High Contrast Grey.

 The weather was too beautiful to stay indoors in front of a computer screen. Lightly overcast. Raining, but not in that sense that anyone from a rainy region would call it raining. And a wind that was neither cold, nor warm. Only something to direct the refreshing water onto one's face. Since I had heard that everything was going to be closed due to the Monday after Easter being a bank holiday I decided to wander the streets of Rennes in what I assumed would be empty. I wanted to find something new. I was looking for a section where the old and beautiful architecture had stretched out an arm like an amoeba and wasn't restricted to the small sections I had already wandered. In taking the train to Nantes I had remembered seeing sections of the city from the speeding train that looked interesting so I went to Gares to begin my wanderings. I headed West along the tracks. Soon I came across one of those many areas that I have been finding while wandering about Rennes. The edg...

The absinthe bar has been finished… Although I still need to ink in the hinge on the window. (shhh…) Out of all the paintings that I had hanging in the show, I was surprised this one wasn’t the one that sold, but it is my latest so I still feel the most attached to it..

I have finished my summer session class. It was a quick five weeks of painting 5 different paintings and I didn’t quite finish my painting of the Eugene Atget photo, but I got close enough to turn it in and while going through critique I think I might have figured out a way to do the cobble stones. The prof had suggested painting a dark layer over and then using my pallet knife to remove, but when I tried that it removed all the paint to the canvas, but if I instead use the back of a brush it might just work. Now that I am finally done with the painting class I can once again spend my free time at the Butterfly café working on art and drinking pots of tea. I feel as though I dropped off from that aspect of my life since starting the class..

14th and 42nd. Finally finished after months of working.

One of the prints for my photography midterm. I couldn’t quite capture the yellowing of the lithprint with this photo, but oh well. Just ask and you can see it in person. I’m thinking once I get the pictures back from turning them in that I will add them to my walls. While in salsa dancing class I looked out the window and found that I am once again wanting to be in the looming confines of a city. Where the buildings tower above and block out chunks of the sky. Where you can go places and everyone is new. Its odd going to parties and hearing time and time again, ‘I keep seeing you.’ Just a few more days and I’ll again be in Seattle. I’m not too sure how to fill up a few days of showing Olivia about town, but I guess we will find things to do. It would help if she was at least 21, but maybe I can sneak her into a few places like the White Horse, I would hope the Can Can as well, but we will see. I wish that the film that French club showed the other night would have showed mo...

The final hurdle.. I still don’t know what to put in the advertising mural above the entrance to the hotel. And I need to come across some pretty fabric/paper for the final rugs. Plus, of course, all the minute ink details still left to do…

“Why so pretencious (sic)?” - desk in French class. After adding sic it stopped being red underlined… I didn’t know that Firefox spell check was so, advanced?

Playing around with the Lensbaby lens that I borrowed from my alternative photo class. It’s kind of a bitch to focus.. I wish I had the nikon focusing circle on my canon to handle this. Then again that might not even work with this lens.. I want to actually write a song or two for my accordion. Not really knowing how to play makes this an issue, but I think I will give the buttons all new names, like Fred Baby and the Good Morning Cord.

I’ve been working more and more on my new painting. Its gotten to the point where I only have the color purple left on my saucer since I’ve only been working at cafés and don’t have the ability to add more colors when I finish one off.. So to fix this problem of stagnation I have begun inking. I’m finding more hangouts and continuing my horrible diet of tea and baked goods. This is going well as I am reading Down and Out in Paris and London by Orwell. Living off small portions of bread.. I am as well trying to track down where the artsy alternative kids hangout (somewhat like Bauhaus on Capitol Hill) and have been having lots of confusing results. The café that I thought was ‘the one’ the other day was today filled with old people, transients, and a punk rock kid sewing his clothes back together. It seems promising still. Luckily its not too far from the Senior Center where my salsa class is so, when I have to kill three hours before class I can go there. I woke up with Pian...

One of the desks in my French class. I like the jellyfish. I didn’t get to make it back to Seattle for Nouvelle Vague. It was snowing and I had a test the next day.. Kind of kicking myself about this. The whole day was kind of a let down every time I realized I wouldn’t be seeing Nouvelle Vague, or being back home in Seattle for the weekend. I counteracted this by going out to the Dead Hipster dance party again. Daniel kept buying me shots of tequila, which he said was to catch me up to him. The crowd really seemed to be completely comprised of the cliché college student. The frat/sorority image. Boring. I met a girl named Banana though, at least that is how I heard it through the thump of dance beats. I was told I have pretty eyes, but since I wear eyeliner that I’m gay. Welcome back to Montana.

I have an assignment for my alternative process photography class to take five words and put pictures to them as representations. I bought a new dictionary to facilitate this assignment, but have become quite distracted by the dictionary and attempting to find esoteric words. Grime. Of course my first word to attempt to create a photo for. In my distraction I found grey water and thought it to have an interesting definition, but lacking a bathtub in this new apartment (long rant…) I think that I might pass it up for déshabillé. Still so jealous of the bathtub with feet that Dustin and Natasha have. I have spent today living off cups of tea, a few cookies, and a croissant. The British saw an overall health improvement when tea became popular by around the 1750s due to having to boil the water for their tea. This cup of Lapsang has steeped into a gritty color of olive green.