There's a first time for everything

Have you ever woken up on a lovely spring day, rejoiced in the great green beauty of all things fresh and new, taken a zillion photos to post on your blog, and then had zero follow-through?  Yes?  Me too.  More on that at a later date.  First I want to show you something I painted and then go slather my elbow in Neosporin - I've got a bug bite the size of a nickel.  It's amazing.  And itchy as hell.  Yesterday was so unbelievably hot and humid and sweaty I thought for sure the mosquitoes would slide right off before they could get any traction.  Alas.  At least one prevailed.

Anyway, I digress.  Here's what I did a week ago.  It started with a re-do:

That's an 18" square and since it was never finished in the first place I guess it's technically not a re-do.  I think it was going to be a big word painting that said JUST KEEP SWIMMING but I never made it past the background stage.  So on goes a crap ton of white with a big fat palette knife.

Here's the WIP stage:

I paint flat - not on an easel - balanced on jars of paint (which you can see in the first picture) and this canvas was a pain in the rear because it does not have a center brace on the back.  I like to pick up the canvas and hold it or turn it, and it's a miracle this one did not end up on the floor by accident.  (I did get a giant blob of white paint on my leg, tho, which I didn't notice until later - that's par for the course.)  I liked the way this was looking lying down but when I saw it upright -- no bueno.  After letting it percolate for a few days, out came the whitewash.  Sort of.  For someone who loves ALL THE COLORS, I certainly use a lot of white paint.

Now I like it.  And if you know me at all, this next sentence will come as a complete shock.  I USED A MATTE VARNISH!  That's right, no shiny shine.  This is the first ever time I've finished one of my acrylic paintings with a matte varnish.  Craziness.

On another note, I told myself I was going to write a poem every day in July.  The day's not over yet so today is still in the running, but here is the first one:

Watering the Hydrangeas

An unexpected loss

of nature's maple canopy

reunites the earth

with sun-filled sky,

and shade lovers drink with gratitude.