First Impressions - More RA comix

Wrap Up (FanstRAvaganza 2)

It's about time I did some analysis of all those polls I had us fans taking.  Thank you very much to everyone who participated, by the way!  I realize pollling is not a very scientific way to discover facts but I do think that it is possible to get a snapshot of a moment in time of at least the fans who frequent my blog.

An impression of Richard Armitage as Claude Monet by Elvira Sweeney

Mind you, my stats were up quite a bit during the FanstRA although not as high as might be expected if my topic were of a more popular incarnation of Mr. Armitage's panoply of characters.  As Claude Monet in the BBC's The Impressionists, Richard Armitage did an amazing job portraying the highs and lows of the famous painter's life and career, but because some RA fans might not be interested in art or biographies, or (more likely) because they weren't enamoured of the character's facial hair, ;) they all didn't flock to my humble little home in the blogosphere. Plus, with all the range and quantity of posts this year's FanstRA engendered, who had time to read it all?  I know I will be catching up for quite some time!

The following RA- related blogs participated this year:

1. Servetus- Me + Richard
2. Mulubinba- RA Viewers Perspective
3. Skully- The Spooks Fan Blog
4. Traxy- The Squeee!
5. Avalon- Avalon's Blog
6. "Frenz"- RA Frenzy
7. Nat- The RA Fan Blog
8. Sarah- From the Quill Tip
9. Christine- CDoart
10. Pi- Nevermind, Mr. Armitage
11. Prue- Mesmered’s Blog
12. Musa- White Rose Writing
13. Judiang -- Confessions of a Watcher
14. bccmee -- Richard Armitage Vids & Graphics

I certainly didn't mind having M. Monet to myself!  We had a lot of fun during the week of FanstRA (well I certainly did!) I was touring 3 Hawaiian islands with my wonderful husband who surprised me with the details of the trip on Valentine's Day!  And here I thought I was going to Alberta for March Break!  Quite the surprise as you can imagine!  But because of the surprise, I had a lot of extra preparations to do to get ready for the FanstRA so that all my posts could be prescheduled before I left.  Hubs would not have been very understanding had I been chained to my laptop in Hawaii!  As it was, he couldn't figure out why I wasn't busy researching all the places we were going to -- because I was getting a weeks' worth of posts ready!!  Stressed?  Well, maybe but I enjoyed it all nevertheless!  As I always told my kids -- nothing worthwhile comes without a bit of hardwork! (I am sure no one is very sympathetic with someone who gets a dream vacation!)  'Nuff said!

Anyway, my focus for FanstRAvaganza 2 was on Richard Armitage's performance in "The Impressionists" as Claude Monet.  Why did I choose this particular character? I have always been a fan of the Impressionist painters particularly Renoir, for his lovely portraits, but later Monet's landscapes and rich colours drew my interest as well. Of course, once I realized that Richard Armitage had a starring role in a production about the Impressionists, I was completely sold!  It is also the only RA related production that my husband has ever watched with me!

Here is how I planned the week:

Day One was an introduction to my polls. I only had a few to start with.  I planned to add more as the week went on.  Unfortunately that did involve a little blogging on my holiday, but not too much.  For the RA Fanfest I wanted to get a picture of RA's fans.  What are we like?  Do we have much in common with each other?  Stay tuned for my results.

Day Two was a collection of fanvids about RA as Monet in The Impressionists.  There are only a few of them available on Youtube, but I managed to miss at least one of them anyway!  If you would like to see my updated page with 19bt80's lovely tribute to Monet's life as an artist, please click here.  Or you could go directly to the video on Youtube here.

Day Three was an interview with a very original fanvidder named Bccmee.  Her first video was of RA in The Impressionists. Since then, her favourite character has become John Porter from Strike Back. She seems to think she is not the creative type...but we know different! ;)

Day Four was St. Patrick's Day which I celebrated by showcasing several of Monet's paintings containing a predominance of shades of green.

Day Five was Le Salon d'Armitage -- my fabulous collection of fan art which my daughter helpfully framed for me (as I was running short of time and who knows how to do all these grandiose ideas I have anyway?!) I can see I will have to try this again some day. There are so many wonderfully creative souls out there who are very inspired by Mr. Armitage's manly beauty.

