Fandom is Great and Wonderful !

If you ever had any doubts that Richard Armitage fans are great, brave and just absolutely wonderful, here are two examples who just deserve to be specially mentioned:

Servetus - with her absolutely wonderful idea to help those in need and

Calexora - with her idea to help by challenging Richard Armitage to play the cello.

As we know through his interviews so far, that he likes to play the cello, it might be a challenge he likes to meet.
Please support both ideas and help where you can.

P.S.: Richard Armitage fans are wonderful.
The world would be a better place if all acted like his friendly and helpful fan community.
All the world should become Richard Armitage fans !
;o) quod erat demonstrandum ;o)

Source: RichardArmitageNet.com

Readers who have seen my short video introduction for FanstRAvaganza 2011 will know, what I want to say with this picture ;o) I hope he does not want to ...

To Settle my Nerves ...

How I see that I am at the end of my nerves 
and urgently need a RA treatment?

I look at things I like and only think about how much work it is to maintain them, keep them clean and free of dust, etc.
Then I know, it is high time for me to let the dust stay where it is. He always gets the upper hand with me anyway.
But now, how to decide what treatment would be the right one?
Richard Armitage - treatment of course, but which one?

How fortunate, that it is May and bccmee does give us our daily dose of highly effective medicine! How fortunate for me, to have doctor and nurse so handily available ;o)

Here is today's medicine: bccmee with an "Ultimate Force" picture of Richard Armitage

Another medicine I found by accident today is Robin Hood, a rarely touched topic on this blog. But first I must mention the only "Robin Hood" film, where I really wanted Robin Hood to get Marian in the end.
I saw it the first time, when I was still so young that I slept during most of the cinema performance. It was so cosily warm and dark. But I can remember seeing the last bit, with the happy couple leaving together in a coach ;o)

But now, I think, I must reveal, which film I mean.
This Robin (and only this Robin) should get Marian:

 

In all the other cases I have seen, I found Robin Hood a bit self assured and overbearing. Nothing like the thoughtful and troubled Guy of Gisbourn, played by Richard Armitage, who would really deserve her and would cherish her accordingly (after the long time of torture she made him go through).

Now you deserve a further treat for today:

Source: RichardArmitageNet.com

Still Searching for the Best Material

In utter hubris, I wrote on Servetus' blog, that I would try to make a RA-picture for my stitching machine.
I looked and searched, but cannot come up with something nearly fitting. So yesterday and today, I tried to draw a picture myself, to reduce all the colour and lines to at least make it nearly possible to get it transformed into something adequate for my stitching machine.
The downside is, my pictures do not get close to resembling his lovely face and I think they would not work on my machine anyway.

But at least I tried ;o)
I never had a painting career in mind, so I am not overly disturbed, that I cannot catch the likeness.

If you have any suggestions or material which you think might work for a transfer into an image for a stitching machine (preferably black / white), please let me know !!! I very much appreciate any kind of help in this matter!!!

Here are my two efforts:
Picture 2:

Picture 1:

Why was my Reaction so Extreme?

Yesterday's post kept turning round in my head and I continued with the question, why my reaction to this 'old interview' was so extreme?

In hindsight, I think, what disturbed me most about the interview and why it changed my apprehension of Richard Armitage was, because it brought him closer on a personal level.
I was not prepared to let him in so closely. He was on his pedestal quite in a safe distance to me. If the safety zone was more for his sake or mine remains to be decided.
It was a quite comfortable and for some time well established distance which got disturbed. His 'function' in my life got a further aspect. What comes of it must be discovered further in future.

He came too close with a trust he cannot know that he can burden me with without having to fear negative consequences. My family and friends know me and know they can depend on me, when they entrust me with burdensome information. He does not know that and so his trust instinctively let me draw back and put him in greater distance. - Every aspect of his acting in "Strike Back" ep. 3 was under the closest scrutiny and was evaluated meticulously by me.
That unnerved me so much, that I had to stop watching that film which I had seen countless times before.

With the lovely pictures of bccmee and kadamanja I was able to put him 'almost' back in his old place.

Fortunately there is such a lot to be admired in and about him, that a new aspect and different point-of-view does not hurt overly much. The result always is fine!

In comparison, the fabulous and amusing numerological analysis by Fabo Laktuko and Traxy (and I must admit, my own) did nothing to bring him closer, but were so funny, that I still cannot stop laughing.
If you did not already, give the numerology comparison by Celebrity-Galore a try ;o)))

Knowing or Not Wanting to Know Richard Armitage ...

Some days ago, I read an old interview with Richard Armitage I had not read so far.
It was so intimate and contained so many detail, that afterwards I wished, I had not read it, though I must admit, I read through the whole interview.
It clouded my perception of him and when I watched the last episode of Strike Back yesterday, I re-interpreted his performance due to the interview. I did not like that of me and so - what I have never done before - stopped the film before the end. (Here I must admit, I have watched it so often, that in my head it continued anyway.)

What also disturbed me the last days is, that I think John Porter will die or at least disappear in "Strike Back II". That is what was to be expected, after he is filming "The Hobbit". But I think he is not only hunted down by the Americans, the Afgans and As'sad's men, I also think his own team sends out the rescue team to eliminate him and not to rescue him from the imprisonment of the preview scene.
For his own team must think, he has killed his boss Collinson. As he is the only eye witness of the real events, he has no chance to come back to "Strike Back" again.

