Brandon Pitts @ Videofag in Toronto

direct link: Brandon Pitts @ Videofag March 2013

I did some of the sort of filming that interests me last night at a poetry reading at Videofag in Toronto. This snippet isn't fully 'worked out' but it's getting there, and I'm okay with posting it.

I'm also learning new video editing software, so creating this video took awhile. Be gentle, folks. Also, I follow my rhythms, my aesthetic, in videoing and editing rather than trying to produce a facsimile for the performers (there were other video cameras running anyhow). So, with the authors' permission, I took ...liberties. Enjoy!

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A New Art Website!

Yesterday, in a matter of hours, I put up a new art website where you can most of my paintings and drawings. It was incredible how fast, easy and streamlined the process was.

I've called it Poem Paintings and Drawings:

http://brendaclews-poempaintings.blogspot.ca/

Because I have a show coming up, I knew I had to create a more easily accessible site. After a short research, I decided to use Blogger. It seems an art website becomes obsolete in 4-5 years, mostly because whatever site I set up could not handle my burgeoning work, and also because art website styles change. My first art website was in 2004 with Sitebuilder, and it was a fine beginning. Then in 2008 I created over 3 weeks of 18 hour days an art site nearly from scratch with Google Sites, which you can access through the footer below, or the sidebar of my blog. I learnt a lot of html making that site.

The latest site was very easy in comparison to the previous two. I created a new blog, gave it a name, picked a black template, posted an 'events' post about my forthcoming chap book, the luminist poems, to be published by LyricalMyrical Press in May and a solo art show I will have at Q Space for the month of May, and then created a series of pages which I filled with my paintings and drawings.

Other than some fussy html with the post to make its page sand colour and text black, which Blogger kept closing off half way after the image, but I figured a way around the glitch, the whole thing was super easy with posting images from Picasa, and even a videopoem page with YouTube and Vimeo videos.

I also have an idea for how to create a banner for the site, which the new Blogger, or at least this template, doesn't support. I'll let you know if it works or not.

I suppose it gets easier the more sites you create.

My only frustration has been that I have not, so far, been able to redirect my domain name, brendaclews.com, to the new site. Though the domain name re-direct has been cancelled at Google Sites, and that site should revert back to the original Google Sites url, and cancelled the Sites re-direct at my Google Administration site, thus far the re-direct has not taken.

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Poets Series: Cabaret Noir in March 2013

Jean-Paul Mullet at Lizzie Violet's 'Cabaret Noir' on 10 MAR 2013, 11" x 8.5", Pentalic archival 25% cotton 130lb paper.

A charcoal and conte sketch, untouched. He's not as scary as he looks here - Jean-Paul, after all, is a vegan zombie clown! A great costume and make-up, and the sort of strange and funny performance you'd be inclined to expect from a hobbit-like zombie clown with moss growing on his cheeks and forehead. Also he was born and died maybe 2 centuries ago.

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A Smorgasbord of Images

Yayha! What a mess! No slideshow option for Blogger/Blogspot users in the 'new' Picasa, I'm afraid. But we can get a smorgasbord! Hint: if you'd like to attempt this, do it via the HTML option through the little picky pic of the landscape that Picasa offers as entry into your Picasa albums.

I'm almost done, just the green shadow-shape next to her is going to have to be painted out again and re-painted. The colours are a bit brighter than the photo shows if the painting is properly lit (which it wasn't when I took this pic).

 

The 'new' Picasa is not so good yet

You probably won't be able to see this image. So I'm thinking there's no point trying to say anything about it.

The 'new' Picasa will not let me make a newly created album 'Public' without posting it publicly on G+, something I am NOT willing to do right now.

Nor is there any option to embed a slideshow in your Blogger blog. I sent complaint through. So far, the Picasa changes rate a mark of D-.

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The Walking Dead is not 'about' gore

I wonder why people think the popularity of The Walking Dead is because people love gore? That is such a strange notion and entirely not the point of The Walking Dead. I think someone in the media, who hadn't watched the series, made the comment and it got spread and spread. Actually, we feel sorry for the zombies, they could be us, a pandemic virus, it's painful for the main characters, their personal losses, and what has to be done is repulsive, and no-one likes it. Where the main characters get their physical strength to keep going is remarkable, and then of course humans are fighting humans, which makes the tragedy worse. The acting is superb, the story is top notch, the whole scope of this series opens up much speculation on the human condition.


(No, she isn't a zombie, but she is called, Skinbones, and I drew her in my first Moleskine sketchbook maybe a year or so back, and she's the most appropriate image for this post.)

A little post on a social media site, but I like to keep tid bits here that I may further develop later on (those social sites make finding an old post virtually impossible, as most of you likely know).

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Poets Series: HOWL in February 2013

Poet Alana P. Cook @ HOWL @ Q Space in Toronto on 24 Feb 2013. 8.5" x 11", Staedtler marsgraphic brush pens, 80lb archival paper. The drawing taken in sunlight, and the colours are accurate; the detail was taken indoors with cloudy light from a window and a daylight bulb shining on it. (You can see the full spectrum of colours is more evident in the photo taken in direct sun, including the colour of the paper.)

Meghan Morrison performing @ HOWL @ Q Space in Toronto on 24 Feb 2013. 8.5" x 11", Staedtler marsgraphic and Prismacolor premier brush pens, 80lb archival paper. My focus was on her hand, such an exquisite, delicate, graceful hand plucking the strings as she sang in her exquisite, beautiful voice... and then I added a blue background.

And I might as well include this already posted sketch in this post. I probably will work on it a little more sometime this week.

...my *untouched* drawing of the performance poet, Liz Worth. I had put my art supplies away, when Liz ripped off her top and proceeded to spread blood over her belly, neck, chin, her hands covered, an organ, viscera in one hand, so out charcoal and red chaulk paper came, and I drew as fast as I could. You don't get a sense of Liz's physical beauty here (she's a knockout), but perhaps some of the strangeness and deep power of her unexpected performance.

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