Welcome to one of the most active flamenco sites on the Internet. Guests can read most posts but if you want to participate click here to register.
This site is dedicated to the memory of Paco de Lucía, Ron Mitchell, Guy Williams, Linda Elvira, Philip John Lee, Craig Eros, Ben Woods, David Serva and Tom Blackshear who went ahead of us.
We receive 12,200 visitors a month from 200 countries and 1.7 million page impressions a year. To advertise on this site please contact us.
|
|
|
My artwork website
|
You are logged in as Guest
|
|
Users viewing this topic: none
|
|
Login  | |
|
   
BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
|
 RE: My artwork website (in reply to estebanana)
|
|
|
quote:
have some weird obsession with WWII aircraft, not that I want wars to happen, but out of some reverence for beautifully built objects. And all the metaphorical things that go along with aircraft. And drawings of bugs with wings. -
Great that you have created a website to display your art work, Stephen. This will serve to institutionalize your previous efforts on the Foro, best represented by your "Late Night Shop Drawings" of a year or so ago.
A couple of thoughts. The ME-262 would have been a formidable fighter had it been introduced earlier in the war. By the time it was flying combat missions, there were too few of them, and the German pilots had not mastered the aircraft's maneuverability sufficiently to maximize its potential. For example, the closing speed, both in a frontal attack and from the rear, was so fast that it was difficult to shoot down the intended target. And by 1944, the Luftwaffe had deteriorated badly. Although the Germans still manufactured plenty of fighters, the first generation of pilots had all been killed by 1943, and the Germans never trained sufficient numbers to replace them. The Allied bombing of fuel depots wreaked havoc as well.
Regarding the Japanese Zero, the British military historian Max Hastings has written in his seminal work, "Inferno: The World at War, 1939-1945," that having so daunted the Allies in 1941-42, the Zero became wholly outclassed by 1943. Hastings writes that the Zero had been described as an "origami aircraft"--light, graceful, superbly maneuverable, but frail and offering negligible concessions to pilot safety. During the latter part of the Pacific campaign, the Japanese, like the Germans, lacked well-trained pilots. They turned to Kamikaze attacks on American ships, and for these they just needed pilots who could aim the aircraft at the intended target. Not much skill required.
Keep the art work coming, Amigo!
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
|
|
|
|
REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Dec. 4 2016 16:52:12
 |
|
Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
|
|
RE: My artwork website (in reply to estebanana)
|
|
|
Great stuff Estebanana--
My relationship with airplanes goes back to some of my earliest memories, when I was three years old, but it actually must pre-date them.
At that time we lived on Randolph Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas. The flight line with the aircraft hangars was just a short walk from our quarters. Of course I was forbidden to go there on my own, but I succumbed to temptation more than once and went AWOL (Absent Without Leave). The Line Chief, the senior non-commisioned officer in charge of aircraft maintenance, was a friend of mine. He would show me some of the fine points of aircraft maintenance, then send me home in his Air Corps pickup truck, driven by one of his corporals, so I could stray no further.
In addition to his Army Air Force career, my father and his partner were the first Piper aircraft dealers in San Antonio. They owned a small private airport with a couple of hangars, and ran a flight school. Dad and Carl Crawford, one of the flight instructors flew to county fairs around Texas, put on aerobatic shows and hopped passengers afterward for $5 per head, pretty good money in the late 1930s-early 1940s.
Here we are coming back from Fredericksburg in Dad's Spartan C3-225, with the supercharged 225 horsepower Wright J-6 radial engine. I'm the little kid who always looked at the camera instead of posing like I was supposed to.
The photo was taken when we stopped off at Kerrville, by Dad's cousin John Horn, with his 4"x5" Graflex, processed and printed in his home darkroom.
The paint job on the Spartan on display at the Pioneer Airport in Oshkosh, Wisconsin was pretty much a Spartan trademark, though Carl Crawford had his Great Lakes painted in a similar color scheme, to look cool for the airshows.
Actually it was mention of the T-33 which triggered this reminiscence. Thanks Anders. At age 52 Dad was the oldest person to go through jet school at the time. May still be. I was in high school. When he got back to Washington, DC he took me for a ride in a T-33 out over Chesapeake Bay and the Eastern Shore. Once we were in clear airspace he asked, "Ready for some maneuvers?" "Sure." "Look at the ground and orient yourself." Then he pulled some aerobatics. To this day I have never figured out exactly what we did. He leveled out and asked, "Which way is north?" I replied, "I'm not even sure which way is up."