Today, I read on RichardArmitageNet.com, that RA had been filming in South Africa with some lovely details about him with the crew.
The wonderful artwork by bccmee also did help - this look just warms every heart!
And kadamaja's wallpapers did continue the process to bring me back to full appreciation.

This  reminded me of the key points, why I really appreciate him:
* His high-quality performances
* his absolute dedication to work
* his easy going and friendly attitude towards colleagues and co-workers.

I am not sure what really affected me most:
* That he suddenly became a real person?
* That he fell down from my imaginary pedestal? (That he did not really do or at least he climbed back onto it quite fast ;o)
* That I felt like a bit of a prude or at least very naive? But still this interview was more than I wanted to know, more than I wanted to know about a virtual stranger. (I have heard quite a lot of [even extreme] confessions in my life, but with these I felt uncomfortable.) And I must add, I am not even sure that what I read is the truth! I think it partially is a role set up to entertain the audience and keep up a certain image of attractive vulnerability.

The one thing which was not affected by reading the interview, was my writing the dream-solution for "Spooks 9". My writing it continued quite undisturbed, but I am still not very far, though the outline is finished.

You will not believe it, but I really started it (without real time for it, but I just could not resist ;o)
I reckon, I have to reveal my storyline before "Spooks 10" starts, as these 'real events' will make my phantasy sequel obsolete anyway.


Now securely back in deep RA-fandom, I will try to start posting my dream-sequence soon, to not keep you waiting for the solution of "Spooks 9" much longer ;o) 
Have fun and enjoy!

Art and Richard Armitage

I do not know, what Richard Armitage has on him, to provoke such a lot of artful behaviour form his fans. But it is a wonderful experience to enjoy the results in the fandom and to spread one's own wings and try out old, long forgotten talents and test new things. I had stopped drawing for years, before, through fandom, coming back to it again now.

My previous post, I feel necessary to mention, was not meant as a request to fish for compliments.

My tries at drawing, especially water colour, are just completely awful. - I will spare you the experience ;o)
All figures I try look like comic figures, but as soon as I try comic figures, they look just like ... oh, just awful.

But at least my drawings are much better than my last experience I had in a German modern art museum. I will not divulge the name of the town that museum was in (not my home town, so you can rule out Munich).

They had a painting, 1,5 x 6 m in format, completely black.
When I just ignored that nonsensical painting and went by it, the museum guard standing in that room came to me and lead my attention back to this painting, as it was the most expensive of the whole museum.
As I am in general a very polite person, I listened to his explanations. So the guard continued, that this painting had been transported from New York (sorry to mention this town in these circumstances - no offence meant) to the town under the highest security and safety measures. This had been necessary, as the texture of the painting was so fragile that if one only touched it with the finger, the whole colour would fall off.

Absolutely unimpressed, my thoughts were - fortunately I did not mention them to the absolutely ecstatic guard - why did they not take a canvas of the same measurements and some black colour and did hang that up as a replacement. Nobody would have been able to tell the difference and they would have spared all that money.

By the way, I must mention, they had another painting, which was also very impressive. One painted with cow excrements. The guard also told me the fascinating story of this painting. It was a wonder, that the artist could make a colour combination to preserve the colour and original substance, so that it would not rot on the canvas.
What an achievement indeed. Next time I visit a farm, I urgently must visit the cows to get some paint.


I was hard pressed not to laugh, but the guard meant all that in earnest.

The next room held a metal construction that let out some air with silent swooosh-sounds. I thought, they had a strange air conditioning system in this room and very noisy at that. There also was no fragile picture in this room to make such a construction necessary.
When I came to the next room, the next guard asked me, if I had seen the excellent metal art thing in the previous room.

Oh, yes, I had, I confirmed. I did not mention that I had thought it to be an ugly air conditioning system.

So you see now, I have not the least sense for art ;o)

Who is that angry looking man?

I have been found out, or at least almost.
My parents saw a photo of a certain man in my appartment and asked me that question: "Who is that angry looking man?"
My answer, a bit fuddled and red in the face ;o) "Oh, an actor."
Fortunately, my parents did not ask any further. Who would love such an angry looking man anyway, they must have thought.
But for me, a picture of him looking angry is a good motivation for me to go back to work and work even harder than I would do anyway.

Is that a way of 'mis-using' Richard Armitage?

But completely overworked as I am right now, I needed a break. When I am totally overworked, it is even an effort for me, to decide on what to do that is not work related.
So my method of choice or better way of keeping my hands busy so that they could not grab for the next work (as there is lots to do right now and I do not know where to look first), was again Richard Armitage.
Not only that he keeps me motivated, he is also my source for rest and recreation.
I did some drawings to get my hands off work. (Nothing arty, my meager talents do not suffice for that, but I still do enjoy doing it. Please do not expect too much, it is nothing like the artful creations bccmee is doing right now. If you did not already, take a look. One wonderful creation for every day in May. What a great idea by a real artist!)
Here are the results of my forced recreation for you to enjoy: