1 meal day

On the weekend I got far too much sun which resulted in my taking Monday off due to being incredibly sore and tired.

Today it occurred to me that I had KFC for breakfast and about 2+ litres to drink during the day off. I just didn’t have an appetite. Even now, while having a bite to eat as I melt in the heat…I’m just not hungry.

The point is, if you are out in the sun, be sure to drink plenty of water and try to cover up. Something I need to remind myself of at times.

On the plus side, finally made enough money to post the prints out to the two winners (the rain has been problematic)

Dislikes on YouTube

The Waltzing Matilda panorama has been up for a little over a month now and has 350 views of which it has generated 3 dislikes.

Obviously due to the poor quality of the video, recorded on a hand held mobile with no editing (Meaning background noise of traffic), dislikes are to be expected.

The question is if there is more to the dislikes than the editing issues?

Perhaps they don’t like the subject matter of the ballad…

Maybe the fact that the words do not match the song…

The style of drawing…

Or it could be the simple fact that it is a video of a drawing rather than someone singing/reading the ballad.

Hard to say.

Really need to work out how to edit video and at the very least, remove the background noise if nothing else.

Travellers from Arnhem Land

The other day I was set up over at Event Cinemas working on “panorama #21” while displaying the “Sir Douglas Mawson & the Australasian Antarctic Exploration” panorama. A5 prints all nicely set up and available for those interested. In short, pretty much a stock standard day.

However, this day one of the groups that would stop to admire my work were a tour group from Arnhem Land up north. My initial thoughts were that they were from Africa because I wasn’t paying much attention at the time and most certainly did not expect to encounter aborigines from Arnhem Land whose skin is much darker than that of the local aborigines.

Their guide mentioned that the group were artists from the community up there visiting Sydney and didn’t speak much and he was a little surprised when I mentioned the A5 prints were free.

What can I say, a chill went up my spine when a couple of the guys picked out the “Opera House” and “Sydney Harbour Bridge” prints.

Even if the prints never make it back home with them, the thought that artists from Arnhem Land liked my efforts is really kind of cool…

I think the simple fact that out of all of Australia, the idea of visiting Arnhem Land has a certain appeal and so even if I myself never make it, it is as if a small part of me will visit. Even if I was to visit Arnhem Land, it is unlikely I would have been able to visit the community which if I recall is restricted access.

🙂

This day was indeed a special one for me and most certainly cheered me up a lot.

Build a better mousetrap

The goal…

To build a better layout for my busking endeavors…one that will allow me to display my work, protect it from harm and ensure traffic flow is unimpeded (even with others causing issues)

Not sure how I am going to achieve this, but probably a safe bet that I will require a good quality trolley…

Which means I may be able to consider an umbrella stand like that which some of the musicians have begun investing in.

🙂

Problems are simply encouragement to improve.

A foul day indeed

The circle acts (buskers who encourage a crowd to encircle them, typically dancers) are proving a problem since they were apparently kicked out of Pitt st mall. Now they hog the QVB area blocking access to the QVB and failing to control their crowd.

In short…as far as they are concerned…not their responsibility.

As I understand it…the very reason they all got kicked from Pitt st mall.

Because of this, I was a little stressed today what with concerns that they are going to get busking banned at the QVB…not to mention I am getting tired of people walking on my drawings.

Today I asked the crowd near me to move forward so we can open up a pedestrian walkway…

The women just looked down their noses at me and a guy told me to move my crap instead.

All they needed to do was step forward 3 paces which was clear and I am apparently the bad guy.

…

It was a day where I was made to feel like people viewed me with contempt because…shock…horror…I do not have a real job.

…

The solution is simple…but not one I wish to pursue.

The circle acts only care for themselves, they most certainly do not care how they affect others…

The solution is that I ensure I show up first (which I normally do anyway), and instead of setting up to the side as I do currently, I set up dead centre to block them completely.

It is a solution…but not one I want to pursue.

Will see how things go and try and come up with a better option to protect my drawings, maintain access to the QVB and allow other buskers to make use of the space as well.

Otherwise I am going to have to re-evaluate allowing other buskers to perform near me…

I now have a far better understanding as to why some of the other street artists (including musicians) dislike the circle acts…and I am quickly coming to agree with them.

…

People…

If you are going to busk…respect your surroundings and consider how you impact others…

This applies to everyone in fact…

If you want to stop to enjoy something, by all means do so…

Just don’t think your the only person that matters though…because you most certainly are not.

…

Today was not a good day…but hopefully I kept the majority of the stress from impacting on those who stopped by to enjoy what I had to offer for their enjoyment.

