Performance and Paint

We went to the Mermaid Arts Centre this afternoon to hear Vyvienne Long and The Balanescu Quartet do a rehearsal for their gig Saturday week.  It was fascinating to hear them play, and the banter as they tweaked a few pieces to perfection.  It was supposed to be open to the public for half an hour, but 45 mins went very fast.  What a lovely way to spend lunch!

In the meantime, I am also working on some new paintings for my Moments series and revelling in my recent acquisitions from London -- Liquitex paint bought at Cass Art in Richmond and my new Van Gogh book with lots of colour pix!  I have also been enjoying my various bits of reading, including the manuscript of a novel (unpublished so far) of one of my sisters-in-law.

Books & Back to Work!

I finally finished John Man's historical travelogue, Genghis Khan: Life, Death and Resurrection, which was a fascinating book. I was inspired to read it after reading Conn Iggulden's Conqueror Series (Wolf of the Plains, Lords of the Bow, Bones of the Hills, Empire of Silver, and Conqueror) -- historical fiction about Genghis Khan's rise and events down to the rise of Kublai Khan (Genghis' grandson). Some exciting books!  Now, as well as getting back to some other books I was reading (Kurt Vonnegut, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, to name a couple) I have also started Penguin's collection of Van Gogh's letters. I read Dear Theo when I was in art school, but that was a long time ago...

And what is this a picture of? I did some work today as I want to continue with my Moments series. I want to do some medium scale paintings, but don't want them on regular stretched canvas and don't want them on paper. So I have half stretched some canvas on old wood frames, and will just cut them to size when I am finished. Because they are half stretched they should have a bit of bounce while I am painting, and I will just cut them off the frames when finished.