Platypus Journey

Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Immitation of life

This is my first attempt at a self-portrait, it was one of the assignments for my art class. It's not the one I had wanted to do, I still want to figure out how to manage the piece I have in my head--it's a double exposure, if you can do that in a drawing... one of the fat Cushing's me ghosted over the real me, the vibrant me that I know has to be there somewhere.

I was amazed at the other student's self-portraits, since that was a reoccurring theme in most of them, either being trapping inside or breaking out of their bodies and heads. I suppose it is something to think about further.

I used my avatar photo for this self-portrait. It was taken minutes after we took the stage for the ISU dance recital last winter. I reduced the picture to an outline, and transfered that to a piece of sketch paper, where I used the Prismacolor pencils to do the drawing.

I really miss belly dancing, but for now, it is so far from what I can manage. So, this picture represents something of joy for me. Bitter sweet joy, but joy nonetheless.

The last three weeks have been very hard. Especially these last two. This sinus infection has kicked my ass, and last week was probably the worst week. I had a crisis every single day, with one exception. Three trips to the ER, once in the aide car, one doctor wanted to admit me, but for some reason the ER doc said no, I guess a BP of 152/102 is nothing to get excited about... My labs keep coming back "normal" or "slightly elevated" what ever the hell that means.

Considering that my MRI readings all came back "pituitary looks normal" when in fact it it was crushed by a previous tumor...

I'm just not sure how many more days I can endure this imitation of my life. There is no escape from this. There is only "will I crash today?" and if so, how hard it is going to be? How bad is the pain, will I stop breathing again? How many hours am I going to spend retching and twitching and dry heaving, the zofran being only mildly effective. It's so hard to think that this is never going to end, because I feel like it never will. It will just go on and on and on, this misery.

Part of me is ready to just call it quits. Just refuse to take my medication, since it feels like it is only prolonging the inevitable. If I stop taking the medication, perhaps it will be like pulling off a strip of tape from my arm, ripping all the hair and part of the skin, leaving a rash, quick, but painful. Or will it be more like slowly peeling it away, one hair ripping out at a time...

I went in for another full MRI/MRI-V and MRI-A on Monday. The new neuro is concerned about the noise, she said something to the effect that normal people don't have noise in their heads. Ya' think? The noise had gone away mostly, after my adventure in November, but it's back full force, all day, every day. I think it is connected to the what I have currently going on, but only because it returned about the same time that I started this slide.

I want my life back. I want to have some sense of normalcy, some sense of hope something, anything to keep me going. But for now, I feel like I'm on a death's march.




Friday, January 19, 2007

I finished this today, and I'm really happy with it for the most part. It is based on a photo from the Hummingbird's Society's picture gallery, just this really great picture of this royally pissed off hummingbird. I love his attitude, and I figure I'll be working with him more as I figure out his character.

This is the first time I've attempted to draw a bird, feathers, wings or attitude.

This was done with my F-A-B new Prismacolor color pencils, with a black water color wash over the background. This technique was recommended to me by my new art Mentor, Judy in Pgh, but I cannot for the life of me remember the name of the technique... I'll update once I get the name of it though. Crazy Italian word, that I can't even pronounce... At least i think it's Italian.

I'm battling a really bad sinus & ear infection, which has thrown me into a really deep Low. I almost feel as bad as I did while taking the dope-o-max, but the anti-biotics are starting to kick in, so I should be feeling better here directly.

Thursday, January 11, 2007

This little kitty was part of a tutorial from "Realistic Pet Portraits in Color Pencil" by Anne deMille Flood. I used Crayola colored pencils, not the really nice ones she recommends. But I'm really happy with how it turned out.

So, for Christmas I got a set of Prismacolor pencils, but it's obvious that I need to get some that are not in the set of 48 that I got. It's okay, I can handle getting new art supplies!

In addition to getting the pencils, I also got a set of color pens, Faber-Castel Pitt brush pens. I am still trying to figure out how to best use them.

I'm really excited to get these new toys!

Monday, January 08, 2007


Here are my two latests dragons. I'm still figuring out the color pencils, but the scanner work still isn't quite right. The red one is much better blended in RL, but maybe I need to take photos instead of scanning... Dunno, I'll have to experiment I guess...

Sunday, January 07, 2007

Pet Portraits!




I can hardly believe that I haven't updated my blog in a month!

But I've been busy, and we lost power for a week, and I have all sorts of excuses!

Anyway, enough whining on my part...

I checked out a book from my local library, called "realistic pet portraits in color pencil" by Anne deMille Flood, so I can learn to do color pencil work. I have this idea for a painting in my head that is trying to get out, but I have to be able to create not terrible cats. The idea is a clown cat, but I'm still working on it. Funny, haiku are so much easier to get out of my head, buy I think the clown cat is going to be more like the rubber duckies that haunted me...

The first cat is Spike, and the second one is Dobby. These cats belong with friends of mine, Monica and Ami. You can't really say a cat belongs to someone, being cats and all... At least, not with most cats... Anyway, I've also been working on dragon heads. So far, I'm pretty happy. I'm using J "NeonDragon" Peffer website and her excellent book, Dragonart

I have two more dragon heads that haven't yet been scanned in. Okay, one is only finished, but the other one is close, mere hours from being done. I'm using the lessons I've been learning from the portrait book on the dragons. I do know that my poor Crayola brand color pencils are just not up to the task, and I'm going to invest in some real artist pencils. Good thing I got a gift certificate for Christmas! (Unless I decide to go with colored ink pens, instead of the pencils... So many choices! So little backbone!)