~Dysis23A

I have not been as productive as I would have liked over the last couple of months. But then, I do have a good excuse. At the beginning of March I was diagnosed with a tumour in my head and that has distracted me somewhat. The good news is that it is expected to be benign. Though when I saw the scan last week I did think "Bl**dy Hell, that looks big." It is in the sinus cavities across the right hand side of my face. I am told if it stays there, it will damage my skull. To remove it, they will have to work next to both my eye and my brain. I say that I hope it is a bit of my brain that I don't use much then. Bit nervous about them working near the eye as my right eye is my good one. I had a cataract in the left one when I was only 39 and that has been replaced and now is fixed focus for distance. It also sees in a different colour and size to my right eye. That took a bit of adjusting to.

This afternoon I was given the date of the operation to remove the tumour. It is going to be next Wednesday, 28th May. I have no idea how I will feel after the op but have been told there will be a couple of weeks recovery. Then there will also be the wait for the biopsy result.

I do like the doctors analogy that the sinuses are like the air conditioning system for the head. Currently my air conditioning system is not working properly. That might explain the headaches then. I can't wait for it to be gone and to move on from this time. I won't fully escape, as they want to keep monitoring me for the rest of my life in case it returns but it should help clear the pains in my head.

It has been a frustrating time, as I was getting a good reaction to my work and felt that I was noticeably improving as I painted more. I have a couple of paintings planned but they will have to wait a while. I would like to take the summer pretty easy and give myself the best recovery time really. Normal service will be resumed shortly.

I have not been quite as busy producing paintings as I was in January. A month of having migraines almost daily through February did slow me up somewhat as well as going away for a while. Over the last couple of weeks, as well as producing the new painting Contemplation, I have been going back over some of my paintings and refining them a little. They all look basically the same. I have just been generally tightening up on some of the details. I still may go back and play with them some more. For now, the ones that I have worked on since I originally uploaded them are Enigma Seraphine Shamana The Change The Time of Shadows and Dreaming of Stars.

Last night I uploaded the two pics that I have done for Chasing Butterflies Extraordinary Butterfly Contest. There is one more pic that I want to do for another DA competition but that is not for a couple of weeks so gives me a little time to work on it. I do find it a strange process, putting out new pics, as I never know how they will be received. There is a period of total self-doubt, wondering if they are good enough. Something I don't seem to be able to shift. I suppose it keeps me putting the effort in. And led me to making a slight edit to Enigma this afternoon.

A good thing about being on galleries like DA is that I can see which pictures are working and others not so popular. I am on three galleries and they do correlate quite well. So far Redemption is the most popular in all three. So I must have done something right there. I do agree with the general vote on that one. If there were only one painting that I've done that I could hang on the wall, it would be that one. And there are those that I thought would be liked but are not as popular. Shows what I know.

Seriously though, it is a useful process. Finding out which ones have worked or not. At the moment it is still a period of experimentation. I have at least eight paintings planned at the moment and more ideas crop up all the time. I try to tell myself not to look at any more stock until I have caught up. But I keep on finding more great images that I want to turn into a painting. I also have plans to take reference photos myself for even more pictures. So, all things considered, there should be more images appearing over the next couple of months.

Earlier today, I hit my first 1,000 page views after five weeks on DA. Which is cool but, for me, yesterday was a more significant day. I sold the motorbike that I had owned for 22 years. Which is half my life (gulp) and for the first time in 27 years I don't have a bike. The bike thing for me has been crucial. It has shaped and formed the major parts of my adult life. It is hard to explain but the artist that I am today would have been very different if at age 17 I had not got my hands on a bike and started meeting a whole different bunch of people. That created a seismic shift in my life. Everything changed. For a while, the only art that I did was painted onto bikes or about bikes. It felt like I would stay that way for ever. That what ever I did, bikes and the freedom they give would be at the core of my life. The open road and a sweeping bend on a summers day is just something else. A real buzz. Now it appears to be over.

The relevance to DA is that, although selling the bike been on the cards for a while following a back injury 3 years ago, I sold it now to raise the cash to keep on painting for a bit longer. It has been a while since I made anything that comes close to earning a living from art and even then it was only just. But few a few years I did. Doing my pen and ink drawings for books mostly got me through. Then the work dried up and the commissions stopped. I wanted to continue with art but needed a new direction. I spent a while relearning painting and getting to grips with Corel Painter. Everything that I have done with it is here in my gallery in the paintings section.

I still have hell of a lot to learn. Something that was brought home to me a couple of days ago when one of my paintings was turned down by Epilogue for not being good enough. The painting was Shamana and I was told that the anatomy needs more work. Hmmm? Maybe it does. It certainly was not perfect but I did not think it was that bad! But it will keep me on my toes and make me try harder.

Whatever, I've started the first of three paintings that I intend to put into competitions here at DA. I have never done that with my art before and so quite apprehensive. I've got a couple of weeks to do it in and there are bills to be paid so I bit the bullet and sold the bike so I could have enough time to paint without pressure. For me it was a very symbolic act.

I know that it was the right thing to do. I spent a bit of last year going to shows. Displaying and selling prints of my art. The reception that I got was very encouraging. I met some great people and am looking forward to doing more shows this year. Something was starting up for me in a way that had not happened for a very long time. A new adventure is definitely well under way. I have no idea if it will succeed or how long it will take. I do know that at this moment in time, it is the right thing for me to be doing and worth giving my best shot.

Today I uploaded my first painting of 2008 and my first since joining DA two weeks ago. It should, if I have done things right, be just over there to the left. It is also my first painting using DA stock for reference. This time round, I used the excellent stock from Mjranum. I do, where possible like to use my own reference, but some of the stuff out on DA is hard to resist. I did not really know about that side of DA before I joined. It was a welcome surprise. I already have plans for a few more and intend to start on another one tonight.