Day Six I focused on Monet's series paintings with some videos showing the progression of sunlight on the same subject over the course of a day.  Who knew bridges and haystacks could be so exciting?!
Wouldn't you like to see RA sit still long enough that we could see him in every possible light? *Gah!* The mind boggles! @_@

Screen cap from Richard Armitage Central Gallery

March 19 was also the one year anniversary of my first post.  A Blogoversary is what I believe it is called! :)

Day Seven was my interview with artist and published author Elizabeth Alger.  There is no shortage of authors who have been inspired by Mr. Armitage to continue exploring some of the characters which he has brought to life.  (Someday I intend to indulge myself and read more fan fic!) But as Lizzy is also an artist who illustrates children's books -- the school librarian in me was very excited to get to know her. Wasn't it exciting to learn that RA had actually commented on one of her drawings?!!

As a final post I need to examine all those curious polls, but the whole polling idea was the most time consuming thing I have ever attempted!  So bear with me here as I try to make sense of it all and if you disagree with my all-encompassing conclusions, by all means leave a comment and say so (let's all remember our manners please). ;) This is really just an opinion piece after all, not scientific fact! :)

The Polls:

1. How long have you been a fan of RA?

I had 77 people who voted on this poll. It was the only one I was able to embed on the actual post, so some may have missed seeing it as it wasn't with the others in the sidebar. 

It seems that most of my readers are fairly new to the fandom.  The majority are in their first or second year, but if you add up the newest 2 categories: this year and less than a year -- totalled they equal the same as the 1 to 2 year fans.  I was very happy to see that I have some readers who are longtime fans -- 22% have been fans for 3 to 4 years and a healthy 15% have been fans for 5 to 6 years.  It appears that I have 1 reader who is a die-hard fan of 7 or more years as well as 1 who admits they are not a fan.  Could it be Dezz, or have we converted him?   More likely it is one of my family members who thinks I am a nutbar! :)

It might be easier to view this poll as a pie graph:

2. Have you ever participated in a fandom before?

60% of us have never participated in a fandom before! This answer didn't really surprise me, as most of the discussions on forums and blogs seem to run similar to this example.  I had 94 respondents to this poll so it was one of the highest attended polls.  I think this says a lot about the charisma of Richard Armitage, that he can attract so many new fans who otherwise would never bother to be interested in an actor.  The number is even more significant if you add on the fans who replied: Once but not to this extent. It is not unusual for a person to be a fan of someone (especially in one's teen years), but "not to this extent" reveals that there is certainly something more about Richard Armitage than the average celebrity crush.

3. How secretive are you about your RA obsession?

Let's face it! Some of us are kind of embarrassed to admit to having a celebrity crush (with all the squeeing that entails).  I had 80 people respond to this poll. -- And 7 of us are in denial! ;)  14 people say that no one knows about their RA obsession.  The majority of us (33%) are willing to discuss it with our closest friends.  But that's probably because we are trying to convert them!  27% of us have come clean with their significant others and some other close friends and family.  At least 10 brave souls are out there telling anyone and everyone about their addiction to Mr. Armitage! You GO girls! (I am obviously not THAT brave! :) You see, although I am out here preaching to the world about the wonders of RA, I do it anonymously so only my family and friends really know.

Here is Ragtag's take of how this RA obsession all goes down from her blog Reviewerama.
It's a wonderfully hilarious fan portrait that certainly applies for me!

