There is nothing I’m supposed to be doing to do today that I haven’t been doing.  It’s mostly an attitude kind of thing.  I’ve been engaged in more interminable and somewhat desultory reading for my infernal research paper.  My prof has kindly granted me an extension on the deadline because I am sick. I had hoped I would not have to take advantage of the extension, because I REALLY WANT TO GET THE *#$#*%& THING OVER WITH!

But I keep finding more and more material that is pertinent to my argument, and my illness has slowed down my ability to process it all.  Last evening in the freezing rain I drove into the city, parked my car off-campus and dashed across campus to Thompson, the main library at Ohio State, to check out a book that has now really impacted my entire paper.  Meaning that I have to re-write the thing.  Now, except for the title and first paragraph, nothing has yet been committed to Word. Nonetheless, I had a working idea of what I was going to write, in my head.

Now that has all gone kerblooey (a technical, scholarly writing term–lol!). 🙂

So I think I will have to avail myself of the additional time my prof has given me, in order to incorporate these new findings and make something worthwhile of the paper.

Meanwhile, since moving back my paper deadline encroaches on the time I had set aside to do the portrait of my niece Kaleigh, which I intend as a gift to her mother on the 27th at our Christmas celebration, I decided this morning that I’d better head out, with my hacking cough, aching head and all, and get new paper for the project, as well as something to use as a drawing board.

Luckily I didn’t have to go all the way back into the city again to find either thing.  Mixed media paper in a large (18″ x 24″) size was available at my local Michael’s for an arm and a leg.  This paper is supposed to work for acrylics, watercolor and drawing.  Since I haven’t yet completely decided on the medium I’m going to use, I needed some paper that could tolerate water, unlike the drawing papers I already have.

Last night I experimented with Neocolor II, which are water-soluble wax pastels, as well as Staedtler water-soluble crayons and Artist’s Choice water-soluble colored pencils.  I actually preferred the colored pencils, which surprised me.

I’m thinking that I might do the facial parts of the portrait (you can see the photograph I will be basing it on here, in my earlier post) “dry,” so that the detail work shows up, and then most of the foliage “wet,” in a more impressionistic fashion.

My artist friend here on the blogosphere, Janet Weight Reed “My Life As An Artist (2)”, who is an accomplished watercolourist (you MUST see her magical hummingbirds!), has been encouraging me to go back to watercolors, but I think I’m still too scared to do so, on this project, at least.

After getting the new block of art paper this morning, it was off to the home improvement store, to their “in-store lumberyard,” where I tracked down a thin sheet of plywood and had it cut to a dimension that would work as my drawing board.  I brought it home and sanded down the edges, feeling ever so handy.

If the portrait comes out at all acceptable, I will be sure to post it here on my blog.  If you never hear about it again, you can assume it sucked!  LOL! 😛