So the new year started with the first fustration, the first fly in the ointment. last night I was closer to completing my first work of 2008, what was meant to be a surprise but it instead surprised the hell out of me. No point of keeping it secret since one of the purposes of a journal is to bare (or bear) one's soul. I'm not much of a meme person but now and then I do indulge. It was  BooBooBunnyGirl's meme that attracted my attention even though I told her more or less that I was going to give up on doing that meme. I decided what the heck, one more meme and the first piece of new art of the new year, not counting the nude deer piece. Nothing special, just a piece that took two pieces to complete. With all the cleaning up needed, adding color to the first part, I started on the second part which turned out to be more of a bother than normal. First off, I forgot to scan it to the right size for which I normally work on pieces, it was too large, thus too big even in greyscale to work with, but that did not bother me. Days of cleaning up, not in one sitting mind you, a few hours here, a few hours there since RL demands a lot from me now. Finally last night, with vocal trance blaring from the winamp player, with FA up on another page, Paint Shop Pro 7 eating much memory, and after getting an ear-full from my girlfriend for one reason or another, I finally finished the cleaning up of the second piece. Now was the time, even though I was totally medicated, to increase the colors of the picture to 16 million colors, reduce the size to about 6000 pixels by 4000 pixels, create another picture that was double the size, and combine both pictures to be reduced in sized after coloring to finish the piece. At this point, those professionals, and those who are more talented and skilled than I am would be asking themselves, "WTF is he doing!!!" Hey, it is how I work, I don't know any better! Anyway, color increase went well, however the darn thing shot up to about 148 megs as opposed to the 48 megs it was in greyscale. I went to resize the picture and lo and behold, the winamp player sputtered in the middle of some soothing trance music, and I was greeted with a blue screen of death, a core dump!!! All that work, that spanned over the period of days, gone in a flash. No tears flowed, no gnashing of teeth, just a reboot but lost was all that work. I know, save often, that was what I should have done, but no, too much into it I was, way too much in a hurry to finish. Enough of the picture was saved before to continue the clean-up. At the moment, I'm sitting at work with PSP 7 running going back over the picture and cleaning up again, but lesson learned. Of course I am thinking to my self why bother, it will only get just a few views, the person who started this meme will not even comment on it, and if they do, really, she was getting sick of the meme as it is, and another shows up??? But still, art is art and needed to be created. To boot, my 2000th page view is coming up and I'm at a loss at what to draw for that, if I do draw anything. 2008 had a lot on it's plate but I wonder now if I should even bother, bah! Maybe I should just reduce my art and writing workload and just become a toadie faving and commenting on the work of others, the easy way out?

Yea, way too long a read to even bother, but journals are for the ranting and raving and bearing of souls. I will finish this picture, this trainwreck of art, post it and continue to the next project, but somehow I feel a bit empty. Tis my lot in life I guess.

Cheers.