The kitchen table has been piled high with vegetable catalogues and gardening bibles and seed packets and yesterday it was time to get some dirt on my hands. This year we’ve added two new raised beds. One for raspberries and the other for a cold frame greenhousey kind of thing under which I’ve started all the lovely salad greens and those devine french breakfast radishes.
Next project is to repair and secure the old Finnegan fence sections and then finish planting the peas…but mother nature is helping the muses out by dampening those plans with a forecasted week of rain.
Sooooo…it’s back to the easel for me. But at least I’ve got some dirt under my nails and those wonderful gardening endorphines keeping a smile in my heart.
Pat just called and frantically yelled to get my camera and come outside…
Here’s who came to visit the studio this afternoon…
She , or he, sat perched in this hickory for enough time for me to circle around and get the sun in the right angle and then sat long enough for us to call Sue and Zola to look out their windows and then an electric truck drove by and that was time to bolt…
It wasn’t until it had taken off that we saw there were two of them flying around together. When I came inside to look at the photos the other one was there all along…
The whole neighborhood came out to see and it was a wonderful break from a long day of painting shingles…You can just make her out in the upper left corner…my easel window in at the bottom right corner…
Someone told us they are living in a nest down the lane…now that they know their way to the studio I’ll be sure to leave some goldfish out for a snack…
that’s where I’ve been for weeks now. It’s super crunch time as I see the deadline for the July show coming closer….and closer. Every waking minute needs to be spent with brush in hand in order to meet the ambitious goals I have for producing more and better work this year.
You will have noticed that writing blog entries, which can sometimes take hours, have been shelved along with dinner invitations and all other social interactions, except for PT which is keeping my knees and back from seizing up all together.
I do monitor the incoming channels via email, internet and facebook so the outside world does get in… in short controlled bursts.
This morning one of those playful but interesting FB threads came through from a friend…World Book Day. Grab the book closet to you right now. Open to page 56, and choose the 5th sentence. Publish it as your status and write these rules as a comment. Don’t choose. PICK UP the CLOSET book.
I am a book lover so… I reached behind my easel chair and grabbed the closest book…it turned out to be Mechanical Drawing for High Schools by French and Svensen, used by students at the George Washington High School in Manhattan, N.Y.City between 1936-39…interestingly enough one of the students who signed it out in ’37 was George O’Neill…almost a relative ?
I use this book as a prop and it has appeared in several paintings…here’s one called Book Mark…
and a recent one, By Design…currently available at the Granary Gallery
So I opened to page 56…
and the 5th sentence reads…”When a pictorial sketch is dimensioned, the only additional consideration is to use care to see that all extension lines are either in or perpendicular to the plane on which the distance is being given.”
Which was a much needed reminder that the muses are here…just over my shoulder as it were…helping me struggle through the long hours of trying to get those extension lines just right…
Here is a shot of what I was painting when that facebook comment came through on the iphone beside me…complete with T-square in place to make sure those carefully considered doors are perpendicular !
This is all good. Last Friday was in the 70’s and, even though we started the day with a hospital visit for an infusion of Reclast, we stopped on the way home for a picnic and a walk in the park with Finn and enjoyed most of the day just being out in the warm sun.
The rest of the weekend was no picnic. The occasionally reported flu-like reactions to that drug turned out to be more like the Dengue Flu. A short controlled burst of the pneumonia I was plagued with this time last year… and then some.
But, hopefully, short is the keyword in that last sentence because I am marginally better each day and back in the studio this morning. The pretty snowfall that we awoke to has helped to send me back into the much needed winter of creative hibernation and the continuing muscle fatigue and soreness is forcing me not to shovel this one out.
