Art: Lobster

It’s been too long since I put a piece of artwork up. I’d like to have one here every day or two, as long as I don’t have any professional commitments getting in the way.

I’m learning how to handle watercolors. It’s fun, layering the washes, building up a tone to model a surface. I still have things to learn about color — the dark parts of the lobster don’t really work against the sepia cast shadow.

That black dot on the extended leg (at the left of the picture) is where I rediscovered that crow-quill nibs spit out blobs of ink like fleeing squids if you don’t handle them right. It’s probably been a decade since I’ve done anything more than practice cross-hatching with a dip pen.

Mmmm... astronaut flavor!

From the land where anything can be made in seafood flavors: The Wacky World of Japanese Ice Cream!

Working up to full assery

Gymmed again today. In the normal scheme of things, I’d have started with 20 minutes on the treadmill, done a bunch of stuff with weights, then stretched. Today I tried out some advice from Hot Point Fitness — not the actual plan, which I mean to start Sunday, but incorporating a few of the ideas into what I’m already doing.

Instead of treadmilling, I tried out the elliptical trainer, which scares the hell out of me. I’ll have to try it again tomorrow. I wound up warming up on a recumbent bike machine, but stopped after ten minutes because of a combination of my foot slipping off a pedal botching up my rhythm and a muscle in my left groin starting to ache. I was unable to find my pulse points (I swear I used to have a pulse), so I was unable to determine whether I was getting my heartbeat up to useful levels. Still, when I stopped my legs felt like lead, something I haven’t felt since my first days at the gym, so either I did something right or I was working at the forward edge of my abilities anyway and couldn’t have done better.

On to weights. In stead of doing two reps of ten (or twelve), I did three reps of ten, with stretching between. This seemed to work pretty well — I could feel it was a serious workout (I’ll probably ache tomorrow), but it wasn’t beyond my abilities. Well, actually, the third rep on the military press was more than I could do, so I finished up early instead of doing some leg stuff. I’ll try to do more on Friday.

I also spoke to someone about getting my body fat percentage measured. This is part of the Hot Point Fitness plan, as is measuring one’s various circumferences. I need to get a tape measure.

In purchasing news, I got a kitchen scale today. Hot Point Fitness comes with a nutrition plan. Oh, and I weighed in at 283.5. Even the old, half-assed method works if I actually do it, but I mean to go forward fully assed.