Trading the Bolex cards

I painted up a dozen images of a Bolex on trading cards on Friday and exchanged them for different cards at the artist trading card xmas party at the MAG on the weekend.

Arduino workshop

Attended a workshop on using an arduino device to control and manipulate sounds. It was hosted by the RPL with Kyle Whitehead, who used this technique with his film screening last night. Unfortunately a bit too short to really experiment, but a cool introduction. William wasn't there, having a long club meeting. 

Painting by day, film by night

Didn't paint yesterday and felt like avoiding other activities so I repainted two of my first paintings today, the one above and the canonette. I'll be repainting at least the first five of my cameras as these were done with less guidance and I'm rather embarrassed of them. 

The Independents film screening this week featured 16 and 8mm works by Kyle Whitehead of Calgary including a film performance in which he edited a film loop (super-8) while it was running. Tonal sound was responding to the image using an arduino device. 

Dentist, cat, ramen, drama

First thing in the morning I broke a tooth eating a biscotti. It was a multiple filled tooth so Dr. Kristy told me to prepare to get a crown but that she'd try to fix it one more time. Patch seems to be holding. 

 Sylvie was a bad cat this morning, leaving a mess and being stinky. We needed to wash her but her back claw caught me as we did so (I also cut her claws following this). Biggest cat scratch I've gotten in a long time.

 It was Ramen day at the Willow and William's Wednesday lunchtime class is over (zero credit hour MAP course) so we went for some stellar noodles.

I took in Natasha Urkow's autobiographical MFA play. She defends it on Friday. Very personal work. 

Adventures with Allan

William, Allan and I went to a great version of Talkies tonight with Jayden and Jennifer talking over the 1971 Canadian hockey film "Face Off". Having recently seen the documentary about Robert Evans (producer of such films as "Love Story") I was the only one to catch the foreshadowing of the tragic ending in the lingering shot of someone reading the Love Story novel in one scene. Spoiler: the girl dies suddenly at the end. Crazy conversations about it. Fun.

Went home afterwards and starting working on mods for the Brains game that was very fun but needed a bit more of something. William's drawings were all gold. 

Last class with Ward

Over the past couple months I've been in a painting course with Ward Schell. Each week I've been trying something new with my painting techniques (not "new" in a global sense, just new for me) and I've  been using the Bolex Film camera for my subject matter each week. Today I did one using only a fan brush. It's okay, but the detail was limited with that tool so I finished the day with this sketchy set of different angles of the camera, proving to myself how quick I'n now able to render this specific camera with a brush. Ward was great, giving me encouragement and advice and just shooting the shit sometimes. 

Fixing William's desk

A couple of months ago I bought an adjustable and ergonomic keyboard tray from Lee Valley Tools for William for his computer to facilitate his changed posture. It is heavy and lacked good installation instructions. Whatever the fault, it basically broke off the desk today, being held on with four one inch screws. The main plate also has a central hole so I've bolted it to his desk. It is strong enough now, but there is a bolt sticking through the tabletop (not a big deal as I built this table myself out of plywood and will probably replace it at some point).