Dad learned to fly in a Curtiss JN-4 "Jenny" open cockpit, fabric and wood biplane. The last plane he was checked out in was the F-105.
Keep 'em coming Estebanana. Airplanes have always been close to my heart and soul.
RNJ
Images are resized automatically to a maximum width of 800px
 Attachment (2)
|
|
|
|
REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Dec. 4 2016 22:44:55
|
|
estebanana
Posts: 9351
Joined: Oct. 16 2009
|
|
RE: My artwork website (in reply to estebanana)
|
|
|
Thanks everyone. I'll put more up soon.
On the Me 262, a friend of mine said he read the account Chuck Yeager gave of his encounter with one while protecting a US bombing run out of England. I read Yeager's biography in 1995, so I don't remember this, but I trust my friends reporting on the subject. He said Yeager engaged with a 262 presumably in a P-51, and he managed through his great skill to shoot out an engine and get to flame out. Yeager sad this broke the dog fight, but the 262 did not slow down and out ran him finally getting way.
I also recently watched a documentary about the Me 163 which I found vindicating. The development of the Me 163 was significant ultimately because it was the first research into a delta wing design and had a lot of influence over the next generation of aircraft that work on those principles. The fun part was finding out what a spectacular failure one of the test pilots was.
On one of the violin making boards I got into a side discussion with a German guy and an American woman who both fancy themselves WWII aircraft aficionados. The Me 163 program was slow to develop and finally got green lighted to move along more swiftly when the high command gave the OK for the two main test pilots, one of them called Rudi Opitz, to get additional staff support and ground crew. Along with that came some PR work once the little rocket plane had gone through enough design changes to be more or less stable. Hanna Rietsch the female pilot whom the Nazi high command used as a propaganda spokes person wanted to fly the 163 so she used her political clout to get into the program.
My friends on the violin website cited her as a great fighter pilot and I objected citing the Russian 'Night Witches' group as the only female fighter outfit in WWII. They insisted that Rietsch was a fighter pilot too and I said no she was not. They argued that she had the training and could fly an ME 109, flew the 262 and also the 163. I objected on the basis that she never few any combat missions and that simply having the requisite skills for aerial combat was not the same as being a fighter pilot. I based this on knowing that during WWII the fighter pilots were creating the tactics as they learned on the job in the air against the aircraft and pilots on the other side. WWI tactics did not count, and each fighter group had to learn in the air and pass the information on to the new pilots coming in. For that reason I disqualified her as a fighter pilot, she had no training in combat and was mainly a propaganda figure. Oh boy they objected and howled, bloody liar!
The other reason I refused to give Reitsch any credit is because she was an unrepentant Nazi until the day she died in 1978. The two interlocutors cried again and said I was classing a great aviator in the same box with the fluffy American female pilot Jackie Cochrane, who probably played on her connections to get into fly planes - anyway I never said anything about Cochrane, who also was not a fighter pilot. I never said this to them, but I consider Rietsch a terrorist. The reason is because she was pushing a plan at the end of the war to make an assault on London with a squadron of manned V-1 bombs. In other words a piloted suicide bomb mission into civilian targets over England. I did not want to get into that with them, because they would have brought up the Kamikaze' missions and would argue it's the same thing. The Kamikaze' mission was to block US movement toward the home islands by attacking military targets, not unarmed civilians on the ground. Reitsch advocated nothing less than a terror attack on innocent non combatants which would include children, women and civilian infrastructure when the war was already lost.
As is turns out Reitsch did not fair well as an Me 163 test pilot. Rudi Opitz gave an account of Rietsch's one and only Me 163 flight. He said she was rushed about getting to know the aircraft and that she was sent in by some high ranking brass in Luftwaffe against the wishes of the Nazi party who saw Rietsch mainly as a moral building asset for Germany. They wanted her healthy and active in public. She herself had other ideas and was always trying to fly new aircraft. He said she was not as skilled as her reputation implied. Nevertheless Opitz briefed her and cleared her to make a 163 flight.
The 163 takes off under liquid fuel rocket power and typically makes a steep climb shortly after being airborne. The Komet makes a short powered flight the duration of which is between 7 and 12 minutes and then glides back to Earth to land on a nose skid and two small wing tip skids. In order to take off the Komet has a releasable under carriage that looks like two small tractor wheels. Opitz said it was tricky to calculate the right moment to let them go because of the chance that the wheels would counter bounce off the runway and hit the bottom of the small airplane with great force, possibly jarring the plane enough to disturb the tanks which hold the two components to the rocket fuel. In the instance that the two fuels come in contact outside the rocket engine, the aircraft would explode instantly.
