L’Artiste

by Lisa

       Boy, I hope I got that title grammatically correct en francais (and I think ‘francais’ needs that little curly tail underneath the ‘c’ here, but my computer is an ugly American one), for I am now taking a french class because I enjoy torturing myself. Life would be just plain boring if I did not try to make myself feel stupid on a regular basis. Keeping up with these kids straight out of high school is great sport. I especially enjoy springing into action when we all hit the computers to do some pop quizzes. The teacher keeps up with THEIR pace–not mine. I have become the class clown since I invariably can’t even log on to whatever it is we are doing. “Madame Lisa did you put the password in BEFORE your student number like I told you?” “No, it’s not your social security  number, remember?”. “I’ll give it to you again, but this time write it down.” “You have no pen?” Kinda goes like that. That’s okay. I’m a world class counter in french, and I’m all the way up to 39 with an accent that would make Gerard Depardieu bend me over backwards and kiss my neck.

       So here I am more in my element and doing what I am at least better at doing. This is the large drawing I have been bitching and moaning about that I finally commenced the other day. Never in my life have I done a more physically demanding piece of artwork. As you know the preparation for this thing was grueling, and now the drawing process is wreaking havoc on my right arm and upper back since it requires force to scrub the charcoal onto the rough surface. I actually went to the doctor the other day because my back hurt so bad. I was hoping he would give me vicodin, but all I got was some lousy celebrex. Actually I admit it works great. If only I can take it every day for the next few weeks until I finish this sucker without getting heart complications, blindness, impotence, hives, troubles sleeping, a desire to strangle ones spouse, headaches, unusual cravings for steak au poivre, or tremors. And when I am done, I am going to show a close-up before and after picture of my right bicep. Actually, I had to make a maulstick for this , and in fact, I even resort to using my left hand when my right arm gives out.

       I love to torture myself. Au revoir.

The Gift

By W R Jones

    Some gifts are not as wonderful as they might first seem.  I had been out behind the mules (gas prices being what they are) in the hot sun all day.  I came in, made myself some lemonade, and went out back to wash up.  By the time I came back in some gifting twit had put flowers in my lemonade. 

    I once gave my wife a shotgun for Christmas.  What was I thinking? Don’ know.  Sometimes I have these ripples in my brainwaves that science has been unable to explain.

    That little creamer on the left holds my simple sugar.  I have a friend who, on a recent cruise, kept asking the waiters for simple sugar for his coffee, iced tea, etc.  They must have thought my friend was simple minded.

    Yesterday I was getting gas at a Shell station where I was assailed by that damn pump TV.  “Welcome to Shell…”  If those Shell people were a bit smarter they would read the credit card and welcome you by name.  “Good morning, Bill, why don’t you go inside and have a cup of coffee; start your day right.”  There are many many many in this world stupid enough to think the pump knew them.  “Ya, I always git my gas down to the Shell place.  My pump knows me there.  Likes me too.”

    The TV went on about how the Shell people determined what Americans wanted was free gas.  No shit, how much research did it take to determine people would like free gas.

    The oil barons are way ahead of us here.  The pump told me Shell is now giving away $2900 in free gas EVERY day.  Jesus H. Christ, how can they afford that kind of generosity?  Let’s see, that is $2900 at retail, so their cost might be say $500.  Then they write that off as an advertising cost.  There are an estimated 200,000 gas stations in the US.  I don’t know how many are owned by Shell but I expect there would be at least 3000.  That would make their giveaway $1 per station.  Did you want to get in line for that?

    For a company with profits in the BILLIONS this amount is not even the equivalent of that two cents a day I pledged (well, I was going to pledge) to feed starving children someplace.

    The board meeting must have sounded something like this -

John  -  Our customers are getting restless with these high prices.

Lionel  -  Screw em.  The wormy bastards have been buying cars with better gas mileage.  They are doing their damnest to beat my own deserving children out of their yachts and villas.

Robert  -  I’ve got an idea, why don’t we give away some free gas?  That will bring the suckers in droves.  We can sell em some coffee which is even more profit per gallon.

Bertrand  -  Good idea, I propose we give away $2900 a day in gas.

Robert  -  $2900?  How did you come up with that number?

Bertrand  -  My uncle Buck was born on the 29th, next Tuesday is the 29th.  In another 20 years he will be 100.

Lionel  -  Ok, but who is going to pay for this?  It is not coming out of my bonus, by God.  I only got $10,000,000 this year, and my options have dipped to less that $150,000,000.

John  -  We could cut back on the station owners’ profits.  They are still above minimum wage I think. 

Robert  -  Well, gentlemen, this has been very productive.  I’ve got a tee time to make.  God save the Hummer!

John, Bertrand, Lionel in unison – God save the SUV.

Gluing Update

by Lisa    

      Sometimes one has to just say, “Good enough”. When I uncovered my large piece of paper that I climbed the proverbial mountain for, it was less than perfect, shall we say. I had made the egregious mistake of placing a piece of brown paper between the glued watercolor paper and the sheet metal to protect the pristine surface. The glue, Yes Paste, is water based, and the brown paper reacted to the moisture by wrinkling a bit, leaving an indelible impression in the surface of the watercolor paper. I could try it again, but it was so hard to do, and so many things could have gone wrong to mar the surface that I am just not sure it is worth it to try gluing it again.

      I did pursue a few other ideas to mount the paper. Joe Cibere, a fellow instructor and adept watercolor painter at the California Art Institute, suggested I soak the paper in the tub overnight so that the fibers swell, and then staple it to my board. He warned me about needing a thick board because the first time he ever did it, as the paper dried it actually snapped the wooden board in two. I explained to Joe that I am working LARGE here; that the paper has to stay mounted to an acid free surface that doesn’t weigh a ton (you don’t want to be removing a finished drawing that big that took you months to do–trust me); that I don’t have a freaking bathtub that big.

       Then I merely tried stapling a new piece of paper to my already existing board per our reader Nava’s rather flippant-suggestion-that-made-me-feel-like-an-idiot-for-not-thinking-of-it-first. Thinking like Joe, I sprayed the paper first  with water to make it swell at least a little before “stretching” it. I have decided one “stretches” canvas, but one does not “stretch” paper. Paper tears. Or it does not lay down nicely and looks worse than your first attempt at gluing it. I certainly thumbed my nose at Nava.

       At this point I honestly don’t know if it is possible to get a perfect surface like I am looking for without a lot of technology. I am a lowly artist and I just want to draw for cryin’ out loud.  I am really hoping that the finished drawing will be good enough that you won’t stand there and go “Damn that glue job sucks”.