Fever Dream part 4

 

Had a variety of business to take care of at the Studio today.  When I arrived, I saw Nichole's car, so I stopped by her office first.  She confirmed that I still had no students yet.  I have about another week to go before the registration deadline, so I guess it's wait and see.  She doesn't know why the computer system is not letting me in, but I should have gotten notices if anyone signed up, and I haven't, but she confirmed this by checking her records as well.  I also asked her about fellow building resident Bobby, who I haven't seen in quite a while, seeing if she had heard anything since his last operation.  She says he's recovering fine, just taking a lot longer than he had expected.  (we had expected exactly what is happening)  We also discussed the fun of delis, then I got to my space and did some work. 

Last time I had roughed in some things in the middle, so today I cleaned them up a bit.  One thing was a comic book fan going through some comic bins, like you would find in any store or convention, in this case a dream image.  The starting point for my comic book fan came from the internet, essentially a search for images of "comic book fans", and I found someone who looked a lot like what I had in mind.  Sketched the figure and the comic long boxes in my sketchbook in pencil, but it was facing the wrong way to fit my design.  No problem- just used a mirror to sketch it out on my block, changing things like clothing, hair style, and facial hair to make him look more like my original idea, plus less like this photo I had found. In that same mid-ground I refined the figure of two helicopter nurses I had roughed in.  The helicopter nurses are something that didn't come from a dream, but more like a delusion I experienced in the hospital.  One day I woke up and I didn't recognize the room, which was not that unusual during my times in the hospital.  (I got moved from time to time)  The room was very bright, every light on, which almost never happened. The hallway was completely dark, again unusual.  I could see a clock on the wall, round type with two hands, and it read about 9:00, so I thought maybe I had slept late.   Moving around my room were nurses, but not what I was used to.  Typically the nurses wore light colored scrubs, always masked, and often with additional protective gear.  These nurses had masks, but the scrubs were dark, like a navy blue, with images of large helicopters in white on the backs, though no words.  I had a new roommate, but the curtains were drawn so I couldn't see him.  I decided to lay like I was still sleeping for a while, see what I could learn. I heard a voice ask one if they worked on helicopters. "Sometimes" one said, and that was all I learned for sure.  My neighbor's television was on, and it seemed to be some show about American culture and history from the 60's to the present, with a lot of popular music from the various decades.  This kind of show is common enough on cable tv, but in my delusional state, I came up with an explanation that the helicopters roamed around picking up bodies on the ground and bringing them back to the hospital, and my neighbor had been a prisoner of war, absent from our county for decades, and this television program was part of updating him on some of the things he had missed the last few decades.  As I said, I was a bit delusional.  With the nurses gone, I decided to do a little exploring, put of some clothes, and grabbed a walker, which was the most I had been allowed to use yet.   I got out to the very dark hallway, all still unrecognizable, when  a nurse demanded to know what I was doing.  I told her I was looking for a bathroom and didn't want to wake my neighbor, which was partly true.  I was ordered to go back in the room and sit on the edge of my bed for ten minutes.  Besides, it was still 9 pm the night before, way too early to get up.  So I did all that, but they never came back.  Five more minutes, and still nothing, so sat down in the armchair next to the bed. Eventually I got back in bed and tried to get more sleep.  Some time later I realized I was in the same room I had been in for days, but had never seen in so lit up, and the hallway so dark.  Never did learn anything more about the helicopters, or anything else going on.  Anyway, I decided that these mysterious helicopter nurses would be part of a future artwork, which turned out to be this one.  What I had roughed in last week and cleaned up a bit today were images taken directly from the internet, like my comic book fan, sketched in my sketchbook.  I am planning a third nurse, who will be in the foreground, but for that one I'd prefer a live model who I can pose exactly the way I want, so for now that will have to wait.  

Meanwhile I had brought my smaller CD holder today, one with a supply of blues and jazz discs, and from this I selected some Ella Fitzgerald, a home burned and abridged version of a disc set I had at home- "Oh Lady Be Good!  the best of the Gershwin songbook."  From the liner notes I learned that this was part of a series she had done, coming into the studio and tearing through songs by particular song writers, backed by Nelson Riddle's orchestra.  At times the orchestra does get a little overblown, but I like her for her vocals, and those are well done, and the songs are all standards.