Orchid…Home Stretch

By on Jan 28, 2021

  After just sitting around for a week I’ve come back and really gotten into it. What has really made this great is the time I’ve been spending with my daughter. My oldest is starting to have sleep problems. She comes by it honest, both her mom and I have trouble sleeping. Really, who doesn’t these days? She is also dealing with the issues of growing up. She has been really frustrated, so in an attempt to circumvent some of that frustration we have been drawing and talking.     She has really started opening up to me and also working through some of her feelings and frustrations. Our drawing sessions are always low-key and we avoid screens. We stream some lo-fi beats and draw. I’ve been pushing her on her drawings and it has been paying off. She just did a drawing last night that she thought she was done with after about 15 minutes. I suggested...

Art History: Girl with the Pearl Earring by Johannes Vermeer

By on Jan 27, 2021

  I can’t lie, I just don’t care much for this painting. For me it is alot like the Mona Lisa. It is so ubiqutous that it has no appeal for me. I am not saying it is a bad painting or that it isn’t worth of praise I just think it has oversaturated the market. People have written poems about it and movies have been made about it or focusing on it. Even Banksy riffed on the painting for one of his works. There is clearly something special about it that captures peoples’ attention. The tronie, a Dutch term for a painting of a head that isn’t a portrait, was done in 1665 by Johannes Vermeer. Vermeer was a Dutch painter who fell into obsurity after his death but an art historian rediscovered his works and he is now considered one of the greatest painters of the Dutch Golden Age. The real reason I wanted to highlight this piece is because of the work done...

Recipe Time: Beef Roast

By on Jan 26, 2021

  My wife grew up on pot roasts and casseroles. I grew up on fried chicken and homemade mac ‘n cheese. I still am not a fan of pot roasts. I think they turn out dry and bland, but in an attempt to be a good husband I decided I would try to get excited about beef roasts. I spent the last year working on making a beef roast that I wouldn’t mind eating. I started the process by picking out a cut of meat that was affordable and commonly available. Something that I could experiment with but was consistent enough in its cut that I could make tweaks to my recipe and be able to tell a difference. After a few trips to the store I settled on an Eye of Round. The store I frequent has nearly the same cut every week. Same size and the same shape. So I settled on 2.5 lb hunk of meat.     I then went about searching different methods for prep and settled on tying the roast...

Quick Pics (01.25.21)

By on Jan 25, 2021

Black Holes

By on Jan 22, 2021

  Black Holes are fascinating and terrifying.   This Black Hole Is Really Taking Its Time Eating a Poor Star http://playground.knitdogproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/IO9BlackHole.mp4   In November of 2014, observers spotted a burst of light that they thought was a supernova but when astrophysicist Anna Payne started analyzing the data she noticed that the burst was reoccurring every 114 days. In other words, it wasn’t a supernova. It was something else. Click Here for the whole article.     Not 100% sure what a black hole actually is? Check out this informative article from NASA, which includes a nifty Guide to Black Hole Safety. Click Here for the full article.   But what if you did fall into a black hole?       And now that you know a little more about them, you might be happy to know that they are actually alot easier to...

More Orchid and a bit of Buzzing…

By on Jan 21, 2021

  I can’t lie, I have not been very productive this week. So many things in the air but the last two nights I just haven’t had the will to do any work. I haven’t been at a total standstill but close. Here is some progress on the orchid…     I’m starting to like the direction this is going. The extra time and effort is really starting to pay off. I think I might make some prints on wood of this after it is done. I also messed around with this idea a little more…     This was a little less successful. Some has to do with the way the markers lay on the substrate, some of it was the design not really working. The first drafts were more simple and clean and worked much better. My daughter colored one too but she was really unhappy with how the marker looked too and asked me not to post it. She chose a really nice color scheme...