Rietsch was finally belted into the 163 and the engine was ignited. She was pushed down runway by the powerful engine, and became airborne. She was unable to release the wheels and the airplane got away from her and she crash landed not far from the runway in a field. She was not killed which is amazing given the volatility of the T-1 - T-2 rocket fuel. That was her one and only Komet flight, so much for great fighter pilot.
As a consequence of Reitsch almost getting herself killed the Nazi party put the Me 163 project on the bench for investigation and almost killed the program on account of Rietsch's near death in the Komet. Rudi Opitz said a few months later the project was allowed to continue, but it was so close to the end of the war that there was never hope the Komet would see much action. The civilian aircraft design benefits of the research on delta wing configurations was the eventual development of the SST commercial airliner, and post WWII the many jets that used delta wing designs. They learned the fundamental aerodynamics from that one small craft designed by Alexander Lippisch, who moved to the US after the war and made models of his designs and flew them in grassy fields with his American grand children.
_____________________________
https://www.stephenfaulkguitars.com
|
|
|
|
REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Dec. 4 2016 23:20:07
|
|
BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
|
|
RE: My artwork website (in reply to Anders Eliasson)
|
|
|
quote:
When I look at the paintings of the ME 262, I don't think about WW2 and about how this or that mechanical thing designed to destroy was compared to another mechanical thing designed to do the same. I think about what a darn good sculpture it is and I find that Stephen has caught a lot of that spirit.
Stephen certainly has captured the sculpted beauty and symmetry of the ME-262. But one can appreciate both the sculpted beauty and symmetry of the aircraft while acknowledging the lethal purpose for which it was designed.
I am reminded of William Blake's poem "The Tiger," particularly the first two stanzas.
"Tiger, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?"
The fearful beauty and symmetry of the tiger, made even more awesome by its very lethal nature. I get the same sense of awe with the ME-262. Beauty combined with an element of danger.
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
|
|
|
|
REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Dec. 5 2016 17:06:20
|
|
Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
|
|
RE: My artwork website (in reply to BarkellWH)
|
|
|
My father participated in both the planning and execution of the fire bombing of Tokyo, which killed more people than either of the atomic bombs. Tokyo was not the only city targeted by LeMay's fire bombing campaign.
Like most of his generation, Dad had no doubt whatsoever that the cause was just. Nor, like most of his generation, did he speak about his experiences.
Almost immediately after coming home from the Marianas Dad was assigned to MacArthur's staff for the Occupation of Japan. On his way he was tasked with taking the first contingent of occupying troops from the USA to Japan.
When he came home from Japan more than a year later, he recalled entering Tokyo Bay aboard the troop ship, to dock at Tokyo's port. He said, "The docks and port facilities were mostly intact, just as we planned. When you walked a block inland, you could see all the way to the Imperial Palace. There was hardly a house or a building standing."
That was all he had to say about it. I was watching him when he said it. I will never forget the look in his eyes.
During a little more than a year on MacArthur's staff he had learned a little about Japan, gotten to know a few Japanese, and had seen the effect of the war on the people. Undoubtedly he must have learned things about the Emperor's role in the war which became known to the public only in the late 1990s, things which Dad never spoke about to anyone, presumably honoring an oath of secrecy.
During that same homecoming conversation he handed my mother a present. She unwrapped a full dress kimono of the very highest quality. Mother was a more than competent seamstress. She made tailored suits for herself, out of pride and pleasure in her craftsmanship. But none of us had ever seen anything remotely like the utter magnificence of the silk and complex embroidery of that kimono.
Mother gasped with pleasure and excitement, then asked, "Where on earth did you get this?"
"I bought it from a waitress at the Imperial Hotel."
"What was a waitress doing with a thing like this?"
"She was the daughter of a Duke."
To me, the Boeing B-29 was a thing of both beauty and power. After seeing the look in Dad's eyes when he described the desolation of Tokyo, I knew that plane had an additional meaning for him.
When Paul Tibbets came in 1976 to the Confederate Air Force show at Harlingen, Texas to fly the Enola Gay (the plane and pilot who dropped the bomb on Hiroshima), the two of them stood off by themselves for just a few moments, talking quietly, looking at the ground. Then they shook their heads, tapped each other on the back, and rejoined the group, with an upbeat comment on Duane Cole's aerobatic performance earlier in the day.
