away to be replaced by dark threatening storm clouds. I hope that what ever is wrong in her life is worked out.

On the art front: I’m surprised to find that I have completed nine paintings so far this month! It looks like August is stacking up to be a very productive month for me. I hope that I will be able to keep up the pace I’ve set.

Today, I’m wearing my rarely worn at work Today Show circular rainbow shirt. It’s paired with stone washed jeans and tennis shoes.

The bus and light rail were both on time this morning. This time the bus driver was the same one we had in the early part of last week.

Yesterday, I had a very productive painting day. I finished four paintings. Just so that no one is misled into thinking that I had a massive creative explosion, these were all paintings that I’ve been working on for some time. I rarely start and finish a painting in one day. I will be posting the paintings throughout the week.

Also on Sunday I finished up a watercolour painting. I admit watercolour is not my forte. Nevertheless, I’ll post that one as well.

Yesterday, at work I was surprised to find a co-worker who is normally chipper, mad as hell. It was really weird. She was slamming things around and cursing under her breath. I wonder if I did anything unbeknownst to me that upset her or if she was still mad at our supervisor over something he said earlier or if it was something entirely non work related.

I always feel uncomfortable when people are angry because I always feel it’s something I did but was unaware of....

The truth of the matter is that I don't feel any animosity towards anyone. For the most part I live in a bewildered, befuddled state, constantly trying to figure out how the world works. I'm too busy trying to navigate throught the NT world to purposely go out of my way to hurt someones feelings. Besides, I'm horrible at interpreting the motivations, feelings, reasonings of others. So when someone's upset I always find myself thinking, "Uh-oh, what did I do this time?"

Today, I’m wearing a purple shirt with lavender crochet trim around the neckline. With the shirt I’m wearing black pants and black canvas tennis shoes I bought from Walmart.

The bus was running late as can be so I took a cab. The cab driver I had this morning was an American. He kind of reminded me of my ex-boyfriend, Michael. I can’t think of a celebrity to compare Michael to so that you would know what the cab driver looked like. Anyway, the driver was friendly and jovial. I gave him a tip after I left the cab. He said, “Thank you young lady!” Young lady! It’s been ages since anyone’s called me that. It’s amusing to hear. Needless to say, I had a smile on my face when I left the cab.

In GJ Willis’ Art Notes web site news: I kind of like how my page counter used to always be stuck on 1500. I thought it was kind of cute in an avant garde kind of a way. You know no matter how many times you come by here it’s always 13 o’clock. I feel distressed that the number is now higher than 1500. Apparently the company that runs my displayed page counter was going through some kind of a company reconstruction or something. So for the past few months I suppose they weren’t bothering to keep track of the counters that are on web sites. Like I said it was fine by me when the page counter was stuck.

By the way the actual real life page hits is higher than the one displayed. I am so much of an insecure artist person that I have not one but two page counters on my site. One with a displayed count number the other is not displayed.

Hey, I can’t help it I have to know how many hits this site is really getting. And also I like to know what keywords people used to come here.

Which reminds me the most referenced entry on this blog has been my description of actor Eric Sheffer Stevens in a play I saw at Center Stage last year. I admit that I was laughing my head off when I wrote that one. So it’s nice to see that others found that entry funny as well.

The first blog site I found it on was CTR ALT DEL under the entry for November 13, 2003. The blog appears to have been abandoned since December 2003. The entry has appeared on other sites but they are updated more often than the example given.

Today, I’m wearing a lavender Coca Cola t-shirt I picked up from Value City a while ago along with jeans and sneakers.

bana1, originally uploaded by willisgirl.

Today, nothing particularly earth shattering happened. I just worked on my paintings. I finished up an oil pastel for wetcanvas' oil pastel forum.

I have to admit that I finished this one up rather quickly. I was done in about an hour. There are quiet a few things I'd like to change with this picture. The reason why I posted it in spite of it's short comings is because I needed to look at it outside the context of paper. Hopefully, by looking at it on a computer screen I can gain a greater insight on what needs to be changed.

As I write this I'm wearing a blue floor length sleeveless night gown.