yesterday was cold and i mostly sat up in bed and painted and knitted while listening to an audio book. that's the nice thing about being living alone, you can paint in bed. while snacking and piling up drifts of books and there's no one to complain about it.
I have some new watercolors on etsy if you are interested! it's a beautiful autumn day - though cold in my condo! i think i will wrap up in blankets and sit and knit and paint while listening to audio books. perhaps later i will venture out in search of coffee.
this is something i am still working on. well, this painting is done but the idea i am still working on. i am rather pleased so far, though my 2nd attempt which i am not showing you did not come out quite as well. you pretty much have to be willing to create some art you are not happy with to end up with art you ARE happy with so it's all part of the process. anyhow i worked on this mostly while listening to the audio book of donna tartt's The Secret History, which is delightfully creepy but not scary. I have read the book a few times. I am not sure why I like to listen to audio books of books I have read, but I do. I suppose it is sort of cozy and homey like listening to the same fairy tale every night when you are a kid.
and. to all veterans today, I salute you.
I've taken the week off work and it's been lovely. lots of watercolor and knitting, reading books (The End of the Land by David Grossman and 100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. The 2nd I read close to 20 years ago and is even better now.)
I've not been online much, though. I will have to get my scanner out and scan some of the paintings I've worked on. Seems I am usually so tired when I get home from work that I dink around on the internet more and do other things less. Which is really too bad because I doubt anyone ever gets to the end of their life and looks back saying "I really wish I'd spent more time on Craig's List" or what have you.
Today is my 40th birthday and I opted to spend it alone painting, and have no regrets about that. I had a nice day with my mother on Monday and last night my boyfriend and I went out to dinner for our birthdays (his was yesterday) and will likely celebrate some more this weekend. Tomorrow I am spending time with one of my favorite people, my Island friend Kathy. So it's been a good week.
happy birthday to my twin sister Marti, I just got off the phone with you but I will say it again!
this little drawing was a watercolor. well, i mean it started out as a 5 x 5" watercolor and i was not entirely happy with it so i oomphed up the background a bit with pitt pens. i like the way some of the colors are still a little transparent. they go on pretty evently, though not as evenly i think as prismacolor makers. they are quite a bit less expensive, though, and come in all my favorite autumny colors. i actually discovered doing this project that for backgrounds i like the way they look over watercolor better than the way they look alone. and they do go on more evenly on a really thick watercolor paper that absorbs the ink well.
the cold of the week has loosened its talons a bit. i am taking next week off and am sort of not-quite-frantically trying to tie up any loose ends today. i'll only be gone a week - what could go wrong? i've had 15 years to get things the way i like them so i can walk away and hopefully no one will notice i am gone. well, they could notice a tiny bit and maybe miss me a little.
this little mouse is just enjoying the crisp autumn air, smelling like leaves, woodsmoke, and apples. she's going to start building a nest as soon as she's had a little rest. i could use a little nest time myself. i have had a different cold every week for the last 3 or 4 weeks and the current one is not actually my favorite of the lot. but i am taking next week off (assuming all goes well, which i am starting to wonder about) and that may help my immune system reboot or whatever it needs to do.
i listed three new paintings on etsy, including this mouse and the bison i posted yesterday. i hope i get some painting time in next week.
this is my new favorite painting. at least till i do the next one. but seriously, i have always had a fondness for bison. (not the same as buffalo, technically buffalo are old world bovines.) the native americans throught that bison came from the earth and went back there at the end of its life. and it's easy to see why these glorious magestic creatures with their great heavy heads brought to mind rich black soil. (i think you can tell i grew up on a farm, where reverence for dirt is commonplace!)
but they also have something of the sky about them, thundering across the plains like forces of nature. it saddens me that there are so few now, but i am glad to live in a land that is still home to such impressive beasts, and i would love to see one in the wild some day.