The days of laying in a sick bed were not completely wasted as I signed back up with Lynda.com to challenge my brain to learn something new in Photoshop. Long story short, last week I learned that I had fallen prey to purchasing a bogus Cs5 upgrade a few months ago. It had started to crash and burn which led me to realize that my computer which had been having it’s own problems was actually 5 years old now. Ancient in the graphics world. And, with the unexpected sale of a painting here in the studio, I decided to bite the techno bullet and upgrade both hardware and software at the same time.
As an artist who pays homage to detail, I have spent as much time sharpening my computer skills lately as I have my pencils. Both are tools and only as good as the craftsman who uses them so I study and practice and learn. The tutorials are terrific because I can work at my own pace and dip back in for refreshers as needed. I have already learned about fifty things that will make a huge difference in my “workflow” and am eager to try them out with the new machine.
It’s all about getting the composition up on the panel as efficiently and quickly as possible…then I can settle in and let the muses take over.
Now, it’s time to put this bump in the road behind me and get back my mojo…
Getting lost in the details can sometimes mean losing the details themselves.
It can take hours and many layers of paint to make a convincing shingle, or door. Especially when the wood is painted white. Every angle and corner reflects the light differently. And you can’t just mix up a “blue” for the shadows because they rely on what’s under them as much as what the sun is doing for their color. And all those parameters can change in a heartbeat on what you thought was a stable sunny summer day when a cloud passes over.
So I’ve been paying close attention to those shadow passages for a few days as I built up the layers on this vineyard doorway…
And, as is my practice, I sat back at the end of the day to review the progress and make notes on things to address in the morning and something about this stage bothered me. So I got up and turned the lights off and heat down and came back once more before heading home…and it jumped out at me. Did you catch it too ?
There was only one hinge on that door.
I was concentrating on the depth of that blue and missed the tiny little detail of hardware without which that door would fly away in a stiff ocean breeze.
I’ve got it on there now, along with the next couple layers of light and some the rest of the hardware and my walking stick.
Now if I only had time to fix the door to Pat’s office in the log cabin that has fallen completely off it’s hinges. Must be the theme of the week.
This is the chair I would like to be in this morning…
But this is the chair that I’ve actually been in all morning…
Because being a self-employed professional artist is serious…well…business. Which I think they should be a required course for any art major these days !
And lately this seems to take up a whole lot more of my time that it used to. And the creative right brained visual learners amongst us can empathize with the struggle it can sometimes be to balance all the numbers on those little bits of paper that the CPA would like you to sort out. It is only one reason that I am intensely grateful for our team of accountants headed up by Pam Bazella at Brown, Schultz, Sheridan and Fritz in Lancaster, PA. They are clever and patient and kindly have our backs and I simply could not function without them.
Self-promotion is another aspect of “the business of making art” (which should also be taught in that art major’s curriculum) and it can be layered with a healthy dose of narcissistic potholes that are sometimes hard for the shy me to step over and around. But it is a vital part of being successful when you are measuring your goals with mortgage payments and health insurance bills. So I swallow…humbly…and plow ahead with announcements each time a new rung of the ladder is reached.
AND I have another partner in this adventure…and this life…without whom I could not exist let alone function…Herself, my Lackey, my Pat. So it is with great relief that she has made it home after a week of watching the new grandbaby up in the north country. I was happy and oh so jealous that she got some good bonding time with Zoe…but happier to have her home with Finn and me.
We have had one day in the last two weeks with temperatures above freezing and I was able to get out to the garage and finish wrapping the rest of the panels working late into the last of that afternoon sunshine.
But, along with the rest of the country, we have been shivering ever since. In this part of the state the meteorologists use Harrisburg International Airport as the official temp. gauge. This morning I happened to be at HIA and could verify that it was indeed 1 degree outside. And since the little dribbles of water that we had left running from both of log cabin faucets decided …..to….stop…….dripping……..yesterday…………morning……………I can attest to the fact that it is too cold for those panels to be out in the unheated garage.
So I have brought them all, all 20 of them, inside and up the steep and narrow stairs to the library loft.
