Hans in Luck

"Once upon a time there were missionaries, now there are sociologists."

Three things -

1. I'm no good at story, so I need to get one from somewhere and I'm going, at the moment, with 'Hans in Luck' , a Grimm's story about a boy who starts off with nothing and ends up with nothing and feels lucky about it. It seems sort of anti-ambition to me which is what I am going for. Laurel's new job might feel like it is about her finding a path but at the end she will have no more of a path than at the start - she doesn't want one, she doesn't need one, she lives in the day and is happy to do so.
2. Peter Hoeg's 'the quiet girl' is written in a sort of third person but so intensly from Kasper's point of view that I thought it was in the first.
3. If our actions are prompted by our wish to escape things from our past (I need to check if that is what PH wrote), then if Laurel has nothing to escape, she has no need for action.

"Replacing society with a competitive free market gives everyone the opportunities which historically were only available to aristocrats and career criminals. Welcome to the land of opportunity where everything is a commodity and the only regulator is the bottom line."

Peter Hoeg in 'The Quiet Girl' writes,

"The motive for our actions doesn't lie ahead of us. It's something behind us that we're trying to escape." 

which perhaps explains the flashbacks I mentioned yesterday.

What I don't want Laurel's story to be

"It don't know if it's better to give than to receive, it's certainly easier."

"Why can a dream be great and an ambition not? Ambition is the petrol, Laurel, and it is very expensive." 

I am enjoying Peter Hoeg's 'The Quiet Girl' at the moment, it's another one with the Door in. And she is a girl, around nine or so, so that isn't an irritating use of the word. But it did make me realise how fed up I am of protagonists with special powers - this one can hear the heartbeat of the universe sort of thing.

• I don't want special power for Laurel, just an ability to use her ordinary ones.
• Sometimes a power is not having something. Laurel's lack of experience might seem a weakness but turns out a huge strength

And the use of flashback in TQG has become predictable and distracting - he keeps 'remembering' previous meetings with the girl, with his ex, with the Blue Nun but not remembering, reliving and I think he has enough on just getting on with staying alive and finding TQG. It makes me think of the way that Robichoux (however it's spelt) always had a dream somewhere - but at least it was generally only one, and as I read the series I learnt to skip it.

Is this true? - 'if an event is important enough to be in the book, it's impact should show in the character's current actions and it should be dramatic enough not to need explaining. like maybe a wound that someone would see and ask about and be told, oh it's just where I got shot, and later the smell of verbena would be commented on and she wouldn't like it,

why not

it reminds me of when soandso shot me

OR PERHAPS BETTER - if the smell of verbena hadn't reminded her of when soandso shot her she would not have been so alert. Tom had always called it paranoid. but whichever, she would not have realised that whoever was lying.

And then I would have to go on and say something about Tom later on maybe if he hadn't already been introduced. But I think that is more how life happens, little bursts, chunks of what is going on inside your head, unless, like me you live inside your head most of the time, that is. I don't want my characters to be like that, except when I decide they are. 

• I don't want flashback scenes to explain the current predicament/ protagonist's actions.

not a lot going on

"Always apologise, always explain."

I've made a birthday card

It's for Liz, it's her birthday tomorrow.
The top pic is fruit bats. I remember them from returning from a  trip upriver and seeing a cloud of them. They seemed to be following the river, they were huge for bats - wingspans wide as crows. They looked as if they were returning to Castle Dracula. Such atavistic terror, and they eat fruit!

Remembering and Forgetting

"Misdirecting isn't lying."

