The Good, The Bad and ... The Questionable

I've been listening to Anne Murray's Christmas CD today, and I'm not embarrassed to admit it.  Roxie is so tired of hearing George Winston's "December" she gets up and leaves the room when I turn it on - I've been playing it non-stop since early November.  So we've moved on to Anne Murray.  Give it a whirl.  It's got all the classics.

Strange things have been happening around here the past couple of days (Anne Murray notwithstanding).  I bought a Christmas tree today.  Yes, it's a 3-foot tall faux tree, but it's the first tree I've had in about six years.

I have decorated the tree with a strand of wee tiny mirrored balls, and I hung some other lights in my kitchen.  It's downright festive in here.

And now, a strange thing:

I know.  It defies explanation.  Truly.  Enough said.

This next one also defies explanation.  I was going to send a picture of it to my cousin Andrew and tell him it's the study for his commission.  Can you picture this, bigger than its current 28" height, hanging behind an attorney's desk?  Heh heh.  Awesome.

I need to figure out how to loosen this up a little.  I'm not so good with tight paintings.  And he's not standing up in the picture because his varnish is fresh.  Speaking of which, I did two new things today.  First, I had a senior moment and picked up a painting to look at more closely, forgetting I had JUST ONE MINUTE AGO varnished it.  Poo.  Second, I dropped a painting FACE DOWN on the counter.  While I was painting it.  Double poo.  It happened with these guys, my faves of the weekend:

They live quite nicely together like this:

Sheepsies.  Poodle has a stuffed toy I named sheepsies.  It's a ... sheep.  It is flat and looks like it should hold a hot water bottle.  I got it for her when she was a baby to keep her company in the car.  Remarkably, it is still in one piece, with all four footie squeakers intact.  We were playing with it today, in fact.  Before we crashed on the couch.

Words to live by

Last wreath

I forgot to mention the other day that my cousin Andrew has asked me to paint him something for his office.  WOO HOO!  I am excited and terrified, all at once.  He is an attorney in Boston, and the wall he wants to fill is between two windows that look out on the city skyline.  The space is 33" wide by about nine feet tall.  I'm thinking of trying a set of three pieces, each 26" wide by 16" tall.  Once hung they will be over four feet tall.  And I think, because of the view and the fact that this wall is right behind Andrew's desk, it will need to be a bit abstract.  Stay tuned -- this is going to be interesting.

Here is my last wreath of the season, the one I made for Eletra.  It matches the colors in her house.

I finished this one on Monday, but didn't want to post the pictures until she saw the original in real life.  Didn't want to ruin the surprise.

So.  I've had exactly 4,700 page views on this blog as of when I checked a few minutes ago.  About 4,000 have been me.

My barnyard is getting crowded.

Terrible pictures, yes, I know, what's new.  Blah blah blah.

I have thoughts about both of these paintings, but won't share them because - as it turns out - the bits and pieces I DON'T like about my paintings are the bits and pieces some other people DO like.  For example, the weird red head in the last batch.  Go figure.

I was about to say I'm done painting roosters for a while, but just remembered there is another one I haven't photographed yet.  It's on paper instead of canvas.  Hang on while I get the camera again.

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la la la la la

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The very first one is still my favorite.  And I think he has a new home!  WOO HOO!

My own personal barnyard

I learned something today.  I painted the background for a new painting yesterday and left it to dry overnight.  Well, it is so damn cold in here the paint cracked as it dried.  Huh.

Anyway, it was a very productive weekend.  Helped that I had Sunday off, so it was a two-day weekend.  Roxie and I shoveled the deck upstairs, did four loads of laundry, changed the sheets on the bed, put away all the clothes, washed some dishes, read a book, went for two walks, built a wreath for Eletra, finished five wee copper trees and painted four more roosters, plus the background for a fifth.  Maybe one or two other things that I'm not remembering right now.  I'm not going to post pictures of the wreath yet - I want Eletra to see it in person first.  It is quite lovely.  So, on to the barnyard.

I am once again going out on a limb here and I am going to show you all of the roosters.  Starting with my least favorite.

Is that a weird head, or what?  I like this part:

This is the painting where the paint cracked.  You can sort of see it in the second picture.

The next one I painted on a panel I started ages ago, for a word painting, then I couldn't decide what words to put on it.  I was thinking of MEDIUM RARE, but the panel turned out more well done than rare.

The first picture is a more accurate color representation.  Very dark red and some browns and copper.  His tail explosion is some bright yellow green, which I am discovering is a color impossible to photograph.

Here is number three, which I love.

What a face, eh?  The last picture is at a bit of a different angle in an attempt to reduce the glare on the left side of the panel.  And yes, the painting is resting on the sprayer of my kitchen sink.

Last but not least, this is another canvas I had painted a while ago.  It is a gallery-wrapped canvas, so won't need a frame.  Actually, I've painted the background twice - didn't like how it came out the first time.  It was also going to be a word painting.  I'm glad it turned into THIS instead:

Ditto to everything I said about the third rooster, starting with "I love it" and ending with the kitchen sink sprayer.  Moral of the weekend rooster experiment:  sometimes you get it right, and sometimes you kinda don't.  But I feel pretty darn good about the results as a whole.

So there's my barnyard so far.  When I figure out how to successfully paint a cow, I will be beside myself.