Neither Dad nor Tibbets ever expressed any regret for their role in the war. But they didn't take it lightly. In Dad's case, I think the totality of his feelings was one of the things he never spoke about to anyone, even to my mother--and they were very close.
RNJ
|
|
|
|
REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Dec. 6 2016 0:20:50
|
|
BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
|
|
RE: My artwork website (in reply to Richard Jernigan)
|
|
|
Paul Tibbets not only did not express regret for his role in World War II, he expressed support for his role in the atomic bombing of Hiroshima on several occasions. On one occasion Tibbets remarked that he remained “convinced that we saved more lives than we took,” and concluded, “It would have been morally wrong if we’d have had that weapon and not used it and let a million more people die.”
As a side note, Marta and I are long-time members of the Army-Navy Club on Farragut Square at 17th St and I, NW in Washington, DC, just two blocks from the White House. The Army-Navy Club has a large photograph of the Enola Gay on the tarmac on Tinian with the entire crew, and the autographs of each, from the aircraft commander Paul tibbets to the radio operator. It is a unique piece of history.
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
|
|
|
|
REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Dec. 6 2016 1:11:36
|
|
estebanana
Posts: 9351
Joined: Oct. 16 2009
|
|
RE: My artwork website (in reply to Anders Eliasson)
|
|
|
quote:
quote:
But one can appreciate both the sculpted beauty and symmetry of the aircraft while acknowledging the lethal purpose for which it was designed.
For me I'm not sure if I agree or disagree with Bill. But here's something I have observed for a long time. Warplanes, fighter aircraft in particular have a kind for seductive quality like a race car, or a fast bike. They are built for performance speed, fast climbs and turns and all these things give them a form of tactics that apply to each aircraft. From the A-10 to the fastest spy planes, but especially the jet fighters and WWII elite prop fighters. There's an inherent seductiveness by virtue of the fact that these machines are well made and pushed beyond normal ideas of utilitarian function. All that means is these are a challenge to make a fly, and those two challenges in themselves are innocent enough because we as makers love these challenges.
The intent is coupled with the seduction, or why we like these objects on aesthetic and functional grounds. They have beauty, like a fine Spanish guitar with beautiful ratios and understated elegance. There nothing in the design that is there as filler, the function and the decorative components fit together with an in questionable logic. Where fighter jets and Spanish guitars, or a good street racing motorcycle diverge is in the function as a war machine.
This is my weird notion- The Blue Angels aerobatic team comes to San Francisco once a year, I must have seen them more than 20 times. They fly F-18's and they display the manuverability of the F-18, it's ability to climb vertically, and do feats with wings that only the best pilots and machine can do. I have often wised a small drone ship could be towed into San Francisco bay and that the Blue Angels would demonstrate how a target would be attacked so that the public could understand that these beautiful aerobatic shows are not the main function of these aircraft. It think it s important to recognize the lethal aspects of these birds and respect that as much as one respects the possibility of the guitar as an instrument that can sway emotions when it is played with sensitivity.
I'm not sire why I paint, or why airplanes interest me, I have some ideas about that. The bigger thing is that I know there is a duality of some kind between the seductive nature of the machine built because we as humans like cool stuff, and to challenge ourselves to make beauty as part of our humanity. And a clear understanding that these machines are serious deadly instruments. There is a dichotomy, a classic dialectic- Thesis: I like beautiful elegant airplanes as aesthetic objects / Antithesis: These seductive machines are to make wars and bring death or defend against aggression. This dialectic in an art making context brings a synthesis, and I'm not sure what it is, or what it means- And that is the part which is unknown and mysterious, and hopefully somehow instructive on an unconscious level to make us better as humans.
I could make drawings and paintings of flowers, but that would not examine these issues that preoccupy me. I think it is important to see these machines in a complete way and not just as beautiful objects. I think we are incapable of seeing them in that one light. At least I am.
One more thing I'll throw out because found it so interesting personally. I was seeing a therapist in 1995 and in part of our talks I brought up that I was really interested in airplanes and told Dr. George on many occasions that I grew up near an airbase, I had pilots in the family and dreams with airplanes in them, and all kinds of things aeronautical in nature. And once I went on about a certain airplane, perhaps is was the F-5, describing it in detail and character, it's demeanor...he eventually said "These airplanes, they are part of your family."
