Off the top of my head... errr... I mean thumb!

It's been several weeks since the last time I blogged.

It's been a weird month for me. I've been really having a pity party and feeling down
about not being really a good artist. I've always drawn and done things manually and always felt I was good at it. It's just so darn hard for me though to know that I'm not great at it. This has been bothering me quite a bit lately. I've been drawing in photoshop and although I spend lots of time and effort, it just feels like I'll never be really good. I participated in an illustration contest at Worth and although I came away with a silver trophy, I felt very discouraged. Just once, it would be nice to hear a ... wow..that's awesome! I wanted to get a feeling across ... but didn't succeed. Instead got, nice curtains, nice color scheme... gah! I want to cry and chuck it all.
Same thing goes for photography... I can pull off a well-composed image, but that's it. I want to blame it on not having a fancy camera and lenses, but I know as well as everyone that the artist is behind the camera; the camera is only our tool.

I'm such a big baby... I then turn on myself and feel guilty about being this self-centered and wanting all this attention.

My boyfriend has helped me enormously here.. he's got a good head on his shoulders and his feet firmly planted on the ground..and well, he helps ground me, brings me back... let's me see how foolish I am.

---
My new bike.. I love her. Even though I almost killed myself on her, I still love her. It's not her fault though... I had a bit of an accident, but it was entirely my own fault. I went downtown and bought several items to put in my basket and thought to myself how easy it would be to attach my camera case to the packet holder at the back of my bike... it would mean that I would be freer to ride without the camera case strapped across my shoulder. I attached the case to the back and took the strap and stuffed it inside the flap of the case.. secured it and started on my return journey home. As I approached the last hill before getting to my house, I moved into the highest gear, hoping to gain lots of momentum to get up the hill with not too much effort on my part (yeah, hills have been the tough part of starting to bike again). I cranked the pedals as fast as I could and a car whizzed past me and I pedalled and pedalled as hard as I could and started to go up the hill when all of a sudden my bike was breaking on it's own..hard...and I was skidding literally across the whole road. I didn't understand what was going on... I wasn't breaking..what was happening? Well, it seems that the strap from my camera bag, came slipping out of the place I attached it and ended up running through the spokes of my back wheel..and this caused me to break like that. I'm really lucky it was not 20 minutes later, when everyone would be coming home for lunch..and I would have probably skidded right into an oncoming car. Physically, I'm fine.. I'm still walking around with some bruises on my legs.. not the most attractive sight, believe me.

Night before last, I did a painting. Yes, I know I said I should chuck it all, but then I have never been able to not create something.. and I decided to finally put some paint on that plain white canvas that has been staring at me for months. I did a painting in a style that I enjoy.. juxtaposing clear bright colors with dirtier, muddy ones. It is almost abstract in style. I have done many realistic paintings in years past, but this type is more enjoyable for me.. simply because it's so freeing. I just paint and paint until I get it out of my system.



I painted the sides by continuing the painting there.. which allows the painting to be mounted on a wall without a frame, it looks finished and it's nice to keep it's more modern style. I had only painted the sides, and not the top and bottom, as this was done with oil paints and takes time to dry.

Last night I was going to turn the painting on it's side to do the top and bottom, but was feeling a little peckish and decided to make coffee and a slice of freshy baked bread with some cheese. I took out the gouda, and started to slice it with a cheese slicer. The cheese was a bit hard being in the fridge and all, and I tugged hard with the knife and it finally went through the cheese and .... all the way through the top of my thumb and nail. It was scary a bit.. cause I've cut myself before, but never this deep and now I was standing there and the top of my thumb had come off and was hanging by a thread. Oh.. this didn't feel very good. I put tissue paper on it and held it tight and went to the emergency room. The nurse put some alcohol on it.. and took the tissue off and kept saying, don't look at it.. don't look at it.

Although it had just happened, the top was already missing oxygen and it was decided that it would do no good to give me stitches as I would lose it anyways. So they taped me up, ordered me not to get it wet for at least a week, told me to take extra strength tylenol, stuck me with a needle in my upper right arm for a tetanos shot and sent me on my merry way with some cheery words about how in a year I wouldn't be able to tell that I lost the top of my thumb.