the art of being an artist is very emotional.  When I was hit by lightning, my emotions became "level" in some ways.  Two days ago I felt that after 6 years, my color perception had returned.  Yesterday my father had a medical emergency and is in ICU as I write this.  His prognosis at this time does not look good, and all the thoughts running around me are of my childhood and Dad.

It's funny how things happen.  I have trouble verbalizing emotions because I am a visual person.  And my acute sense of color, of hearing color instead of seeing it, if "me" is back, then now more than any time I will need to draw in color.

I've done 2 small oil pastels since yesterday.  Art has always been the way I speak.  The oil pastel I just started has a bright red background - are those emotions over my father, or is red the color of the sky I see?

I may have had somewhat of a breakthrough since getting hit by lightning.  While getting ready for a doctor's appointment, I noticed the shampoo bottle top is black, not blue as I have thought it was for months.  It's black.  I may have gotten my color" back" since getting hit by lightning.

When I got hit by lightning, my color perception had gone to gray, and because I had been a colorist, this was a real problem.  Using color hurt my head, hurt my thinking, hurt my eyes.

I have been drawing in brown, until yesterday when I unpacked some paints.  I had tried, maybe a year or so ago, to "push" my perception back, even by starting a go-fund-me page to purchase the best oil pastels for their color range.  It hadn't worked, because color still hurt.

If my shampoo bottle is black, if this morning, I finally saw it the way it is and not as a deep blue, then something may have kicked back in. !!!

Last week my doctor wanted to check my lungs for damage from the lightning strike, 6 years after it happened.  I don't want to lose one thing to gain another, but as an artist who strongly followed Vincent Van Gogh's style, having my color back would be something special.

Look for some oil pastel work in the next few days......

Starting Seeds of

 African Violets, Streptocarpus, or Sinningias

Members of the Gesneriad family of plants

These seeds types are all very, very tiny, resembling dust.  Although very small, and handling has to be done carefully, once sown, they take little care until they germinate.

 

1.  I use a basic soil-less mix to start all my seeds.  You may also purchase a soil-less mix specifically made for seed starting.

 

2. I fill a small pot or seed pan with the soil-less mix and then place it in a bowl or container of water about 1 inch deep.  This is to dampen the mix, and it is left in the water-bowl until the surface of the soil is damp.

 

3. I place the seeds into the palm of my hand, and then hand-place the seeds onto the “soil” mix, but you may find it easier to lightly tap the seeds out of their packaging onto the soil.  The goal is to place them just on the surface without having them all in one spot.

 

4.  They are NOT covered with “soil” but left to sit on the surface.

 

5.  I cover them in a couple of different ways.  The easiest way is to place the pot or pan in a gallon-size zip lock bag, and then place the container in good light.  They should be in bright light, but not direct sun, and it is best if they are in a warm area, 65 to 70 degrees.

 

Another method I have used is to convert a ten-gallon fish tank to a germinating tank.  Using a dry tank, two inches of damp clean sand is placed on the bottom.  The planted seeds, already in their pots as prepared above, are placed on top of the damp sand.  The tank is covered with the typical lighted full cover for the tank when using it for fish- with a fluorescent light.  I keep the light on in the tank for 12 hours a day.  If the dampness of the sand is kept at the right level, no additional watering is needed.  The combination of the light, moisture, and a closed environment, allow almost carefree germination of many seed types.

 

Gesneriads can take from one week to several weeks to germinate, so I make sure I have allowed plenty of time before giving up on a seed batch.  Once they have germinated, when they are about 1/8” to ¼” tall, I either move them to individual one inch pots, or re-pot them into a square, shallow pot to grow on.  I keep them covered at first, and slowly expose them to being uncovered by removing whatever cover I have used for an hour a day over several days.  Soon you will have lots of little plants! :)

A new blossom on one of my Opuntia humifusa plants -

New video: Opuntia humifusa and Copperpoint

I have just uploaded a new video to YouTube - Rapidograph Slow Ink Flow

June 22, 2015 -
I have said that since I was hit by lightning, that I see in gray colors now in my mind.  Shades of gray.  Having gotten to the point of being a colorist just before getting hit by lightning, this has been difficult.  I have been drawing in graphite and in few colors because now, color actually hurts.