_____________________________
https://www.stephenfaulkguitars.com
|
|
|
|
REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Dec. 6 2016 11:49:23
|
|
BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
|
|
RE: My artwork website (in reply to estebanana)
|
|
|
For me, the seductive quality to which Stephen refers in his piece above consists of finely sculpted beauty coupled with an element of danger. I appreciate that there is nothing ornamental or, as Stephen states, "filler," in the design. Every part has its role dedicated to enhancing the performance for which the whole was designed, be it military aircraft (A-10, P-51, ME-262), William Blake's "Tiger," or a woman (particularly represented by those who appeared in 1940s black-and-white film noir). All are capable of drawing me in with their stripped-down, sculpted beauty and the element of danger they represent. Regarding the latter (women), I am speculating here, but I think that is what Ernest Hemingway found so intriguing about Marlene Dietrich, and I would agree with him.
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
|
|
|
|
REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Dec. 6 2016 15:52:01
|
|
BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
|
|
RE: My artwork website (in reply to estebanana)
|
|
|
quote:
There is a dichotomy, a classic dialectic- Thesis: I like beautiful elegant airplanes as aesthetic objects / Antithesis: These seductive machines are to make wars and bring death or defend against aggression. This dialectic in an art making context brings a synthesis, and I'm not sure what it is, or what it means- And that is the part which is unknown and mysterious, and hopefully somehow instructive on an unconscious level to make us better as humans.
Stephen, at the risk of attributing a meaning to your dialectic above that you had no intention of proposing, I think it describes my admiration for elegant, sculpted beauty combined with the danger it represents. I admire the elegant, sculpted beauty, but my admiration is heightened and intensified by the danger. Something akin to, but not wholly so, the heightened intensity that is felt by some who experience combat and say they never felt so alive as when they were in danger of losing their lives. It sounds counter-intuitive, but there are enough stories and memoirs that suggest it that I believe it to be true. Not a perfect analogy, but its the best I could come up with.
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
|
|
|
|
REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Dec. 6 2016 21:43:51
|
|
Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
|
|
RE: My artwork website (in reply to BarkellWH)
|
|
|
quote:
ORIGINAL: BarkellWH
I admire the elegant, sculpted beauty, but my admiration is heightened and intensified by the danger. Something akin to, but not wholly so, the heightened intensity that is felt by some who experience combat and say they never felt so alive as when they were in danger of losing their lives. It sounds counter-intuitive, but there are enough stories and memoirs that suggest it that I believe it to be true. Not a perfect analogy, but its the best I could come up with.
Bill
One way of experiencing that danger without killing anyone, except possibly yourself, is to ride your motorcycle way too fast. I did it regularly until I was nearly 40 years old. By then I had a wife and two children for whom I felt a strong responsibility. We moved into the center of Austin. I knew that if I didn't kill myself riding in traffic as carefully as I could, someone else would probably do it for me.
As an eight- or nine-year old I was disappointed when my father and uncles returning from WW II would not talk about their combat experiences. Later, from personal experience, I learned that one reason for this is a lack of any common reference between people who have been in combat, and those who have not. I concluded fairly quickly that the experience could not be conveyed in words.
I think also that for most, there are other reasons not to talk about it.
One phrase that all of my relatives who had earned medals repeated was, "The real heroes are the ones who didn't come back." Taken literally, this implies that there are heroes on both sides. They are hard to forget.
RNJ
|
|
|
|
REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Dec. 7 2016 18:23:06
|
|
BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
|
|
RE: My artwork website (in reply to Richard Jernigan)
|
|
|
Just to be clear, Richard, I am not talking about a desire to personally experience danger. I am simply saying that whether viewing Stephen's drawing of the ME-262, Reading William Blake's poem "The Tiger," or watching Marlene Dietrich in a film noir, my appreciation of the elegance and sculpted beauty of each is intensified by the danger I perceive each represents. That may be a function of an overly romantic, emotional response, but there it is.
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
|
|
|
|
REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Dec. 7 2016 22:14:29
|
|
Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
|
|
RE: My artwork website (in reply to BarkellWH)
|
|
|
quote:
ORIGINAL: BarkellWH
Just to be clear, Richard, I am not talking about a desire to personally experience danger. I am simply saying that whether viewing Stephen's drawing of the ME-262, Reading William Blake's poem "The Tiger," or watching Marlene Dietrich in a film noir, my appreciation of the sculpted beauty of each is intensified by the danger I perceive each represents. That may be a function of an overly romantic, emotional response, but there it is.