The Unveiling



Before I unveil the new painting, here are a few pictures of the almost-bacon-scented wreath I finished last night.  It's purty.

 

And now, here it is.  Keep in mind that I took these photos at home, with no flash, and I couldn't be bothered to spend the extra two minutes it would have taken to put the camera on my tripod (which, by the way, is right over THERE).  So out of focus they may be, because the lack of a flash meant it was a wee bit too dark (two of the overhead lights in my kitchen do not work).

 

Surprise!  A rooster!  Please also note, in addition to the out-of-focus pictures, the color balance is way off.  I need to re-read the owner's manual and figure out how to tell the camera what type of light source I am working with.  The lightest bits in the painting are a bright yellow green, and the darkest bits are a deep purple.  Totally different for me, tho, eh?  I am quite pleased with myself.  I fear the reason why the painting came out as well as it did was because of the scratch-and-sniff aspect of painting in my kitchen.  I was painting while this guy's girlfriend was cooking in the oven.

 

Roxie was posing on her couch at work today with her piggy, and it would have been such a fabulous picture, but I dropped the lens cap in my haste to get out the camera, and it startled her into alertness.  She likes to rest her elbows on those tootsie roll pillows.

I am racing through this post because I've actually got wifi right this minute, but I'm afraid it is going to disappear - poof! - at any second.  All feedback is welcome regarding the rooster, who is 16" wide x 12" high, by the way.  His name may be "Aristocrat" because he has such a long and aristocratic face.  Haven't decided.  Derek wants to put him in the front window once he is framed.  There is a part of me that wants to keep him because I don't know if I will be able to paint another one.  Guess there's only one way to find out.

And again. And again. And again.

Why does poodle always look so sad?

You may not know this, but I have been threatening to make peanut bacon truffles for a few weeks now.  They were going to happen - truly they were - for Last Fridays but I just realized the reason why I didn't do it.  Whenever I cook bacon my wee home smells like a greasy diner for at least a week.  The circulation isn't so great in there.  Not that I'm complaining, mind you, but I had the beginning of another ornament wreath all over my table, and had I cooked the bacon I would have inadvertently created a bacon-scented wreath.  Again, not that I'm complaining, but I think someone is going to buy the wreath and I didn't check to see if she likes bacon.  That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Here are some pictures to prove that we haven't spent the last few days sitting around eating bon bons, glued to the couch and reading.  Although we did sit around reading.  My introvert book arrived - woo hoo!  Anyway, can you say f-o-r-m-u-l-a-i-c?

The first one might be called "Christmas in the Flathead."  It's a gray, gray day.  The second one needs to be redone with a brighter green for the tree, I think.

Then we have another taller tree - 6" wide x about 10" high, vs. the rest of these which are 5" wide x 7" high.  The peppermint tree is my favorite.  The purple one on the bottom was still wet when I took the picture, which is why it is lying down.  The angle makes it look taller than it is in real life.

Happy happy tree tree.

I was going to post all of these pictures last night, but discovered I no longer have wifi.  Grr.  The teaser at the end of the post was going to be this:

You might want to sit down before I mention I painted something else last night, and it isn't a tree.  That's right, Sybil came over to paint at my house again, and this is her color palette (with one substitution - I switched out the bright purple for a darker one).  Here is a piece of the painting:

Can you tell what it is???  Heh heh.

The end.

Except I had no wifi so couldn't post this.  And then I couldn't sleep AT ALL last night, so got up at 3:20 and put the first coat of varnish on the painting.  I'm thrilled with how it came out, but I'm not going to show it to you until tomorrow.  See if you can guess what it is first.

Stupid Human Tricks

I think I am developing some kind of neurological disorder.  I trip over my own feet a lot.  On Thanksgiving Day, I was carrying a fresh-from-the-oven pre-baked pie shell to cool in the other room, when I tripped over my own feet.  Ouch.  Got some good carpet burn on my knee, but I didn't let go of the pie plate.  Today, in what has turned into a terrifically unfortunate event, I tripped up the stairs between the gallery and the work room (that would be a grand total of two steps).  You know how you tend to flail your arms out when you trip, in an effort to catch yourself?  I flailed.  And I smashed my arm on the corner of our computerized mat cutter.  Ouch.  Two hours later and I've got a huge goose egg on my arm and it hurts like crazy.  I think I cracked a bone.  This is particularly bad news considering the amount of crafty crafty and cookery cookery stuff I need to do tonight.  I.  Am.  A.  Dope.

In other news, however, Derek may have sold my "A Thousand Christmas Trees" painting.  We will know tomorrow.

And in different other news, I shipped a box with four paintings in it to The S.P.A.C.E. Gallery in Burlington, Vermont for a non-juried show called Small Works.  Each piece needs to be less than 12" in any dimension. It is a two month exhibit, from December 7th through January 26th.  I didn't know what to send, since I wanted all the pieces to relate to each other in some fashion.  I ended up with four abstract pieces, one of which I just noticed I don't have a picture of at all.  Poo.  So that's that.  Go to the S.P.A.C.E. Gallery on Pine Street in Burlington and buy my paintings.  You would make a girl with a goose egg on her arm very happy.

Of course, when I win Powerball tonight, I will be giving my paintings away for free.