CrashOctopus Blog

Bashful Gentleman by Meg Lyman

9×12″ ink, colored pencil, and gouache on Canson

$95 - click to buy

I’ll be out of internet range for a while, so I hope everyone has safe and happy holidays. If you don’t have days off… I’m really sorry and don’t mean to rub your nose in it, but WOOHOO I have two weeks off!

I’m going to work on a bunch of commissions that I backlogged in order to finish some big Christmas commissions. I have succeeded (well, they’re done, anyhow) and will show them to you once I return - *after* people have been gifted.

Merry Holidays!

Love,
Meg

In preparation for the Atlanta Boat Show’s Gallery next month, I had a few originals framed. Usually, I do it myself with either custom-cut or standard mats with standard frames. However, I had five pieces that just wouldn’t fit into standard frames, no matter how I crammed.

I headed to Silver Dog Digital, the local place where they do prints, signs, framing, you name it. They did a beautiful job with my custom frames. Forgive the photos; the frames are wrapped in plastic for protection.

The first one is a pastel. I’ve tried building my own spacers, but since I am not equipped with a mat cutter, I have always done a horrible job. This one is spaced so close to the mat that it’s hard to see the gap, but it’s not touching.

Cuttlefish Eye by Meg Lyman

The second one involved a lack of foresight. I used a 5×7″ piece of Claybord, but I painted all the way to the edges. This’d be OK if it were cradled, but this is just a flat piece. Put a standard 5×7″ mat on it, and it cuts off a key part of the composition: that tiny strip of ground on the bottom. I had this mounted on a mat so the edges weren’t cut off.

Hawaii Sunrise by Meg Lyman

This one was just a weird size. Sennelier Hot Press watercolor paper comes in blocks of 4 1/8″ by 9 1/2″ or something like that. Custom frame required.

Chicago Skyline by Meg Lyman

I got two others framed: a 6×6″ stretched canvas with staples on the sides, and an ACEO. ACEOs are tricky, because at that small size, the 1/8″ required for a frame takes up a large percentage of the real estate.

It was expensive, but they’re beautiful - way better than I could have done - and I didn’t have to use the drill, hammer, paper cutter, scissors, or Windex. Also, the frames all match, which is part of what Casey recommended to me (sorry the mats don’t all match too… I couldn’t resist). I’ll price them for the show so that I’d get what I want for the original and have the frame completely paid for. And as long as I’m hypothesizing, they’ll all sell and I’ll get several big commissions and convert a horde of new patrons.

A tall bottle of Lagunitas Cappuccino Stout was hiding on the shelf at the Beverage Resort. We brought it home and fell in love. Late last week, we went to Taco Mac and they had it on tap, and it was even better. Incidentally, Left Hand Milk Stout is the beer of the month at Taco Mac, and I’m going back this week for the free glass.

This stout is tasty and sweet, with a tang, and you can really taste the coffee. It has that coffee bitterness, and it lingers in the aftertaste. It’s smooth but with a slight bite, and the tap is even smoother. If it had a bit more secondary flavor, it’d be a 10.

Ratings:
M: 9.5
N: 9

Cookie Squid by Meg Lyman

Colored Pencil & Ink on Canson - SOLD

Here’s a festive little squid, enjoying the holiday pigout. I made Kasie’s brownies for our work pigout today and they were a hit. Thanks, Kasie!

I recently stumbled upon an interesting art-related article that I want to share it with you. There are climate change scientists out there searching old paintings for sunsets with vivid colors. They’re trying to pinpoint climate-changing events, like volcanic eruptions, through the painters’ depiction of sunsets (which become much more vivid after large eruptions due to the particles in the air).

It’s a fascinating project, but it’s also very much like scientists to try to objectify something like art. How do they determine whether the artist’s depiction is accurate? I am working on a sunset painting right now, and completely invented the colors and clouds. I hope nobody tries to decipher anything scientific from it. We’re artists, dagnabit… we paint things we see in our heads!

This article interests me for several reasons. First, I’m a nerdy engineer by trade, and science fascinates me. Second, I love nature - both being in it and painting it. An article that discusses both makes me happy. Third, I’m not sure if most artists have a “grand vision,” but I do, and it involves painting nature and technology together. I have many ideas planned out, and I hate to admit it, but the paintings I do now feel like practice for that big, important vision.

Let me know what you think of the article. Also, tell me if you artists have a “grand vision,” and what it’s all about! What motivates you?

Cat Eye ACEO by Meg Lyman

Ink on ACEO

$15 - click to buy

Although you’ve all given me fabulous ideas about how to clean my scanner (thank you!), I haven’t tried any of them yet. Instead, I blissfully scanned more art, expecting it to turn out horribly. As a result, when it turned out OK, I was pleasantly surprised.

I got a pack of ACEOs when I bought some gouache from someone over on WetCanvas. About half of them make me wonder what in the world people DO with ACEOs. I have shiny, slick, metallic cards, cards with stripes, and hot pink. These black ones look neat, but they’re slick, so I needed light-colored ink to use with them. I’d been wanted to buy metallic brush pens for a while… so I did, and here’s the result. Metallic ink is waaay too much fun. And the scanner handled it OK!

Bontebok Sketch by Meg Lyman

So, does anyone know how to clean a scanner? Mine has been very good to me, but recently, the dirt on the glass has reached annoying levels. No longer do I have to use the Gimp to clean one or two dots; now they’re everywhere.

When I look at the surface, I notice two things. First, it’s foggy. The fogginess isn’t on the outside, but on the underside of the glass. I have no idea if it needs to be cleaned, or how to do it. It has slowly gotten worse throughout the scanner’s short life. Second, I see little dirty dots. They look green, presumably because of the way the scanner reflects light while it’s idle. But when I go to brush them off, I find that they’re sticky and need to be chiseled off with a fingernail, and mostly they smear all over.

When I scan, I see two undesirable things, both of which have gotten worse recently:

1. Grey areas on the edges. This admittedly may be a problem with the cover.

2. Spots in the scan, per the second complaint above.

I have a nice, soft monitor cleaning cloth that I use on the glass, but it won’t budge the sticky spots, and obviously has no effect on the fog. I keep the scanner covered so well that even cat hair never gets inside.

Does anyone have any words of advice? I paid a lot for this scanner, and I want to run it into the ground - many, many years from now.

Over the Thanksgiving holiday, we found ourselves in Savannah, GA, drinking locally brewed beer at the Moon River Brewery. We tried several, but the only dark one was their Captain’s Porter. I love beer fresh from the tap.

This porter was sweetish at first, but had a very sour aftertaste. It was not complex at all, which made it sort of boring. The hint of chocolate flavor was slightly redeeming.

Ratings:
M: 7
N: 5