Bill
There is indeed an esthetic of danger. Hemingway explored one aspect of it in "Death in the Afternoon." I suspect that at my age my response to the corrida might be indifference, or even revulsion. In my youth I was an enthusiast.
The corrida is a prominent example of the vicarious enjoyment of danger. The discovery of mirror neurons gives an anatomical view of this vicarious enjoyment. "A mirror neuron is a neuron that fires both when an animal acts and when the animal observes the same action performed by another."
We put ourselves in the torero's shoes in a very literal sense.
The Powder Puff Derby racer Ann L. and I stood side by side watching the Blue Angels. By the end of one of the world's greatest aerobatic shows we were pounding one another on the back, and exclaiming, "Where do we go to enlist??!!" We had a taste of feeling those G's, a whiff of surviving the hair raising precision of insanely close formations and bone rattling near misses. We wanted the full dose.
I was an adrenaline junkie well into my sixties. I know of no other rush comparable to a day's riding on a good bike, at speeds that would be very dangerous for someone unblessed with good reflexes. But I have only very limited experience with drugs. Maybe there's a safer way to do it.
It has its risks. You can never be certain what is around the next corner, and whether you will be able to handle it.
On trips that went on for days, we used to joke that the biggest danger was becoming immortal. Your tolerance, even your appetite for risk increases as the trip goes on.
There have been a number of physical risk seekers in my family. I think it has more to do with hormone balance than character.
As in many other respects, I was very, very lucky.
RNJ
|
|
|
|
REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Dec. 7 2016 23:36:02
|
|
estebanana
Posts: 9351
Joined: Oct. 16 2009
|
|
RE: My artwork website (in reply to gerundino63)
|
|
|
quote:
The colors you use are very nice and your fresh way of aproaching things I like a lot too.
If I look "overall" at your work, on the most pieces I get the feeling if I look at a "part" of a bigger painting.
It is not a bad or a good thing, but it makes me wonder, if you are using a bigger painting sheet, would you paint bigger subjects, or paint more subjects, or place the subject in a bigger surrounding.....
Nice work.
Peter
I was thinking about this, thank you for the nice things you said.
I do see more complex compositions and I like to work with a lot of images in one picture, but usually I need more space to get that going because I'll turn a vague gesture drawing of marks into an image and it takes room for brush marks and lines to breathe. I like about two meters by two meters scale to get that going. It also takes a lot of paint, and then you have to store the painting afterwards. Naturally my scale is large, but until I have a show or collectors who want bigger pictures I'll be honing my skill on smaller pictures with one image.
Big pictures are fun to make, but the better you handle one image, the easier it is to manage a bunch of them at one time. The main issue with painting pictures full of images is how the space works. The space can be shallow or deep, but it has to have space. I don't know what the paintings will look like next time I make them full of images, but this is the last one I made with a tangle of images. About a year ago. Size is four feet by 3 and half feet. I don't have storage for large pictures, I figure I painted no less than ten paintings on this surface, doing one, then painting it out and doing another. I can paint over anything, mostly fearless about changing how something looks. But I'm ready to stop painting over entire paintings and just make more of them.
Images are resized automatically to a maximum width of 800px
Attachment (1)
_____________________________
https://www.stephenfaulkguitars.com
|
|
|
|
REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Dec. 11 2016 0:26:44
|
|
BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
|
|
RE: My artwork website (in reply to estebanana)
|
|
|
quote:
I was chosen to be in Poets and Artists Magazine end of the year issue '100 Great Drawings of 2016' the issue came out yesterday Dec. 12th. - links to the website and the I'm not expecting anyone to buy the magazine, but I'm encouraged about being by chosen by a good curator San Antonio Texas artist Steven Da Luz. It was an international open call for submissions.
Congratulations, Stephen! One more notch on the handle of your "Renaissance Man" revolver which, instead of firing bullets, fires music, instruments, artwork, and other creative endeavors. Leonardo da Faulk! (Updating da Vinci).
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
|
|
|
|
REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Dec. 13 2016 13:54:41
|
|
 New Messages |
 No New Messages |
 Hot Topic w/ New Messages |
 Hot Topic w/o New Messages |
 Locked w/ New Messages |
 Locked w/o New Messages |
|
Post New Thread
Reply to Message
Post New Poll
Submit Vote
Delete My Own Post
Delete My Own Thread
Rate Posts
|
|
|
Forum Software powered by ASP Playground Advanced Edition 2.0.5
Copyright © 2000 - 2003 ASPPlayground.NET |
0.0859375 secs.
|
Printable Version