4. Relationship Status

I got the most respondents to this poll.  50% of the RA fans who visited my blog last week to vote are single, never married.  I guess I shouldn't have assumed that it was the same age group as in the last polls I saw, because I think that RA is getting a younger following lately.  It makes sense since Captain America and The Hobbit will have a very high appeal to young people. I dropped in on RAFrenzy the other day and she seems to agree about more and younger fans:  Click here.
Actually, I just checked my stats and I was extremely surprised to see that without posting anything new yet in April, I have had more page hits already than the month of November! Something is definitely going on here! @_@

What should be suprising, is that 36% of us are married!  It seems strange to be crushing on a man we barely (think we) know when we are already in a committed relationship.  I'm not so sure I would be so understanding if my husband was crushing on an actress to this extent!  I am pretty sure my kids are creeped out about it.  And so I try to explain it... but I can't really understand it myself.  That is partly why I blog about it.  I am attempting self-analysis.  It's a bit difficult typing while lying on the couch. ;)

5. Introverted or Extroverted?

I always thought an introverted person was someone quite shy and retiring who prefers the quiet life versus an extrovert who is outgoing and doesn't mind being the center of attention and needs to be around people. Traxy at The Squeee! has a post that explains what each personality type is like according to a book called The Introvert Advantage by Marti Olsen Laney.

It doesn't really surprise me that there are more introverted people than extroverted ones taking my polls as the extroverts are probably out in the real world chatting up people rather than on the internet.  However, for an introverted person, the anonymity of the internet is rather freeing and probably provides much more opportunity for interacting with people than real life!  After reading Traxy's review I can see I am probably more introverted than I thought.  Most people would say I am a true extrovert.  I am not shy, I have little trouble chatting to strangers and I don't really mind public speaking.  But those people don't see that I enjoy my down time and quite often choose to stay home alone to amuse myself.

You would think that an actor would have to be an extrovert, but according to the interviews I've read (courtesy of Richard Armitage Online) Richard enjoys his downtime as well, prefering DIY projects like laying floorboard to painting the town red. So perhaps he is an introvert?  That might possibly explain part of his appeal to us introverted fans.

6.  How adventurous are you?

Why this poll?  I guess I was just wondering if RA fans are the adventurous type.  I am not much of a risk taker myself, but I have a wide range of interests and I do like to try new things.  I probably was inspired from my interview with Lizzy Alger about her fabulous voyages around the world on a couple of tall ships.  I don't think all RA fans are quite that adventurous!  It seems the majority of us (more than half) are willing to entertain the idea of having an adventure, but we want to make sure we have all the facts first.  That seems fairly adventurous, but practical too.  20% of us have some safety concerns (also reasonable), but there are a few more bystanders than there are those who are "game for anything'.  

Here is a definition of the personality trait of adventurousness:

High scorers on adventurousness are eager to try new activities, travel to foreign lands, and experience different things. They find familiarity and routine boring, and will take a new route home just because it is different. Low scorers tend to feel uncomfortable with change and prefer familiar routines.

By this definition I think perhaps we fans are a teeny bit more adventurous than the average person?  Hmmm?

7. How spiritual are you?

The last few poll questions were posted quite a bit later on in the week of FanstRAvaganza so they did not get as many responses.  Voters were able to choose more than one answer for this poll. 41 fans voted with 59 responses.

I was quite surprised that so many fans were atheists -- 36%.  I had formed a picture of his fans from the places I frequent on the Net that most were of a fairly spiritual nature (whether it was Christian, Jewish, Buddhist or Wicca).  I got the feeling from some of the comments in his Christmas letters that RA himself seemed to be quite spirtual.*

19% are members of a faith community plus 9% were Actively involved in their faith community.  That makes a total of 28% who participate in some type of religious organization.  Of those who reported religious beliefs 34% said their beliefs are liberal and only 1% said their's were conservative.

*The trouble with poll questions is sometimes they are worded mistakenly.  I have just looked up the word "atheist" and while I know it means someone who doesn't believe in a deity, I made an assumption that an atheist would not be spiritual, which apparently is not true!  Here is a quote from the article on Atheism in Wikipedia.

