Sunday evening, after I posted, I had a very distressing experience. I had a sudden, massive amount of dark matter appear in my eye. Since my other eye has already lost 90% of its vision, I'm very protective of the one that works. I called the office of my ophthalmologist and the doctor on call told me to go to the emergency room. I was already aware that the symptoms I was experiencing could be caused by a retinal tear or detachment, so I was not surprised when I heard this.
Luckily for me it was not. It was instead a Posterior Vitreous Detachment, which means that the Vitreous (the gel-like substance in the eye) had pulled loose and the fibers that normally attached to the retina were floating around in my eye.
However, before I knew this I was a little worried ... ok, I was petrified ... and not surprisingly, my blood pressure was rather high. So the doctors in the emergency room were worried that I might be having a stroke or heart attack. They had to draw blood and run an ekg before they would finally release me. We were there until 2 am.
Yesterday, I was so tired ... physically, mentally and emotionally ... that I didn't even try to paint. Today I decided to get back in the studio. Now, remember, I still have a lot of "debris" in my eye. everything is very "grainy" and there are clumps and threads of darker areas that move around. I can see, but it's very distracting and annoying. It's at its worst when I'm looking at a light surface like a computer screen, the page of a book or a blank canvas. From what I can tell, it will be weeks (or maybe months) before it finally clears. And there is still the chance that the "pulling" of the fibers on the retina could cause a retinal tear or detachment. So I have to be alert for those symptoms.
In the meantime, it's not going to stop me from painting.
So, today I painted. I had started this with a nectarine instead of the orange. After wiping it twice, and getting very discouraged, I decided to switch to the orange. And it quickly came together. I realized that the nectarine had been too busy and contrasty and was distracting from the glass. The orange worked much better. So if I start getting all whiny about how much I hate all this stuff in my eye, and how it's so hard to paint like this, you just remind me that that is not an good excuse.
8x6 oil on Raymar canvas panel
Comes with folding wrought iron scroll stand.