I have also realized something else.  After the lightning strike, there have been a couple of times when it appeared as if I had had a stroke.  The first time, about a year after the lightning, left me not being able to speak or form words in my mind.  It was as if my brain had simply stopped working.  I remember walking around the house, trying to say a word, trying to think.  I made it to the neighbor's house and she brought me to the hospital.  Before I was able to do that though, the only word I could get out was "cat".  My cat had passed away before this, and it was actually the first time in 33 years that I was without a pet.  But I said "cat". Meaning, that I came out with a word that had absolutely nothing to do with my situation at that moment.  "Did you have a stroke?" I ask myself, "cat" is the answer.

One of my videos listed on YouTube is about an abstract bead tapestry and working against your own thinking to keep your mind open to color and shapes.  I think that when I got hit by lightning, my perception of color went away to some extent, my language has completely changed (becoming simpler and non-expressive), and yet I am constantly aware of the vast time and thoughts that are part of our collective existence.  By that I mean everything.  I hear differently now, in all ways, and although psychic for most of my life, I am now, in it.  Not just a psychic, because I'm not psychic like I used to be, but I am in it, all the thoughts, all the colors, all of it.  I have been working on pieces called "Through The Tunnel" that describe my ten minutes of near-death experience.  And I am finding that my tunnel doesn't seem to have closed after the lightning event.  This can be overwhelming, but not really, because it's a true state of where I am.  Do I "see" the other side?  I'm not sure.  I do know I hear it all the time.

I drew an ACEO of Saint Michael in gray.  I believe I "see" and "hear" color in gray now.  There is a gray world out there, a brownish world of thoughts, and a black world.  Someone might call them dimensions, or they might be aspects of thinking or perception.  For me, they are separate from each other now.  I used to dream in color.  Now, not only do I not dream during sleep, I don't seem to reach REM sleep at all,  You could almost say I live in a walking, awake dream.

My latest "problem" has been deciding whether to draw my Saint Michael ACEOs in colors such as red, blue, etc., or gray.  I have seen him in gray.  I have seen him in gray.  The Saint Michael.  Because I have a degree in horticulture, and was a botanical illustrator for so long, I have recently been buying plants again, to draw, trying to get back to a "normal" of the past.  I seem to have stored some words or vocabulary in my ACEOS of Saint Michael- my own language maybe, as I sat and stippled his image for hours.  So, drawing ACEOs of him is next to breathing, and may be where my thinking will always be.  That takes care of a subject - and a language - and I am not sure yet why the question of color is still bothering me.  I always tried to work "from life", and as I said, I have seen him in gray.  If I draw his image as an ACEO in color, am I contributing to his existence at all? Adding color to his life or time? or taking away from it?

Being of a very knowledgeable religious background does not mean I believe everything I am told by a church.  I do believe the Bible is true, and Saint Michael is mentioned at least four times in the Old Testament, so yes I believe in Saint Michael.  If my mind is creating a "safe" image and color range because I got hit by lightning, I'm not sure I (it) would have chosen Saint Michael.  He spends his life battling the worst of the worst, and although I also believe he protects us, on some level we have to acknowledge the horror he sees in order to acknowledge him.

So, here I am.  Surrounded by new plants, green and yellow inks, all ready to draw geraniums and sinningias, orchids and trees.  Transcribing the gray colors I see into other colors. In an open tunnel of a near-death existence. Seeing, not only faces of other souls, but Saint Michael, walking in gray.  Did I mention that at least three times I have both purchased and then thrown away Saint Michael items?  Some that were expensive- his mountain as a statue, an Italian statue of him, books of Mont Saint Michel, medals, etc.  I keep trying to stick him back into a small part of my thinking, and the more I do it, over a month or two, there he is again, walking in gray.  And if my language is also tied up into the ACEO image I designed, well, how exactly am I supposed to get away from him?

Gray, as I see him, or in color, as others see him?