First, let me just get this out of the way. I got carded the other day. Not just carded. When I handed the guy my license, he laughed and said, “Wow!”. When I asked what the “Wow” was for, he said, “Nothing. I just wasn’t expecting, you know, 1970. I was expecting 1980-something.” Oh. My. God. Did he just say that and mean it? Score! Any of the crap going on in my life was suddenly and swiftly erased from my memory for a brief moment.

Ok, it stroked my ego. Sue me. Believe me, the universe will punish me for it in some unkind way in the very near future. Let me have my moment.

Last night I experimented with the different paints and brushes I bought. The children’s washable paint was crap. I mean crap. I wouldn’t let a two-year old paint with this stuff. It left washed out lines with rough borders, and was hard to control. There’s a good waste of a buck-99.

Then it was on to the tubed water-color. I was pleasantly surprised. I was able to add two drops of water to a small amount and get a very good consistency. I begged my daughter to let me practice on her, but I had to bribe her with Ben and Jerry’s (this would not be the first time) and she giggled and squirmed so much that it was an exercise in frustration. So I had to resort to paper and my own forearm which required a lot of washing to renew the “canvas”.

I was skeptical about watercolors, thinking they would run too much, but with a bit of practice, I was able to get beautiful, crisp, dark lines. I was also surprised by the brushes. I bought one very thin one that I thought would be best, but I also bought a few others with thicker points, and it turns out that the thin point was too thin and didn’t hold enough paint, forcing me to refresh for each letter.  I would have pictures to show you, but alas, my camera is dead.

I still have to try the pens and the glass quill.

I’ve been receiving a lot of enthusiastic support for the project, and I hope this translates into higher likelihood of getting grant funding. So far, everyone I’ve asked to write and model for me has been happily willing. Still, I don’t know a lot of people in my local area. I had to ask at least one person that lives in another state, but as it happens he’ll be passing through my general area in about a week so that was just a stroke of luck. I spent the bulk of my time here in the Smith bubble, not getting to know anyone outside of the college. Then I took a job where most of the people work remotely from New York or elsewhere. One might think this will be a great opportunity to meet new people, expand the circle…but I think that approaching guys at the local hipster cafe and asking them to write and strip for me could be a little, uh, misconstrued.