A little snow and ice this morning. . .

Well, the translation is finished and sent, so now all there is to do is wait until the publisher gets back to me. So, it's on to the next big task for the season. No, not gift purchases, which are almost finished anyway, but tallying and submitting final grades for my students this past semester!

Grading is a thankless and tedious task if ever there was one. Lots of calculator use with checking and double-checking of numbers (groan). However, it is tempered by the fact that cold weather has returned, giving us a slightly more wintry outlook this morning. The house is decorated, there is a fresh stollen upstairs in the kitchen, and neither the Grand Duchess nor I need to go out anywhere today. Life is good!

Now, above is another pre-Christmas graphic culled from the internet. This time, it's an illustration of Tchaikovsky's nutcraker come to life. Honestly, it's a bit weird, but I like the hussar garb of Herr Nutcracker and his readily apparent self-assuredness.

And who knows? Maybe I'll have some time this evening to get back to the game between me and Jonathan!

Comments

Anonymous said…

This looks more like a scene between Princess Pirlipat and the Nutcracker from Hoffman's original tale than an illustration of anything in the ballet, which barely has enough plot to give anyone unfamiliar with Hoffman's story any idea of what is happening or why.

Still a great piece of holiday music in spite of (or maybe because of?) its deliberate impenetrability.

10:33 AM

Der Alte Fritz said…

Stokes: what kind of translations do you do?

6:20 PM

WSTKS-FM Worldwide said…

Herr Ignaz -- Thank you for the added information. It didn't exactly look like a scene from The Nutcracker.

Jim -- I translate literature and historical non-fiction from Norwegian into English. I've also done technical translation from English to Norwegian many years ago, but that was a hellish exercise since I do not have a technical background.

8:14 PM

A Little More Brushwork. . .

A little more brushwork on the first batch of (my version of) the Anhalt-Zerbst Regiment yesterday (Saturday). Taking a different tack this time and addressing many of the details first before the white coats and other larger areas of uniform. The eagle-eyed among you will notice that I've painted the (dark) red stocks of the enlisted men. Always a difficult and frustrating item to paint, it made sense to paint from the inside out as it were and get that particular detail out of the way first rather than try to paint it in later after much other painting has been accomplished. Trying to reduce the need for later retouching of other items on the figures you understand. Hopefully, I will be able to get back to these later today after a second trip back to the Apple Store for help with a couple of new iPad issues and, following the return home, some revision of Google Slides for tomorrow's meetings with my students. -- Stokes P.S. And according t...

Basic Reds Done at Last. . .

S till quite a way to go with the current batch of 20 human figures and a horse (of course), but they're actually starting to look like something after all of the red distinctions. Quite a bit of painting in hour-long sessions the last week as and when time has allowed. Mostly applying the basic dark red to facing areas and turnbacks followed by the inevitable touch-ups to clean up wobbly edges and those misplaced, minute splotches of Citadel Khorne Red. They're looking like so many Austrian infantry regiments of the era at this point, but the eventual flags will turn them magically into the Anhalt-Zerbst Regiment, more or less, of the AWI period. But I'm getting a bit ahead of myself. One frustrating point (ahem) of sad discovery. I've started trying to use those Winsor & Newton 'Series Seven' brushes (#1 rounds) purchased last spring, and the blasted things simply will not keep a point. Very frustrating since I have heard over the y...

It's Early Days Yet. . .

M aking some early progress with Batch A of the Anhalt-Zerbst Regiment over the last several days/evenings. Nothing terribly exciting just yet, but the basic black, brown, and flesh areas are done as are the green bases, and gray undercoat. The latter two areas needed some careful retouching early in the week. Next up, the neck stocks. I might just do these in red for the enlisted men although some of my source material suggest they were black, but I always look for an excuse to shake things up a bit. Any errant splotches of red (or black) can be covered with another application of light gray before I move onto the next step. "Giddy up!" as one Cosmo Kramer might have said. -- Stokes

The Grand Duchy of Stollen

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