 The sayings of Laurel's Mum #3

The book 'Subliminal'  by Leonard Mlodinow has a chapter called Remembering and Forgetting. It's a good book, basically about how your hind brain filters what you perceive before it reaches your cortex and you know about it so there's no such thing as objective perception. Anyhow, it's relevant to Laurel's story because she filters out so much - that's why it's got to be in the first person - so she can realise what she misses - and to today's pictures cos I reread the Elephant's Child the other day and though I remembered the story line I mis-remembered the detail, and the grey green Limpopo river which puts it firmly NOT in Sarawak.
Our river in Marudi was the Baram and it had crocodiles and snakes. The crocodiles were salt-water ones and not near us. The story was that they would catch people in the water and roll them and take them to their pantry, the entrance to which was underwater, where dead or dying they would be stored until the croc wanted to eat them.
I never saw a python though I ate it in a long house, I can't remember how it tasted. I do remember the Foo King café though - or maybe I misremember it and how delicious the huge prawns were. The snake I saw was little and possible poisonous. I saw it more than once, on the lane to the house, we used to pull our feet up off the pedals as we cycled past where we'd seen it. That's where the pitcher plants were too - on that nameless lane.

This print was the first I did. It's not very clear cos I forgot to brighten it:

When I'd done it I realised how fussy it was. I think there is a difference that is an improvement in the design between this one and the last one. I think the design of the gibbons is stronger and I think the cutting is better too though it might be different to tell on the blog because of today's being a bit foggy.

The sayings of Laurel's Mum #2

"Sure you can follow your dream. When you can pay for the petrol."

This is the same print  as two days ago only just in black and white. I can't decide which I like best - monochrome or coloured. I've not done the big one yet.

Not so good on the persistence today - went up to do some work on the self portrait - new brushes, trying for more tones - but it is b awful. So, do I persist or do I accept defeat on this one and start afresh. Couldn't decide so I just left it.

Do I need to have a theme?

"Seeing another person's point of view is a mixed blessing: a blessing when you can use it, a curse when you let it use you."

This is the first of 'the sayings of Laurel's Mum', I'm thinking of using them for title headings in the writing I'm going to do for Nowrimo. I'm giving Spink a rest cos I can't assess it or push it to the end at the moment.
The working title for this one is Laurel gets a job. I want to do it in first person, only one point of view and not too long - the 50,000 words should do it.

This is my favourite picture from last term's class.

Sue

Andy said that I have to start using more tones next term, I wasn't sure what he meant so I looked it up on t'internet. Tonal value is altered by adding more black, white or black and white, so now I know what it is and how I can move from the three he says I use to 7 or 8 - or at least start to. I do add white but I don't add black - or at least not knowingly!
Term starts at the end of the month. Hopefully I can both get some practice in before then and remember what I'm going to be doing when I get there!

This is from pinterest.

I've not been into pinterest long - it reminds me of looking through catalogues, sort of compulsive and full of that sort of inspiration that disappears as soon as I close it, but I do love all these felt things! Maybe I'll remember these for Christmas to combine with pajakis from the book Abigail got me last Christmas: 'Making Art from Maps' by Jill K Berry.

Here we go again

The new title sort of says why. And it's a new school year, my tenth since I retired. Maybe this is the year I learn persistence. I thought of carrying on with Little Weed but it seemed too much like hard work to remember how I formatted the posts, let alone any of the rest, so I decided to start again and this time maybe not get too fancy.

I have discovered that my laptop has a built in camera.

This is the last of my summer project -a series of prints as suggested by 'Artists & Illustrators' magazine.
I was going to do jugs but thoughts about  Kipling's Elephant's child and Henri Rousseau made me decide to do Sarawak instead.
I'm pretty sure rafflesia do grow in Sarawak though I can't remember seeing one. I wanted a carnivorous plant and pitcher plants were too hard and not colourful enough.
I do remember the gibbons and how one - at the sanctuary - got hold of the skirt of the girl who insisted that there was a proper way to boil eggs and the Malaysians didn't know how to do it. 🙊

I used acrylic paint and System 3 Block printing medium - which gives the paper a bit of a rubbery feel that I don't like, but it is much easier to clean up than the oil based ink I've got and it saves spending money and time looking for colours because I can use the paint I use for painting.
And I have just about got it done! There are 5 pics which fit together to make a 12" x 10" rectangle and separately have made enough notelets to last a life time.