" Wear sunscreen. If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it.
The long term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience... "
Baz Luhrmann
(Or that guy who really wrote it, whose name I forget, but apparently he gets royalties from Baz, so I guess that makes it okay...)
(Or that guy who really wrote it, whose name I forget, but apparently he gets royalties from Baz, so I guess that makes it okay...)
It's been far longer than I anticipated between writings. In my last post I told you about my adventures in plein air painting. Had I taken Mr. Luhrmann's aforementioned advice, this post would not be necessary and there would be, I'm sure, another blurb on my painting, perhaps a post with some photos of finished work. Unfortunately, I did not get a painful sunburn... Not on my skin anyway. (I tan pretty well for an Irish/Swedish mutt.) Standing in the bright sun for hours and hours each of those days, staring at the sky and sea and the reflections and subtleties of the light, leaning my head out from the nice shade of my umbrella, my eyes wide open to try and take in every little detail, what burned was not my skin at all (like some of you may have assumed by now)... But my Cornea. On Friday morning I woke up and could barley open my left eye through the glare of the sunlight streaming through my bedroom window. It took several hours of adjustment before I could keep it open. Luckily, I work in a dark bar room.
It was not just the sensitivity to light that bothered me but a haze that had come over my vision. I have been bragging about my 20/15 vision for years, even if it is only in my left eye. (My right being just an average 20/20.) By the end of my shift. I could keep the eye open while inside, but it still reflexively closed in the daylight. For the next few days I had a blurry spot high in the left corner of my eye. I made an appointment to see an Eye Doctor and that is when I realized that it wasn't just the hazy spot, but my vision in that eye was now down to 20/75 and there had been some damage in my right eye as well. The doctor assured me, after a long lecture about the importance of proper eye wear, that the haze that I was seeing was new cells repairing the damage and my vision should return, but he could not guarantee that, "at my age", it would ever go back to my 20/15. (Yes, he said that... That son of a bitch!)
So what is an artist to do? I can't wear sunglasses that will change the color of everything I see. Perhaps, through Rose colored glasses my paintings would be a bit a bit more appealing? But I really don't want to be seeing or painting for that matter something that isn't really there. My artists perspective already does that for me. So I think, maybe, a hat. Van Gogh rocked one!
There are several that I'm contemplating. I'd love some feed back on which you think I should wear. Here are some options:
It worked for Van Gogh, but I'm not sure that I could quite pull it off.
Classic. Sinatra and Deano would be proud.
Not sure if this one is cool, or if it screams,"Gay Cowboy!"?
There's no way.
Anyway... I'll see you next time!
Can you guess which I went with???
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