Last night I got the first coat of gesso on the back sides. This is more easily done with a wide putty knife…unless the plastic one you bought for this purpose was used as a chew toy by your apprentice…
Today I will turn these all over, give the canvas a light sanding to remove stray bits of dried gel medium (which is the adhesive I use to attach it to the Dibond) and then …using the new putty knife…will start the first of several coats of the acrylic gesso. I find that I can use the scraper up to about the third coat before the streaks it leaves are too prominent. I’m going for the smoothest, weave-free look possible.
The final coat will be with the Art Board Gesso and probably brushed on. But I’m eager to see if working up in the loft, with it’s great source of light, will make any difference to how well I can apply the final layer.
This all will have to wait just a bit longer however…since the phone reception is poor up there…and I am monitoring a delayed flight due to mechanical troubles…and the computer has now become command central until my traveler is wheels up…and safely back down.
we have been off the snow storm track for the first part of this winter so all those marvelous nor’easters are blowing right by and leaving six or seven flakes on the ground just to tease…
today… an inch !
I’ve begun the serious work of narrowing down the best compositions for the winter’s hibernation. The list…the short list…is over 30 paintings. When I count out the weeks, the days, between now and the big summer show at the Granary Gallery… July 17th for those who might wish to know… the realist in me, no pun intended, might anticipate 12-15 solid pieces, one of which will be another very detailed 8 footer. So… the pressure is on !
With my supply of ready-to-go panels dwindling I can’t wait for the weather to warm up before putting some more in the pipeline. The newly roofed garage is cleared out enough to provide ample workspace and though it is not insulated or heated the space heater and afternoon sunshine warm it up enough to work. At least that was the case until this morning.
The snow means no sun and the temps are well below freezing. Even though I keep the adhesive next to an iron and use said iron to smooth and secure the canvas to the panels…and even though I have Finnegan laying at my feet and the Koln Concert vibes warming up the rest of the garage…it was too cold for this artiste. I got one more panel wrapped and fled to the warmer studio.
A couple weeks ago I finished a painting which featured this compost pile…and uncharacteristically I’ve gone back a couple times since to tweak the light and shadows…not quite satisfied that it was singing.
Yesterday morning…as Finnegan and I made our way to work through the back gate… I passed the compost pile…
and just that little bit of snow, almost an inch ! , gave a place for the raking light to…well…rake. I’m going to go back one more time…with today’s snow falling outside and the fingers warming up…and see if the muses were right.
Zoe’s smiling face greeted me in the studio this last morning of 2010…
as my Aunt Lorrie said…it doesn’t get any better than that ! Right on Lo…we Grandmothers have it made….but they were only here for a brief visit and Finn is at a loss without her baby to take care of…
… to take her mind off of watching her sweet smiling pal being bundled up and tucked safely into the car and waving goodbye…Finn and I have begun to plan next year’s garden additions.
The seed catalogs have begun arriving and a mini-January thaw is promised for the weekend so we are going to build us a new bed and move the last of the dirt, which is threatening to become one with the driveway, into it and let it hang out with some compost for the rest of the winter and be ready to receive the salad green mixture of seeds in the early spring. I’m seriously eyeing one of those cold-frame covers in the gardeners catalog but the goal this year is to recycle the pile of construction materials from the old garage shed, and the other bits and pieces of clutter and debris that have taken up residence in our corner of the planet over the two decades we have been responsible for it’s care…and feed ourselves and a few neighbors along the way.
So…when Finnegan suggested using her old wading pools as planters…well we were off and running…
We’re thinking zukes and beans here…with some of those fabric potato pot planters as anchors…at least that’s what Finn is thinking.
We’ll head back out there after a morning session of painting…
and tonight, when we’ve put away the brushes and the tools and watched the last sunset of the year, and settled in with Herself by our fireside…we’ll pop a cork and raise a toast to all of you out there who make our lives so much richer for being at the other end of this blog.