In Western culture, atheists are frequently assumed to be exclusively irreligious or unspiritual.^[11] However, atheism also figures in certain religious and spiritual belief systems, such as Jainism, Buddhism and Hinduism. Jainism and some forms of Buddhism do not advocate belief in gods,^[12] whereas Hinduism holds atheism to be valid, but difficult to follow spiritually.^[13]
Since conceptions of atheism vary, determining how many atheists exist in the world today is no easy task.^[14] According to one estimate, about 2.3% of the world's population describes itself as atheist, while a further 11.9% is described as nonreligious.^[15] According to another, rates of self-reported atheism are among the highest in Western nations, although also to quite varying degrees—United States (4%), Italy (7%), Spain (11%), Great Britain (17%), Germany (20%), and France (32%).^[16]

It seems that the RA fandom has more atheists than France! *shrugs*

8. How many of these creative activities do you enjoy doing fairly often?

 72 fans voted (you could pick more than one choice) and it seems we are a very creative bunch -- especially with words -- 61% of us enjoy writing and/or blogging.  36% enjoy photography or digital art.  31% play a musical instrument or sing, 25% enjoy needlework or quilting (I must start my RA cross stitch project!), 23% enjoy drawing or painting, 13% picked handicrafts or sculpting, and film/video making at 12% barely edged out performing for an audience at 8%. 

I'll bet if we put all our talents together we could produce Richard III for RA to star in!  Oh, yeah -- financial backing! Unfortunately we had no one in the next poll respond to "independently wealthy"!

9. What is your career field? 

(May choose more than one answer)

Only 45 people responded to this poll as it was posted during the last 2 days of the FanstRA.  Also I did it in a bit of a hurry so I should apologize that it could have been done much better.  I tried to think of as many possible careers as I could but as 7 people had to pick "Other" I feel this poll is very flawed.  It is interesting to note that one quarter of us fans (who voted) work in an "educational" field.  Another quarter of us work in an "artistic" field.  It is possible that one could have picked both possibilities.  (I think that was me.) Because I believe libraries combine both the educational and the artistic.  Business /Sales at 13% was slightly higher than I expected and Technical at 11% was slightly lower than I expected.  (But what do I know?)  4 people are in communications/media. (Yay! Are you getting the word out on RA?)  4 people are homemakers and 2 people are retired -- lucky you!

 10. What is your highest level of education?

 76 fans voted on this one and what a surprise it was!  Although I did suspect we were a fairly intelligent group of people I had no idea it was to this "degree"!  The majority of the fans who voted here have a Master's Degree - 27% and 5 people have a Doctoral degree!  (I am humbled! Now I really will be checking my spelling and grammar errors more carefully!) Second highest answer was a Bachelor's degree 25%, third highest had a College Diploma - 21%  At least 15% had some University courses under their belt, 4 people had some College courses, 4 people had a High School Diploma and 3 were still in school.

I thank everyone who visited my blog during the Second Annual FanstRAvanganza, and especially those who left comments and/or responded to my polls (flawed as they were).  I hope you found it interesting and enjoyable, but please don't take anything I say too seriously, usually my tongue is so far into my cheek that I find it difficult to talk at all! :D

Monet in series

DAY SIX

Thanks to CDoart for finding this for me! (Click to see it sparkle)

Claude Monet seems to have had a certain fascination with bridges.  In particular, the Japanese bridge he made over his lily pond in his garden in Giverny, but also he painted bridges in other parts of France and on his trips to London, England.

Fascinated with the play of light on his subject over the course of the day, Monet used several canvases at once and moved to each new canvas with the changing light.
This method of painting meant he had many different versions of the same subject.  Besides bridges, Monet is known for his series of paintings of Rouen Cathedral, The British Houses of Parliament, Poplar trees, haystacks and probably his most famous -- waterlilies.

The website of The National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC has an interesting post about Monet's series paintings. You can click on the featured paintings for some background information. Visit it here.

 

In this clip, Monet as an old man is played by Julian Glover.

I have gathered together a little slide show of as many of Monet's paintings and chalk drawings of bridges as I could find.

Monet's Bridges from Phylly3 on Vimeo.

Here is a lovely video which shows many of Monet's series paintings. They are blended together to make a moving light show.

This video, which shows a series of paintings about The British Parliament buildings, probably contains one of Richard Armitage's favourite paintings (according to an interview).  I wonder which one he likes best?