And that is something else to consider when you take up busking (or anything involving having to interact with others)…

If something happens to stress you out…

Take a deep breath…

Relax…

And do not respond negatively as it can only make things worse.

Aim to bring a smile to others lives and avoid letting the greedy self-absorbed morons in life dictate who you are.

You are better than that.

🙂

A lack of child control

Yesterday I finished for the day, packed up and headed over to chat with another busker who had been away in Melbourne over Christmas.

While chatting, a family walked by and a child darted out to look at his work…all well and good except for one slight problem. The child stood directly on his work where he had just spent an entire day fixing a few blemishes.

As the work was in chalk pastel, an entire day worth of work was undone in the space of a minute.

The obvious lack of parental control over the child confirmed when the other child came close to doing the same thing only moments later.

Needless to say, the artist now looks forward to repairing a section he has had to repair multiple times due to such events…and here he had been looking forward to seeing the end in sight.

It is hard to be angry at a child who doesn’t know better…adults on the other hand.

All mediums have their drawbacks, thankfully pen is a little more durable…but unlike pastels, repairs not as easy when something does go wrong.

Still…it is an unfortunate fact that such issues will occur…I have yet to work out a viable solution.

With new dreams pending

After just over a year of working on the panoramas, 2012 begins with my working on “panorama #20” which for now remains nameless while people continue to guess the title I have already selected.

As of today, I am nearing the halfway point of this piece which means it may well be finished by the end of next week if not sooner.

The idea that I am on my 20th panorama is in and of itself a little bemusing to say the least, after all, back way back when, I thought 10 panoramas was a distant number to achieve.

With #20 soon to be under my belt, I will be double that number with thoughts of the next one already in mind.

Will I run out of ideas?

When will I freeze up…dry up?

Fears that occassionally surface due to the nature of what I am doing…the idea of constantly creating something new is a nerve racking challenge due to the thought of falling short of the slowly growing fanbase.

And yet every time I work on an idea I am (hopefully) improving on my technique, increasing my skill with each stroke of the pen as I work on different ideas.

I know where I am…

I know I have a ways to go to reach where I want to be…

With that in mind, I am moving forwards with my plans by planning ahead with an idea in reserve as I plan the one to follow that which I am working on.

The idea being that by doing so, I hope to improve my speed in creating the one I am working on. By increasing on the speed side, I improve not so much on turnover as I do on providing incentive to focus on detail.

Complexity is the spice of life…

Simplicity being the goal of serving it up…

I am going to burn out aren’t I…burn out and blow away…

Meh…

Let’s see how long it takes then…

20 and counting.

Happy New Year

Well, it is the start to a new year…or the beginning of the end if you favour the end times scenario. Whatever the case, it is a time to re-evaluate your goals.

With the latest update to the app, posting to the blog not such an easy task, but all going well I have worked out how the new setup works.

While I have been locked out of the blog, I have turned my attention to youtube. While I am limited to my mobile, the quality in turn is limited…something I will review at a later date if and when I update my resources.

For now, those interested can view the various clips view the links on the blog which are clearly labelled.

I look forward to getting the rest of the panoramas up for viewing.

A tough month to weather

The past month has been a bit of a struggle due in major part to the rain that has been falling. Sadly, the threat of rain is still here for the next week or two so not all that certain how things will go.

So long as there is a space available and I beat the rain in setting up, I have the opportunity to make some money. The issue is different if the rain beats me for the simple reason the ground is wet from the public walking over it.

While I have been eating and staying on top of rent as best I can, it the small things that stand out and let you know how you are doing…

3 weeks ago I ran out of mouthwash and shampoo, having to resort to body wash I hadn’t used to clean my hair.

With deoderant and toothpaste getting low, the idea of what I might smell like to the public wad weighing on my mind.

Thankfully this past weekend, even with the rain, was good enough for me to top up on the essentials of cleanliness.

Next step…a trim to deal with my split ends…perhaps just before Christmas.

Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras page on Google+

Now that Google+ has implemented pages, I went ahead and created a page for the “A History of the Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras” panorama to determine what the differences are between Google+ and Facebook.

So far the biggest difference is in image size.

I uploaded a larger image of the panorama to provide people a better viewing option. As it turns out, due to the overall length of the image, Facebook displays an image not much larger than the original thumbnail I uploaded. Google+ on the other hand, while also reducing the image, does provide a greater length allowance.

Just need to see how traffic compares.

With Facebook on 11 likes and Google+ on 0, they are more or less on even footing. Though Facebook does have the advantage of being linked to my Facebook public page which has over 600 likes so Google+ has an uphill battle on that front.

Beyond that, I am still looking into the best options for my use of Google+