I wanted to give someone a graduation gift, so I picked out a Van Gogh painting.  My final version is the first one on the right.

Just for fun I’ve included a “halfway finished” version of the painting, when it still was on my easel.  It’s also on the right.

And finally, I include the original Van Gogh itself – also on the right.

Don’t look at his version first.  Van Gogh is a better painter than me.  Furthermore, he’s painting differently than I am.  I almost guarantee he painted his version very quickly.  From nature.  And he could pick any colors he wanted.  And do anything he wanted.  Please avoid trying to play “Highlights for Children” with it.

But for my version, I was copying him, so it’s an entirely different thing.  I’ve got to stay somewhat true to the intent.

I still tried to paint as fast as possible.  So I wasn’t completely wedded to the original.  I tried to keep the spirit of the painting and most of the form, but not be too exacting about any particular blob of paint here or there.

This was a lot of fun to do.  And I’m glad to have done it again.  You can see my original Van Gogh copy at this link.  I think I’ll be trying to copy more famous pieces in the future.  There’s a lot to learn from being a copycat.

Finally, according to the book I painted from, the whereabouts of the original are unknown.  So maybe my version is kinda “counterfeit”, which makes it feel cooler.

I believe we’re due for a Blue Moon on December 31 – just New Year’s Eve for most.

In both anticipation and response, I painted this.  A big ol’ blue moon watching over a dark sky.  You ought to be able to click on it to see it in better resolution, though the dark colors may not show up particularly well.  Once again, I should probably invest in a photography class.  Or, yes, a painting class – har, har.

Just a note, this is Birmingham Verse’s one-hundredth post and I’ve got to say I’m proud of myself for all my best attempts to survive and thrive in 2009.  Merry Christmas, all.

It’s excellent and dark.  Read it.  Especially if you’ve never read a “graphic novel” before, it’s a good place to start.  And now I’ll be looking for more Alan Moore (I’ve read From Hell) and wanting a list of other non-standard works of literature I’ve somehow missed.

The picture on the right is a single panel from Watchmen.  I wanted to share it because I liked it so much.  I’d love to find someone to paint or draw this for me.  My limited talents couldn’t do it justice, I’m sure.  I can’t draw.  Who could do this?

Another note, I admit that law school molded me into a compulsive tabber of good quotes in books.  If I own the book, it goes back on my shelf with all the tabs in.  (And anyone unfortunate enough to borrow it has to flip around all my tabs.)  If it’s a library book, I usually take some time to type all the quotes down before I take it back.  Just for a lark – and to share one of my OCD habits – here’s some of the stuff I tabbed from the book.

• Beneath me, this awful city, it screams like an abattoir full of retarded children.
• Real life is messy, inconsistent, and it’s seldom when anything ever really gets resolved.  It’s taken me a long time to realize that.
• Blake is interesting.  I have never met anyone so deliberately amoral. . . .  As I come to understand Vietnam and what it implies about the human condition, I also realize that few humans will permit themselves such an understanding.  Blake’s different.  He understands perfectly . . . and he doesn’t care.
• American psychology and its Soviet counterpart are [not] interchangeable.  To understand the Russian attitude to the possibility of a third world war one must first understand their attitude to the second.  In WWII, none of the allied powers fought so bitterly or sustained such losses as did the Russians.  It was Hitler’s lack of success in his assault upon the Soviet heartland that assured his eventual defeat, and though it was paid for mostly by Soviet lives, the entire world reaped the benefits.  In time, the Russian contribution to the war effort has been downplayed and dismissed – most noticeably as our political differences became wider – as we glorified our own contribution while forgetting that of our estranged former allies.  The Russians, however, have not forgotten.  There are still those who remember the horror of a war fought on their soil . . . .
• Truly, whoever we are, wherever we reside, we exist upon the whim of murderers.
• [Rorschach] said, “None of you understand.  I’m not locked up in here with you.  You’re locked up in here with me.”
• Why do we argue?  Life’s so fragile, a successful virus, clinging to a speck of mud, suspended in endless nothing.  Next week, I could be putting her into a garbage sack, placing her outside for collection.
• Tactically, Rorschach was brilliant.  He was so unpredictable.
• People swallow lies easily, provided they’re big enough.
• I’m not a . . . serial villain.  Do you seriously think I’d explain my masterstroke if there remained the slightest chance of you affecting it’s outcome?  I did it thirty-five minutes ago.
• What does fighting crime mean, exactly?  Does it mean upholding the law when a woman shoplifts to feed her children, or does it mean struggling to uncover the ones who, quite legally, have brought about her poverty?  Yes, I’ve busted drug rings and been accused of being an establishment pawn for doing so . . . that happened a lot in the sixties.  I’ve also uncovered plots by breakaway extremist factions within the Pentagon, for example the plot to release some unpleasantly specific diseases upon the population of Africa . . . .  I guess I’ve just reached a point where I’ve started to wonder whether all the grandstanding and fighting individual evils does much good for the world as a whole.  Those evils are just symptoms of an overall sickness of the human spirit, and I don’t believe you can cure a disease by suppressing its symptoms.

I visited the Artwalk last weekend.  It’s a good event and seems well-run.  Constant motion aids parties.  A focal point helps a party.

I wish we had more art-focused events and fewer of those vague cocktail events that just happen to be hosted at artsy places.  I like “see and be seen” as much as the rest of everybody, but it’s more fun if something real is going on – not just paying to be somewhere with other nervous, over-stimulated, and dressed-up people.  “For charity” doesn’t really help.

Kevin Whitman

Here’s a list of some artists I saw and the cards I took at the Artwalk (in reverse alphabetical order):

• Abi Lynne Wright
• Kevin Whitman
• Scotty White
• Don Stewart
• Lynne Hartman
• Kris Golden
• Claire Cormany


Scotty White

• THE Mike Brady

You should stop reading here.

I mean it.

The reason I have to keep typing is just because I can’t figure out how to get the remaining paintings to line up on the right side of this article.

I’m not a good internetician.

Don Stewart

Or an arranger.

Or re-arranger.

Or anything, really.

I just do my little articles here.

And I never really bothered to learn much about Wordpress or anything.

So it’s not like I know what I’m doing.

Not sure why anyone would take me seriously.

Or really anything at all for that matter.

Why would we?

Lynne Hartman

If I can put it together in under four hours, surely it can’t be that serious.

I can, and don’t call me Shirley.

But I digress.

I warned you to stop reading this.

You’d be better off spending your time clicking on the artists’ links and looking at the pictures on the right.

It can’t be interesting at all to still read this, can it?

I suppose I should have commented on the art, right?

Kris Golden

I shoulda said something about what I liked about each individual piece?

Or maybe why I picked it out or liked the artist?

That would be cheating, wouldn’t it, and rob you of your big chance to self-actualize as a human being and decide for yourself what you like.

Instead, I figure, you can click for yourself on the link if you like one of these artists and go explore what they’ve got to offer.

Email ‘em.

Claire Cormany

Say hi.

Maybe they’ll write you back and just maybe you’ll be able to have a new friendship or maybe just purchase something from them.

Maybe they’re artists and acting out because they’re desperately seeking approval and they really hunger for someone (anyone!) to tell them they like their stuff.

Maybe they’re just starving enough to do anything so someone will buy from them and maybe you could take advantage of that raw helplessness.

Eh?

THE Mike Brady

Well….  maybe so.

I don’t know you and I don’t really know these people.

I don’t know what you’re capable of.

I just liked the art.

Full stop.