Richard as Lucas North in Spooks 8.1 in front of the British Parliament Buildings.

photo couresy of Richard Armitage Central Gallery

Green is the colour

 DAY FOUR

Green brushstrokes to represent leaves

I love the colour green, especially a bluish green like the azure water in the sun-drenched Carribean Sea.  I love the yellow-green of new leaves and the richness of deep, clear sparkling emerald jewel tones.  Green is a mysterious colour, it can be youthful and spritely like an elf or dark and foreboding like an enchanted forest. It is the colour of life, but can also foretell an unhealthy decay. Green is the colour of peasants and kings, truly a colour for all people!

Here are some of Monet's paintings which use an extra amount of green pigment.

The Green Wave (1866)

Claude Monet grew up in the seaside town of  Le Havre, France. Boats and the sea are a familar subject for his paintings.

Le Pave de Chailly



Monet's first attempt at painting "en plein air" (in the open air).  This was a revolutionary way for a painter to work at the time.  First influenced by a local painter he knew in his hometown of Le Havre named Eugène Boudin, Monet became convinced this was the only way to capture the true essence of the scene.

Camille Doncieux (Lady in Green)

Camille was Monet's model who became his mistress, the mother of his child and later his first wife.  The artists of that period in France must have lived a very avant garde existence to have flouted the rules of polite society in so many ways.  Claude Monet seemed to have truly loved this woman as he did not abandon her when his father refused to accept Camille as his future daughter-in-law.  Since his father was Monet's principal means of support, Claude could not afford to be married until he could sell enough paintings to support a family.  Sometime in 1868, in despair over his poverty, Monet contemplated taking his life. Luckily he was able to find a patron in M. and Mme Gaudibert. Claude and Camille were finally able to be married in 1870.

Green Park (1871)

Camille and Claude Monet took refuge in London, England (1870-71) so Monet could escape being sent to fight in the Franco-Prussian War. Monet had previously served in his county's armed forces.  His friend and fellow painter Frederic Bazille was not so fortunate. He was killed in battle in 1870.  While in England, Monet studied the works of John Constable and William Turner.

Train in the Countryside (ca. 1870)

  I was lucky enough to view this painting at its home in the Musée d'Orsay in Paris.

Green Reflections left panel

This is part of a larger work which Monet did in the latter part of his life.  He was always fascinated with the play of light on water and he explored this endlessly in paintings of his water lily pond which he designed and built himself in his garden at Giverny.  This particular series of paintings was created to display in The Musée de l'Orangerie in Paris.



In the Garden

Monet is well known for his love of his garden at Giverny where he made his home from 1883 until his death in 1926.

  Let us not forget the man himself! Here is Claude Monet as portrayed by Richard Armitage looking particularly dapper dressed in green.

Richard Armitage is able to beautifully portray both the sadness and the joy of Claude Monet's life in the BBC biopic "The Impressionists"

"Colour is my day-long obsession, joy and torment." 

Claude Monet

  
Colours by Donovan 

Have a very green St. Patrick’s Day!

Monet and The Impressionsts music videos

 DAY TWO

There are countless videos about Monet on Youtube but very few about that wonderful BBC production The Impressionists starring Richard Armitage as Monet as a young man and Julian Glover portraying Monet in the late stage of his life.

Here is a video by KatSw3 which I am not able to embed:

The Impressionsts-- Richard Armitage -- Fanvideo

This was Bccmee's first fanvid. It is remarkably good, especially for a first video!  I was pleased to be able to interview her recently. (Her interview is here.)  The music is Ave Verum Corpus as performed by Rhydian.

This one is one of my favourites which is no longer on Youtube but Vimeo. It is one of Yorkshirewench's earlier videos.  As it is password protected, in order to watch it you will need to enter the following password; butterfly

The Impressionists - Monet - Upside Down from yorkshirewench on Vimeo.

***UPDATE***(07/18/2014)
I think this next one must be a re-upload (for which I am grateful).  I don't think it was available when I first put this post together.

You Can't Hurry Love - Richard Armitage (The Impressionists) / by Miss Hale78

This video by the very talented Elvira Sweeney shows Richard Armitage as Monet
in his every mood.

And last but not least....I almost forget to include this lovely video by 19bt80

The Last Spike -- 125th Anniversary tribute

CPR travel poster

November 7th 1885 was the date that the last spike was driven into the track of Canada's first transcontinental railway (the Canadian Pacific Railway -- a.k.a. the CPR).  Sorry, my post is late by a few days, but I just got the memo!


