Category: Art

Hugo Awards Voting Adventure: Remainder of Retro Hugos

Tomorrow the winners will be announced for the 1939 Retro Hugo Awards.

The 1939 Retro Hugo Awards can be watched online via ustream. The stream will be located at http://www.ustream.tv/hugo-awards. The Retro Hugo Awards Ceremony starts at 8PM BST (or 2PM Central) on Thursday 14 August.

Retro Hugo Awards Ceremony, LonCon3

I’ve covered the main ‘big’ categories in previous posts.  Today, I’ll summarize the remaining ones that are less, ‘sexy’, for lack of a better term. Continue reading “Hugo Awards Voting Adventure: Remainder of Retro Hugos”

Summer Sunrise

Summer officially arrived yesterday, but today it dawned for the first time.  I woke up way way early for a Sunday (sometime during the four o’clock hour) and spied a hazy crescent moon from my bedroom window, but no bright shining Venus.

Late in the five o’clock hour, I went outside, taking Apollo with me, to see if Venus peaked through the clouds.  No, nothing but the moon.

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First Summer Sunrise 2014

Some of my flowers are doing well, like my day lilies and the moss roses, potted or in flower beds:

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Potted Moss Roses (four plants, various colors)
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Flower bed with moss roses, day lilies and cone flowers.

The cone flowers I planted last year and not doing very well. The one I planted at the north end of this flower bed only produced three or four leaves. The other one (shown above) is flowering, but also looks pekid. I’m just not much of a gardener. My one true success is the day lilies, which I planted six years ago on Memorial Day.

Puzzled

Last year, my daughter gave me a puzzle for my birthday.  Last week, in a fit of household reorganizing (aka decluttering), I decided it was high time I cracked open this box to see if I could still climb the puzzle mountain.

Being only 550 pieces, I did not feel daunted at the prospect.  My grandmother and I used to put together three or five thousand piece puzzles during the summer months when I was in grade school.

Continue reading “Puzzled”

Movie Review: Monuments Men (2014) 3 Stars

Monuments Men (2014)

3 out of 5 stars

Watched BluRay May 2014

I am sheepishly relieved I did not pay to see this in a movie theater when it was first released.  I enjoyed watching this movie, but ended up feeling disappointed by the time I reached the credits.

The pacing of the movie seemed off and the story too disjointed.  I barely had time to get to know the characters so I found it difficult to relate to their trials and tribulations.

I also suffer from being one of the few in my immediate family who knows next to nothing about art history.  Continue reading “Movie Review: Monuments Men (2014) 3 Stars”

ASOD: Phases of the Moon

Beautiful sketch work in this Astronomy Sketch of the Day posting from this past Sunday:

“Phases of the Moon” by Erika McGinnis

Moon; full moon facing, two views of dark side.
Sketch was made in my studio.
2009; published on album cover for jazz band Four, 2009
Graphite on archival paper.

Visit the Astronomy Sketch of the Day website for more great astronomical sketches.

Maitz on Art Pact: “On Fantasy Publishing, and Negotiating Contracts”

Don Maitz, a renowned (and one of my favorite) fantasy and maritime artist, wrote an excellent article over at Art Pact.  This paragraph especially caught my eye:

So that being said, most producers of a product want to see a fair profit for everyone involved in their production line. Things get dicey when the financial bottom line takes precedent over content and when a legal department does it’s job too well. In Ian Ballantine’s day, as many artists such as I remember, the company, be it a publishing house or gaming company, was answerable to the president who made ultimate decisions on the products they chose and how they were to be conceived and marketed. These self owned enterprises were able to go out on a limb to try something on their own. Today, such companies are owned by corporations that also own many other companies in the Entertainment industry and the person that makes the bulk of the important decisions is now the accountant, as the quarterly bottom line that is fed to the corporate board and stockholders sets the guidelines. Profit over content is something that publishers are struggling with and I believe is the core issue of why this website was established.

— Don Maitz, “On Fantasy Publishing, and Negotiating Contracts“, Art Pact (May 2014)

Back Porchlight Squatter

Back porch light squatterA robin built a nest on top of our back porch light.  It’s been there a week or so, but for the last couple of days, she hasn’t left the nest when we slide open the patio door.  She stayed put while I took a couple of photos of her with my smartphone.

According to the Wikipedia article on the American Robin, it only takes a couple of weeks for the eggs to hatch.  If she leaves the nest, I’ll try to take a photo of them as well.