Actually I missed seeing last week's episode of the Rick Mercer Report. Luckily I subscribe to his Youtube channel and what to my wondering eyes did appear -- but this excellent clip where Rick interviews Parks Canada employees about the Last Spike and rides the rails over some of the most beautiful railway scenery to be found anywhere in the world!

The history of Canada is defined by this transcontinental railroad.  There is a good chance that without the persistence of Sir John A. Macdonald (Canada's first Prime Minister) and the partnership of railway engineer Sir Sanford Fleming and CPR general manager Cornelius Van Horne, Canada would not exist in its present form today of 10 provinces and 3 territories linked together from east to west coast by a fragile network of rail (and now highways).  In fact, it was mainly in order to bring the province of British Columbia into Confederation that started the mad rush to build the railroad in the first place.
Is it any wonder then that so many talented performers have paid homage to Canada's railways?

Here's a famous song called Canadian Pacific by country music star Hank Snow

And one of my favourite songs by Gordon Lightfoot, Steel Rail Blues



Now you know I can't leave without a picture of Richard Armitage, so here he is as
Claude Monet in The Impressionists admiring a train.

screencap courtesy of RichardArmitageNet

*******UPDATE*******
Just had to share this lovely montage done by a dear friend and fellow admirer of Richard Armitage.
Just look at the way she has blended Richard as Claude Monet in The Impressionists with Monet's own artwork and a quote by fellow Impressionist painter Edouard Manet about his artistic vision.

The quote in English is "I paint what I see, not what pleases others to see".

Monet is more appropriate to this post than I at first realized! His birthdate was November 14, 1840 which means that I just missed his 170th birthday by one day!

If you like trains as I do, don't miss my first post on this blog, "I Think I Can"

I'm not adverse to verse...

A few posts back there was a Haiku contest at Me + Richard Armitage that I had to respond to, and it had me so into making those little verses of 5 / 7 / 5 syllables that I was practically speaking in that way for a day or so!

So here is what I came up with when I thought about Mr. Armitage -- it was all his wonderful roles which I scouted out through the generosity of Youtube posters and other online video sources, after first being gobsmacked with his incredible talent in the BBC's fabulous production of Elizabeth Gaskell's North and South.

I have decided to illustrate my poem with pictures of him (duh who else?) just in case there are still some people out there who haven't been introduced to the wonder that is Richard Armitage...and the rest of us who know all about him really don't mind looking at the same pictures over and over and over again!

The roles were: North and South 2004, the Vicar of Dibley 2006, Robin Hood 2006-2009, Spooks/MI-5 2008- (also referred to as "The Grid"), Sparkhouse 2002, Cold Feet 2003, Between the Sheets 2003, The Impressionists 2006, The Golden Hour 2005. These were more or less the order that I discovered these programs.

I followed you from

North and South to Dibley and

Sherwood to the Grid.












On the way, I passed
Through Sparkhouse, seeking some warmth

For Cold Feet, Between the Sheets.

I understand why
The Impressionists paint such

Golden Hours of you.

Servetus was very kind to write a review of my haiku which was very complimentary**blushing** but I won't print it here, there is a link to it on my "Poetry of Earth" posting.
So, poetry month is almost over and I hadn't written a line of poetry in quite a few years, so it was fun to be inspired by my muse, (a.k.a. Mr. Armitage) and by Servetus for posting the challenge.
Even TeeTotallyNot is getting into it -- I see she's posted some limericks today on her blog YI, Mum?
Yep! We've got it BAD!

Newsflash! Nat has made me famous!

The following video was made by Nat from Richard Armitage Fan Blog based on my second place finish in a Stick figure Richard Storyline contest.  If you haven't already seen Spooks (otherwise known as) MI-5 season 8, this probably won't mean much to you, but I am over the moon about it!!!

To be immortalized on the small screen of Youtube along with the likes of Stick figure Richard is the stuff of dreams!
Okay...I'm done bragging now. Back to our regular scheduled programming....